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PARLIAMENT LIBRARY AND REFERENCE, RESEARCH, DOCUMENTATION AND INFORMATION SERVICE (LARRDIS) 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RESEARCH AND INFORMATION DIVISION LARRDIS NO.

2/2021/RN JULY 2021 RESEARCH NOTE Impact of Covid-19 on Women Workers At a Glance  The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted societies, families, communities, and individuals across the world in unprecedented ways.
 The dynamics of the working environment has exerted a huge pressure on working women as they need to handle two full time jobs – one at home and the other at office.

 As the COVID-19 pandemic deepens the economic and social stress coupled with restricted movement and social isolation measures, gender-based violence could increase.
 Due to the shrinking economic activities in the informal sector similar to the formal sector, there were huge job losses which adversely impacted the women by worsening their levels of stress, burnout and impairing mental health.

 Despite the gloomy outlook, the COVID-19 crisis can bring about some changes that have the potential to reduce gender inequality in the labour market in the long term.

This Research Note is intended to serve as a background aid to the Hon’ble Members of Parliament.
It is for restricted circulation and not for publication in any form.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Prepared by Social Affairs Wing; Officers associated with the preparation – Ms. Deepti Aggarwal, Intern; Shri Ranganathan S Sharma, Joint Director (23034756);supervised by Dr. Vatsala Joshi, Director (23034738) and Smt.

Kalpana Sharma, Additional Secretary (23034845).


Feedback is welcome and may be sent to saw-lss@sansad.nic] Introduction 1 The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted societies, families, communities, and individuals across the world in unprecedented ways.

The most vulnerable are the most affected—particularly women and girls, and those in poverty or living on the edge.
It is evident from global experiences and evidence that women experience differential and unique effects of disease, including the rising instances of domestic and intimate partner violence, loss of work and livelihoods, increased unpaid and care responsibilities, and forfeited food security.
The World Health Organization, which has officially declared the outbreak a pandemic, has called on "all countries to continue efforts that have been effective in limiting the number of cases and slowing the spread of the virus."

In India and many other countries, there have been intermittent lockdowns due to the COVID-19 global health crisis.

Families are required to stay indoors due to which women are bearing the stress of the situation.
The dynamics of the working environment has exerted a huge pressure on working women as they need to handle two full time jobs – one at home and the other at office.

During lockdown women often find it difficult to maintain balance of pressures of work and demands at home.

Impact on Women It has by now become clear that the COVID-19 pandemic is not only a global health emergency, but is also leading to a major global economic downturn.
Across every sphere, from health to the economy, security to social protection, the impacts of COVID-19 are exacerbated for women and girls simply by virtue of their gender and structure of the society.

a) Economic Impact: The Emerging evidence on the impact of COVID-19 suggests that women’s economic and productive lives have been affected disproportionately and differently from men.
Across the globe, women earn less, save less, hold less secure jobs, and are more likely to be employed in the informal sector.

They have less access to social protections and are the majority of single-parent households.

As women take on greater care demands at home, their jobs will continue to be disproportionately affected by cuts and lay-offs in near future.
Such impacts risk rolling back the already fragile gains made in female labour force participation, limiting women’s ability to support 1 Inputs from MWCD 2 themselves and their families, especially for female-headed households.

In many countries, the first round of layoffs has been particularly acute in the services sector, including retail, hospitality and tourism, where women have a strong presence.
b) Health Impact: Health pandemics can make it more difficult for women and girls to receive treatment and health services.

This is compounded by multiple or intersecting inequalities, such as ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability, age, race, geographic location and sexual orientation, among others which influences access and decision-making to critical health services and information about COVID-19.
Women and girls have unique health needs, but they are less likely to have access to quality health services, essential medicines and vaccines, maternal and reproductive health care, or insurance coverage for routine and catastrophic health costs, especially in rural and marginalized communities.

Restrictive social norms and gender stereotypes can also limit women's ability to access health services.

