Changes in Working Women’s Self-Reported Subjective Wellbeing and Quality of Interpersonal Relationships During COVID-19: A Quantitative Comparison of Essential and Non-essential Workers in Singapore

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected working women’s well-being in different ways due to contrasting national responses. This article focuses on the specific context of Singapore, which implemented differentiated rules for workers: essential workers continued to report to workplaces, while non-essential workers were required to work from home. This policy had far-reaching implications for working women, who are more likely than husbands to juggle paid work and household duties. The article uses longitudinal data collected in 2018 and during the pandemic in 2020, specifically during Singapore’s lockdown period, to measure changes in 287 working women’s self-reported levels of stress, fatigue, and quality of interpersonal relationships by essential worker status. While all workers were affected by the pandemic, female essential workers were more likely than their non-essential peers to report declines in stress levels from 2018 to 2020, and less likely to report changes in spousal relationships, both positive and negative. Findings suggest that the differences were driven by exposure to quarantine conditions faced by non-essential workers. Our results highlight the importance of policies supporting frontline workers and more gender-equitable labour market policies to support married women juggling the twin demands of employment and household responsibilities.

Remote working and experiential wellbeing: A latent lifestyle perspective using UK Time Use Survey before and during COVID-19

“…Home-based and hybrid working is not new; however, the wellbeing impact of flexible/remote working is not fully understood yet further complicated by our lived experience of the pandemic. Existing studies on heterogenous wellbeing impacts of COVID-19 tend to segment population based on single socio-economic and demographic indicators, notably gender (Tan & Lim-Soh, 2023), income (Martinez et al, 2020) and ethnicity , while a more holistic, evolving understanding of such heterogeneity among the workforce seems lacking. Time-use data provides a unique source of information for understanding nuanced and evolving wellbeing impacts of COVID-19 (Blanchflower, 2008;National Research Council, 2013; OECD, 2013; Lee & Tipoe, 2021).…”