The Struggle to Balance Work and Family Life During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Insights Based on the Situations of Working Women in Delhi

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic generated economic contraction across the world. In India, the stringent lockdown led to extreme distress. The unprecedented situation adversely affected the women’s efforts to balance professional life with family life because of a disproportionate increase in their domestic work burden and a shift in their workstation to home. Since every job cannot be performed remotely, women employed in healthcare services, banks and media witnessed additional risks of commuting and physical interaction at the workplace. Based on personal interviews of women in the Delhi-NCR region, the study aims to explore the commonalities and variances in the challenges experienced by the women engaged in diverse occupations. Using the qualitative methodology of flexible coding, the study finds that a relatively larger section of women travelling to their office during the pandemic, rather than those working from home, had an effective familial support system that helped them navigate this tough time.

The Level of Fear Experienced by the Individuals and their Applications to Health Institutions during the Covid-19 Pandemic

“…This finding may be attributed to the fact that women show more psychological sensitivity and vulnerability in adverse situations (Briscoe et al, 2016; Mortazavi et al, 2021). The closure of schools and kindergartens, which had a huge impact especially on working mothers, may have increased the level of fear of women by greatly increasing their childcare needs (Tayal & Mehta, 2022; Bender et al, 2022).…”

Gender‐ethnicity intersectional variation in work–family dynamics: Family interference with work, guilt, and job satisfaction

“…As discussed earlier, guilt is considered one of the most prevalent and significant emotional outcomes of WFC (Aarntzen et al, 2019;Shockley et al, 2022), yet much of the prior research has focused on family-related guilt resulting from WIF (e.g., Korabik, 2015;Zhang et al, 2019) rather than job-related guilt stemming from FIW. This is despite mounting evidence, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, of increasing job-related guilt due to frequent interruptions from domestic responsibilities (Leroy et al, 2021;Tayal & Mehta, 2022).…”

“…As discussed earlier, guilt is considered one of the most prevalent and significant emotional outcomes of WFC (Aarntzen et al, 2019; Shockley et al, 2022), yet much of the prior research has focused on family‐related guilt resulting from WIF (e.g., Korabik, 2015; Zhang et al, 2019) rather than job‐related guilt stemming from FIW. This is despite mounting evidence, especially during the Covid‐19 pandemic, of increasing job‐related guilt due to frequent interruptions from domestic responsibilities (Leroy et al, 2021; Tayal & Mehta, 2022). Given this, our analysis adds to the nascent research (Aarntzen et al, 2019; Judge et al, 2006; Livingston & Judge, 2008) showing that job‐related guilt is a notable outcome of WFC that is deserving of greater attention in analyses of inter‐role conflict.…”

Hybrid Workplace: Activity–based office Design in a Post–pandemic Era

“…Extended working hours and being "always on" make it hard for employees to get away from work both physically and mentally, which may cause work-related stress and time pressures that could impair the quality of personal life. Previous studies (de Gennaro et al, 2022;Kossek et al, 2021;Tayal & Mehta, 2022) presented experimental evidence on how WFH creates a conflict between work and personal life, especially for those with children. Our findings on work-life balance during WFH provide additional support.…”