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To contextualize the research findings, the next section of the report reviews the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa, the mitigation policies implemented by the South African national government, and the economic impact of these policies on the residents of the low-income townships and informal settlements in the two cities, where the majority of internal migrants reside. [...] During the final quarter of the year, 860,000 of the 1.4 million lost jobs were informal.54 Women in the informal economy saw a decrease of 49% in the typical hours worked in the early months of the pandemic, while men in informal employment saw a 25% decrease in typical hours. [...] As the World Bank observes, ‘more worrying in a country that is already the most unequal in the world is the differential impact of the crisis on the poorer half of the population. [...] Figure 11 shows the geography of the economic impacts of the pandemic at the municipal level in Gauteng in terms of lost jobs and reduced salaries and working hours. [...] Migrant Profile The migrant survey respondents were 54% male and 46% female which is indicative of the fact that migration flows from the Eastern Cape have become much more feminized since the end of apartheid and comprise roughly equal numbers of men and women (Table 15).105 The survey sample was dominated by individuals of working age in the age range 30-50 (62% of the total).