All of this has cumulative impacts during a widespread health crisis.
c) Increase in domestic work and financial limitations: The COVID-19 global crisis has made starkly visible the fact that the world's formal economies and the maintenance of our daily lives are built on the invisible and unpaid labor of women and girls.

With children out of school, intensified care needs of older persons and ill family members, earning members out of job or with jobs with huge cut in salaries has resulted in dual pressure of mental and physical stress.
Impact of covid-19 on women workforce in informal sector The informal sector of Indian economy is quite substantial, encompassing agriculture, self-employment, contract labour, household labour, and so on.

Like the formal sector, India’s informal sector had to face multiple layers of crisis because of the lockdowns imposed to curtail the Corona virus.

The crisis led to loss of jobs and livelihood, a crisis of food and shelter for the migrant labourers who were stranded at various places.
The informal sector workers suffered huge losses due to Lockdowns.

More over the women work force of these sectors includes the ones who work without choice.

They are compelled to work in most severe conditions to meet the family requirements.

Due to shrinking of economic activities there were huge job losses and women force 3 and the women workers bore the brunt of the job cut.

This worsened their levels of stress, burnout and impaired mental health.
When combined with women’s greater unemployment rate and increased domestic duties, it is not surprising that women report more emotional distress than men.

As per the results of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the labour force participation rate of females during 2017-18 and 2018-19 was 23.3% and 24.5% respectively.

As PLFS is an annual survey, conducted in a very comprehensive manner, hence results are available only after a certain lag period.
While the quarter wise data in the urban areas for the year 2019-20 as per the current weekly status is available, impact of COVID-19can only be assessed once the results for PLFS 2019-20 and 2020- 21 for the year as a whole, covering both rural and urban areas, are available.
Quarterly Labour Force Participation Rate (in %) as per the current weekly status in urban areas for females of age 15 years and above is as follows:2 Female Labour Force Participation Rate (in%) in current weekly status in urban areas for age: 15 years and above April – June 2019 July – September 2019 October - December 2019 January – March 2020 April – June 2020 Source: PLFS Quarterly Bulletin, MoSPI 2Ministry of Labour and Employment 4  The Annual Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) on employment and unemployment is conducted by National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
 The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) was designed with two major objectives for measurement of employment and unemployment.

 The first was to measure the dynamics in labour force participation and employment status in the short time interval of three months for only the urban areas in the Current Weekly Status (CWS).

 Second one was, for both rural and urban areas, to measure the labour force estimates on key parameters in both usual status (ps+ss) and Current Weekly Status.
Across every sphere, from health to the economy, security to social protection, the impacts of COVID-19 are exacerbated for women and girls simply by virtue of their sex.

Compounded economic impacts are felt especially by women and girls who are generally earning less, saving less and holding insecure jobs or living close to poverty.

The health of women generally is adversely impacted through the reallocation of resources and priorities, including sexual and reproductive health services.
Initiatives by Government of India Recognizing that women and girls across the social and economic intersection are affected disproportionately with unique and uneven levels of resilience and capacities to recover, the Government of India (GoI) has taken strategic steps to ensure that national response prioritizes the voices, interests and needs of women and girls along with other identified vulnerable social groups.
Interventions by the Ministry of Women & Child Development (MWCD) during the covid-19 lockdown are as under:  All institutions of MWCD under various schemes like One Stop Centres (OSCs), Women Help Line (WHL), Ujjawala Homes, Swadhar Greh, Child Care Institutions (CCIs) remained open and available to women and girls during lockdown with availability of all the basic material required for fighting Covid-19 like sanitizers, soaps, masks etc.
 An exercise was undertaken to distribute sanitary napkins in collaboration with various States/ UTs under the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme.
5  Psychological counselling support provided to women facing domestic or other kinds of violence by way of collaboration with NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health and Allied Sciences) for providing such counselling through its Help Line number 080-46110007..  ERSS (emergency response support system) over the short code 112 is also available for emergency rescue and support to women facing or apprehending violence, including domestic violence during the lockdown period.
 Jan Aushadhi Kendras (Public Medicine Centres) across the country have been directed to provide 40 women centric products at affordable prices.

