Women were seven times more likely to lose work during the nationwide lockdown, and conditional on losing work, eleven times more likely to not return to work subsequently, compared to men; and on and on

Down and out? The gendered impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on India’s labour market. Rosa Abraham, Amit Basole & Surbhi Kesar. Economia Politica volume 39, pages 101–128. Jul 14 2022. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40888-021-00234-8

Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic has created unprecedented disruptions in labour markets across the world including loss of employment and decline in incomes. Using panel data from India, we investigate the differential impact of the shock on labour market outcomes for male and female workers. We find that, conditional on being in the workforce prior to the pandemic, women were seven times more likely to lose work during the nationwide lockdown, and conditional on losing work, eleven times more likely to not return to work subsequently, compared to men. Using logit regressions on a sample stratified by gender, we find that daily wage and young workers, whether men or women, were more likely to face job loss. Education shielded male workers from job loss, whereas highly educated female workers were more vulnerable to job loss. Marriage had contrasting effects for men and women, with married women less likely to return to work and married men more likely to return to work. Religion and gender intersect to exacerbate the disproportionate impact, with Muslim women more likely to not return to work, unlike Muslim men for whom we find religion having no significant impact. Finally, for those workers who did return to work, we find that a large share of men in the workforce moved to self-employment or daily wage work, in agriculture, trade or construction. For women, on the other hand, there is limited movement into alternate employment arrangements or industries. This suggests that typical ‘fallback’ options for employment do not exist for women. During such a shock, women are forced to exit the workforce whereas men negotiate across industries and employment arrangements.

Discussion and conclusion

The stringent economic lockdown in India affected workers across regions, industries, and employment arrangements. However, the impact has been quite gendered in its nature. Women, in particular, have been more adversely affected relative to men in terms of their labour market participation. Our findings suggest that during the lockdown, women were far more likely to lose work compared to men. Moreover, even after the lifting of the lockdown and with easing of mobility and other restrictions, women’s recovery into employment has been substantially lower compared to men. While men experienced an almost-complete recovery into employment, a significant proportion of women experienced job loss of a more permanent nature. In an economy where women’s work participation rates have been historically low and declining (Mehrotra & Parida, 2017), this adverse impact and muted recovery of women’s workforce participation is particularly worrying.

Possible reasons for this gender disparity can be attributed both to the supply side as well as the demand-side factors. On the supply side, increased burden of household work, lack of socially or market-provided childcare options and shutdown of schools could force women to stay at home, as well as spend more time in care and other unpaid activities, as compared to men. Consistent with this, Deshpande (2020) confirms muted employment recovery for women with young children. While our regression estimates do not find a significant impact on the presence of children, we find that that women from larger households (and hence having more domestic work) were less likely to return to work.

On the demand side, it has been argued that the disproportionately higher impact on women can be explained on the basis of women having a higher employment in those sectors most affected by the pandemic, such as health and education, and being employed in more tenuous employment contracts (World Bank, 2020a). This occupational and industrial segregation exposes women far more than men to the economic impacts of the pandemic (Oxfam, 2021). However, the results from our regression estimates show that the disproportionate impact on women remains even after controlling for industry and employment arrangements. Women, irrespective of the nature or industry of work, are more vulnerable to lose work and not return to work.

It is likely that other supply side factors that are not captured in our estimates explain the higher impact on and muted recovery of women in the workforce. In the face of an overall decline in labour demand, gender norms that ensure that scarce economic opportunities flow to men in preference to women, could constrain women’s (re-)entry into the labour market. Such gender norms may also explain the relative lack of fallback options for women within the workforce, forcing them to move out entirely. In the face of such a shock, while men negotiate labour market spaces by moving across sectors and industries, women are often left with little or no choice and are forced to exit.

Further, continued restrictions on mobility and limited functioning of public transport facilities also differentially impact women more since they are relatively more dependent on public transport (Shah et al., 2017). For many women workers, increased police patrolling for enforcing social isolation rules have also exposed them to more instances of harassment and aggression, further affecting their return to work (ISST, 2020).

Taken together, our results point to large movements downwards and outwards, particularly for women workers. We believe that this study as well as other similar emerging analyses from India and elsewhere contribute to our rapidly evolving understanding of the differential impacts of the pandemic. These insights should prove useful in designing more effective policy support measures to counteract these effects and chart a path to a robust and inclusive recovery.