BENGALURU: The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the work-life balance of India’s women workforce especially those who were self-employed or in the beginning phase of their career, a report titled ‘Women@Work’ released on Thursday said.
According to the report, 80 per cent of working women who participated in the survey reported a negative impact from the pandemic.
Covid hit the self-employed women hardest, followed by those who had just begun their professional careers, or were at the seniormost positions.
The research was conducted during the third quarter of the financial year 2020-21 focusing on Covid’s impact on the women workforce in the formal sector, correlating them to four variables: industry sector, occupational status, work experience, and hierarchical position.
According to the report, longer work hours, child or elderly care, constant financial worries, and job losses were the biggest constraints faced by working women surveyed.
It noted that 38.5 per cent of them said they were adversely affected by the burden of added housework, childcare, and eldercare while 43.7 per cent stated that work-life balance has become worse.
Amongst those who lost their jobs to the pandemic, 61.1 per cent felt that women will be worse off than men.
Poornima Shenoy, CEO, Hummingbird Advisors, said that as the world was reeling under the impact of the virus, there was another virus that was affecting social structures.
“Working women were the ones who suffered the most from rising unemployment... there were gender disparities in the pandemic. These could stem from differential treatment of women or a disproportionate share of household responsibilities”.