How Covid-19 pandemic hit India's female professionals hardest

A woman covering her face with a cloth walks past a graffiti of coronavirus warrior in Mumbai. Pic/Getty Images

In one year, Priyanka Bhosle Silswal has lost two jobs. The 35-year-old was working with one of the leading hotel group chains in Pune, as a learning and development professional. When the hotel reopened in August 2020 after the Coronavirus-induced lockdown was lifted, she was one of the first in the team to be called back to work. "We had to train the staff to ready for a post-Covid-19 world in the office," says Bhosle, mother to two-year-old Hridvi. For someone who shared a good working relationship with her boss, also parent to a young child, she didn't expect the cracks to appear. "First, I was told that I would have to report to work 15 days in a month, at a 50 per cent salary cut. My husband also worked for the same firm, so we suggested that he work for half the month, and I for the other. This would ensure our child wasn't left alone when help wasn't available during the lockdown."

But the company didn't agree. Bhosle had little choice but to leave her child with her parents in Mumbai. She cried all day because she chose her job over her baby. When she realised the plan was infeasible and found herself torn between her personal and professional commitments, she chose to quit and move to Mumbai. In January this year, she landed a position with a US-based commercial real estate company. "They said they created the job title for me!" she says, adding that the excitement was short lived. The firm insisted that Bhosle come to office at the peak of the second wave. When her husband had to be quarantined during a suspected COVID infection, she realised it was best she did too in the interest of the safety of her colleagues. "They asked me to lead a virtual meeting the next day, which was later rescheduled as per my availability. For the next three days, I was quarantined at home; they got upset that I didn't turn up to work. A day before I was to resume work, I received an email saying my position had been dissolved."

Shruti Sunderraman, 29, journalist

Bhosle says she was discriminated against because she chose to put family first, a choice most women from nuclear families have to make. For someone who is a go-getter, the last 13 months have been frustrating. "I train people about diversity at work, and here, I became the victim."

Bhosle is part of a statistic that had led to the coming of the term, Shecession, a recession of women. Members of the female work force have lost their livelihood in large numbers, some because they were let go, others because they had to choose home over work when help wasn't available and domestic chores had grown. And some, in the unorganised sector, had become plain redundant.

Priyanka Bhosle Silswal, mother two two-year-old Hridvi, has lost two jobs since the pandemic broke in 2020. Giving family as much importance as work doesn't go down well with Indian firms, she thinks. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

In America, multiple surveys have shown that it is for the first time since 1948 that female unemployment has hit double digits. That's close to 15 per cent of the working population. A Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC) report said that although jobs will return when the economy gets back to normal, they will not necessarily be the same jobs. Larice Stielow, senior economist at PwC, was quoted as saying, "If we don't have policies in place to directly address the unequal burden of care, and to enable more women to enter jobs in growing sectors of the economy, women will return to fewer hours, lower-skilled, and lower paid jobs." The report, which looked at 33 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) club of rich nations, said progress towards gender equality at work would not begin until 2022.

According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), women's participation in the workforce fell to 9 per cent in India. Women, according to the CMIE, accounted for 10.7 per cent of the workforce in 2019-20, but they accounted for 13.9 per cent of the job losses in April 2020 - the first month of the lockdown shock. By November 2020, while men recovered most of their lost jobs, women were less fortunate. CMIE estimates that 49 per cent of the total job losses by November 2020 can be attributed to women. The government of India challenged CMIE's numbers, saying they were 10 per cent lower than actual.

Arunima J, worked with a fact-finding firm

It was this survey that prompted three researchers at Azim Premji University - Rosa Abraham; Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Sustainable Employment, Amit Basole; Head, Centre for Sustainable Employment, and Surbhi Kesar; Assistant Professor of Economics - to write a paper on the subject. For the researchers, the findings were disappointing and hardly a good sign for what was to come. Basole says, "It could have happened because most women are employed in informal sectors, and are prone to quitting jobs when circumstances change at home. This has always been the case. But it went up a lot this time. The magnitude [of the loss] is what's surprising."

Abraham points out something interesting. "We saw that in 2019, work force participation was at 9 per cent. But in 2020, it was back to 8 per cent. It wasn't the same for women, though. Almost 50 per cent of that 8 per cent, are a new set - women from households which needed financial assistance, and who were forced to look for jobs." The other key observation was that the trend was repeated across income groups. "What we also noticed was that in the case of male professionals, a higher education saved them from job loss. But, it wasn't the same for women." Both agree that this loss will not be mended, unless there is a policy change.

