A study undertaken by Economix Consulting Group (ECG), a niche consulting and analytics firm, unveiled a research report on the impact of COVID-19 on urban working women in India.
ECG conducted a Pan-India survey among urban working women of various professions ranging from Private Sector, Academic Professionals, Entrepreneurs and, Medical professionals to understand what effect the pandemic has had on their lives. The survey was conducted across all major cities in India in the target group age of 20-60 years.
The study examined the changes brought about by the pandemic in various aspects like working status, workload (professional and personal), productivity, income, job losses, place of work, and domestic support systems.
Some of the key findings of the study:
More Women Are Working Part Time Now:
Work Hours Have Changed Drastically For Women:
Women Now Prefer Personal Transport Or No Travel:
Women Are Working Harder:
Women Are Earning Lesser:
Women Are Working More At Home As Well:
Women Now Have Lesser Time for Hobbies And More Stress:
How does the regional comparisons look like?
Work From Home (WFH)
West:
West displayed the highest indifference between WFH and office @ 40% (their preference for working only from office is also @ 40%). However, understandably, they also reported the highest decrease in working from office during the pandemic as also the highest increase in WFH @ 68% and 62% respectively.
East-South:
In contrast, Pandemic or no pandemic, “work means office” for East & South - East and South India had the highest share of respondents working from office during the pandemic @32% and 26% respectively. These are also the respondents who showed the highest preference for working from office post-pandemic, @ 44% and 49% respectively.
North:
Whereas “Home” is the happening place for those in North with the largest share of respondents WFH, both before and after the pandemic @ 27% and 73% respectively. They also showed the highest preference for continuing to WFH post-pandemic @ 32%. Interestingly, 22% of respondents from North India felt that stay-at-home women have struggled more than working women since the pandemic, compared to 60% of women across the respondent pool believing the opposite is true.
Stress and Mental Health – Linked to loss of income?
Disturbingly, all regions reported increase in stress and deterioration of mental health. The largest share of respondents suffering from a decrease in income, and a worsening of mental health are from South India, at 41% and 60% respectively.
In comparison, these figures are 35% and 49% for North, 35% and 44% for West and 25% and 30% for East.
Speaking about the study, Latha Ramanathan, Founder & CEO, Economix Consulting Group (ECG) said, “There have been multiple reports across the world of women being disproportionately affected due to the pandemic, on employment, income and mental health. Our study of urban Indian women resonates that - working hours and work load seem to have increased considerably, and some women have even cited that they are working all 7 days of the week. Furthermore, the respondents have reported a decrease in income and increase in mental health issues, possibly due to increased stress levels.”