5 min readMay 5, 2022 09:02 AM IST
First published on: May 5, 2022 at 03:47 AM IST
A recent international Deloitte survey reports how women’s workplaces are driving them out of full-time jobs, while the pandemic years have only made things worse in terms of burnout and work/life balance. A few vignettes from our study of educated, middle-class, non-working women in Delhi illustrate this:
“My husband has a lung problem; he and my teenage kids are on their computers and I am in the kitchen the whole day. We have our allocated spaces to avoid Covid; he can’t work if he has doubts…”
“We cannot step out, someone delivers our groceries; my husband says he may get ill if we go out.”
“Hygiene and care is important and I need to be with my teenage children once they’re home, I cannot leave them to the maids. But I’m in the kitchen all day since Covid arrived”.
“I did a PhD from AIIMS in biotechnology and worked there, then my husband moved from Delhi and we had a daughter… Since Covid began, I did some online classes with school children, so I can manage my child and WFH husband”.
In India, low and declining levels of women’s workforce participation demonstrated in official data has stimulated research seeking to understand demand and supply side drivers. Another approach is to look at factors influencing decisions of non-working women. NSS data suggests that non-working women respond positively when asked if they are willing to work part-time. What relevance does this have for educated women? Based on interviews before and during the pandemic, we explored some of these questions. There are societal patterns that have emerged in the social milieu of education and work, wherein boys become family breadwinners while girls prioritise functions of care and reproductive work. How does this play out in the lives of women?
One respondent said: “I have a lot of girl cousins, and what I saw was that they went to school and college while they waited to marry”. Anita, in her mid-40s, with a postgraduate degree in management and 12 years of corporate sector experience, gave up her job to support her children at the crucial “end of school and college entry” moment. Sudesh, in her mid-40s, with long experience in HR, started her own recruitment company. Concerns over the security of her school-going children, apart from domestic responsibilities, mean that she now works intermittently. Neera, in her late 40s, has a Bachelors and Masters degree in English and Management respectively; and 10 years of corporate sector experience. Having married a colleague, she had twin girls, hoped to get back to work, but one of the twins was autistic: “This was the end of corporate work for me; autism is a complex condition with medical, behavioural, and developmental issues, you have to immerse yourself in finding solutions.”
“Marriage is not so important these days, career is,” said 47-year-old Mohini, while speaking about her daughter, although she quit work once her daughter was 7. “My job was not a 9-to-5 one, I never got home before 7 pm; I had no time to see to my daughter,” Mohini added. She started a handicrafts business, which is on hold now as her child approaches the school-leaving stage. Another respondent said: “I got married and was on night shifts. Work was not possible without family support and there was no one to take care of the kids. ”
Running through all these conversations are rigid workplace demands, lack of sustained family/social support, personal responsibility to guide children and ensure their security. This reflects absence of good-quality childcare, counselling and mentoring. These inexorably influence choices. Educated women, however, exercise agency. Many in our sample actively engage in voluntary and paid activities including teaching, home-based marketing, consulting, tutoring etc. Periods of hectic work are interspersed by spells of no work. Such productive work contributes to society and economy, but being intermittent and often unpaid or voluntary, it goes unrecorded. For women to work consistently, during pandemics or otherwise, we need stronger supportive infrastructures. Then we may not face the bewildering situation of poverty driving women into the workforce, while education seems to drive them out of it. The choice then need not be between familial care and pursuing careers.
This column first appeared in the print edition on May 5, 2022, under the title ‘The working woman puzzle’. Khullar is an independent researcher and Co-Editor of Asian Journal of Women’s Studies and Sudarshan is a Trustee and former director of the Institute of Social Studies Trust
For women to work consistently, during pandemics or otherwise, we need stronger supportive infrastructures. 
Share
