Women in India spend at least 352 minutes a day on unpaid work; while, men spend only 51.8 minutes a day according to a UN report. The bulk of the household and care work in India is already borne by women. This situation of the unequal division of housework has aggravated by the Covid19 pandemic worldwide. In India especially, women end up doing all the work from cooking, cleaning, taking care of children and the other members of the family. With the coronavirus shutting down schools and offices, everyone is quarantined at home. With more members at home now, they are burdened to cater to the needs of every family member. Women are typically the ones who take care of everything from healthcare to the education of children apart from doing the usual domestic chores. In times of global crisis, this increased burden on women can be quiet overwhelming.
With children now being at home for a few weeks, the question that arises is who takes care of them? The answer to this question is gendered.
According to gender display theory, as proposed by West and Zimmerman, gender is a product of social doings. Men and women do gender by performing the standards of what it means to be a man or woman. The house can be identified as a key site of doing gender where women tend to do the most work and men avoid housework. The socially constructed male breadwinner model successfully continues to structure the expectation that men are the primary breadwinners while women need to focus on domestic work. With the shift from the male breadwinner model to an adult worker model, men and women are both assumed to be involved in paid work. However, even though this has increased women’s labour market participation, but most of the unpaid work is still carried out by women. The phenomenon of ‘second shift’ is still prevalent for women. With everyone stuck at home, some fathers might step up and offer help, but that would not be universal. Existing gender inequality and the socially constructed gender roles prevents the sharing of equal housework between men and women.
A pandemic, therefore, has the potential to amplify these existing inequalities. For people involved in administrative, managerial, desk-based jobs working at home is easier but for women, it increases their workload. With schools and colleges closed, the caring of children has shifted from the paid economy to the unpaid one, thereby overburdening women disproportionately.
The coronavirus crisis is global and will have a long-lasting impact. On a positive note, it presents an opportunity to us; to help restructure the gender dynamics at home. To bring out the problem of how pandemics impacts women. In such pressing times, male members must take charge and start contributing to housework to reduce the burden on women. The universal caregiver model aims at transforming roles inside as well as out by promoting men’s and women’s equal engagement in both unpaid and paid work. The current situation of lockdown allows everyone to sensitize themselves and realize how unpaid work is not only a women’s job.
Ayesha Khaliq, WPC
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