Through the coordination with One Stop Centres at district level, Women Helpline & other field functionaries, the MWCD is promoting quality medicines at affordable prices to women which include supply of subsidized sanitary pads from Re.

1 onwards for menstrual hygiene support for women and girls through these centres.
Initiatives pertaining to Employment of Women  In order to enhance the employability of female workers, the Government is providing training to them through a network of Women Industrial Training institutes, National Vocational Training Institutes and Regional Vocational Training Institutes.
 National Career Service (NCS) Project is a Mission Mode Project for transformation of the National Employment Service where a variety of employment related services are being provided under the NCS Project for women empowerment.NCS conducts online Job Fairs and career enrichment programs through its portal, including for women.

 A specific tile ―Jobs for Women‖ has been featured on the NCS Portal Home Page to help them easily search and apply to women specific jobs.
 Women specific communication is featured on NCS Home Page and Social Media accounts of NCS through creatives.

 Recently, NCS celebrated Women’s Day by connecting with all registered female Jobseekers through mail.
 As a result of these continuous efforts, a total of 2,77,256 vacancies exclusively for women have been mobilized on NCS portal since inception 6 Covid related initiatives of Ministry of Labour and Employment  Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojana (ABRY) Scheme, launched with effect from1st October, 2020 is being implemented through the Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) to incentivize employers for creation of new employment along with social security benefits and restoration of loss of employment during COVID-19 pandemic.
Under ABRY, Govt.

is crediting for a period of two years, both the employee’s share (12 per cent of wages) and employer’s share (12 per cent of wages) of contribution payable or only the employee’s share, depending on employment strength of the EPFO registered establishments.

 Benefits have been given to 22 lakh beneficiaries including 5.70 lakh women beneficiaries (25.8 per cent) through 81,770 Establishments.
Government has approved the extension of last date of registration of beneficiaries under ABRY further for 9 months i.e.

from 30.06.2021 to 31.03.2022.

 Provisional payroll data of the Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) published on 20th June, 2021, highlights that despite the COVID- 19 pandemic, cumulative net payroll addition of women was 13.98 lakhs during FY 20-21, which is almost at par with that of 15.93 lakhs additions during FY 19-20.
 The Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) launched a Scheme ―Atal Beemit Vyakti KalyanYojana‖, in 2018 which provides monetary relief to IPs/IWs in case of job loss for a maximum period of 90 days.

During the COVID-19 Pandemic period i.e.

from 01.04.2020 to 30.06.2021, a total of 19,609 Insured women applied for unemployment allowance relief under Atal Beemit Vyakti Kalyan Yojana.

Of these, 15914 have already been granted relief and a total of 17.97 crores were paid.
The remaining cases are under process.

 ESIC also launched ―ESIC COVID-19 Relief Scheme‖ on 03.06.2021, which provides financial relief to the dependents of the eligible IPs/IWs who lose their life due to COVID-19.

Under this scheme, 90 per cent of average wages of deceased Insured Person shall be paid to the eligible dependents of the insured Person who died due to COVID-19.
It also covers post recovery death 7 from COVID-19 Till 09.07.2021, a total of 96 claims under this Scheme have been received from dependents of Insured Women, who died due to COVID- 19.

Over and above the mentioned initiatives the Government of India has been issuing Covid related advisories time to time in this regard.

Conclusion Despite the gloomy outlook, the COVID-19 crisis can bring about some changes that have the potential to reduce gender inequality in the labour market in the long term.
This presents an opportunity to the Government to formulate measures by way of policies to safeguard and strengthen the interests of the workers in the unorganised sectors and ensure minimum financial support during hours of crisis.

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