Amit Basole, Seema Rekha and Bansi Madhvani

Business and employment-oriented online service LinkedIn undertook a survey titled the Labour Market Update, in July, 2020. This indicated a rise in female participation in industries which already had higher gender parity, including corporate services, education, health care and media and communications. "It is possible that these industries are inherently more family-friendly in terms of flexible hours and work arrangements, hence the challenges of having to juggle work and household responsibilities has led more females to join these industries," says Ruchee Anand, director, Talent and Learning Solutions, India, LinkedIn. But this
safety shield seemed to have shattered post-2020.

Journalist Shruti Sunderraman, 29, who was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) earlier this year, says it has been a particularly hard year, almost "like trying to thrive inside Jurassic Park." The fact that she has lost a job, and is finding it hard to find another, hasn't helped. "I feel that in my case, it was Sisyphean trying to regulate executive functioning (a common symptom of ADHD) in the middle of a pandemic. They [management of companies] talk about disability inclusion in diversity policies, but when it actually comes to implementing the tenets, most organisations don't."

Shruti Sunderraman says finding a new job that doesn't underpay has been exhausting

What is coming her way is at a far lower salary package that doesn't beget her eight-year experience and skillset. "I am exhausted, and came close to saying ‘yes' [to a low paying job] but I'm trying not to let myself down."

Arunima J, 26, who worked with a fact-finding organisation, and has shifted back home to Pune from Mumbai to tide through the pandemic, says, "I was one of the first to be relieved from work.

Rosa Abraham, researcher, Azim Premji University

Now, I am scared to even apply for a job. I have chosen to freelance because I am hesitating to face rejection. I am not sure if I ever want to work full time again."
The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) published a paper on women losing livelihood during the pandemic, which said: "What makes the
Indian situation worse is that, relative to their international counterparts, Indian women are already greatly underrepresented in the workforce and face considerable wage disparity".

Senior economist Bansi Madhavani of ANZ Research, says, "At first, we were just looking at how unemployment affected the rich and poor, but then we realised that gender was also at play. In India, the workforce participation of women even before the pandemic was barely 21 per cent, and in developed countries, it was about 60 per cent." The survey reveals that according to a 2018 Periodic Labour Force Survey by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, the largest source of employment for rural women is self-employment (58 per cent), followed by casual labour (32 per cent). "What Indian women also do seven times more than anywhere else in the world is ‘unpaid care work' which is looking after the family, children and general housekeeping."

Interestingly, although the pandemic which has been proven to gain strength by people being out and together in numbers, has forced everyone to work from indoors for their safety, women who have traditionally made a living working out of home haven't been spared either. This includes those who make food items like papad, pickles and idlis our of their tenements, or the residents of Dharavi who are involved in allied activities for leather brands. Social development specialist, Shalini Kala, is an independent researcher who worked with Homenet South Asia, which works with home-based workers. This labour, she says, mostly includes women who make up the informal workforce. Kala was the author and lead researcher for the study, Impact of Covid-19 on women based home-workers, South Asia. "Homenet works with NGOs and organisations in 13 countries who help these workers, as otherwise they are unorganised, and would receive no relief from governments. In most locations, there has been zero work since January 2020, which is when Europe shut down. In India, we focused on Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Thirupur and Phulia. Here too, there has been no work," says Kala, who has just started work on the second leg of the study, and fears that the situation has worsened. "Now, they are starving. Women have spent everything they had saved or earned. Their vulnerability was the main cause for distress." According to Kala, the only country that has done well is Bhutan, where the government has offered generous relief.

Not surprisingly then, women have also borne a major brunt of the mental health crisis stemming from financial anxiety. Symptoms like crying spells, mood swings, irritability, sleep disorder, loss of appetite and aggression, are common says Seema Rekha, Managing Director, Antarmanh, which is a management consultancy aligning wellness solutions for business resilience, and works with women who have lost their jobs in the pandemic. She adds, "Most women are grappling with vulnerability, and are lost, confused, anxious, and taking to making irrational decisions."

Bhosle would agree. She is trying to take things in her stride, and knows she will eventually find a better job. But for now, she agrees that "this experience has scarred me. I am afraid that wherever I go, my gender will prove to be a deterrent at the workplace." But she also says that to give up is not in her nature. "I would like to tell women to walk with their head high about the choices they have made."

Also Read: Covid-19: Thane civic body arranges special vaccination drive for transgenders

1948
First time since this year that unemployment among women has hit double digits in America

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Percentage ratio of Indian women in the workforce compared to global numbers

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Percentage of job loss from Apr-Nov 2020, attributed to women in India