Plight of Informal Women Workers in the context of COVID-19 lockdown: A Study of Patiala District

As the pandemic spread rapidly to every region of the globe, the national governments soon announced stringent measures such as, border closures, nationwide lockdowns and restrictions on internal mobility. The economic activity came to a halt and the pandemic construed into an anomalous humanitarian crisis globally. Although all the countries faced health crisis and socio-economic repercussions, there has been a disproportionate impact on emerging and developing economies and the most vulnerable groups of the society including migrant laborers, refugees, informal workers, women and children. In India, informal workers make up around 90 percent of the workforce and the most vulnerable among them are women, who have a high participation in the informal sector. It is in this context that the present study is based on experiences of women workers in the informal sector of Punjab. It is a qualitative research based on primary data collected through 100 semi-structured interviews conducted in the Patiala district of Punjab. The findings indicate that following the crisis, women have faced heightened burden of unpaid domestic work, elevated incidences of domestic violence and inordinate impact on reduction in working hours, incomes and job loss. As female workers face the brunt of this crisis, it is imperative to include gendered perspective in policy making and provision of adequate social security coverage to mitigate the vulnerability of these workers.