The Gendered Crisis: Livelihoods and Mental Well-Being in India during COVID-19

Farzana Afridi, Amrita Dhillon () and Sanchari Roy
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Amrita Dhillon: King's College London

No 15822, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gendered dimensions of employment and mental health among urban informal-sector workers in India. First, we find that men's employment declined by 84 percentage points during pandemic relative to pre-pandemic employment, while their monthly earnings fell by 89 per cent relative to the baseline mean. In contrast, women did not experience any significant impact on employment during pandemic, as reported by their husbands. Second, we document very high levels of pandemic-induced mental stress, with wives reporting greater stress than husbands. Third, this gendered pattern in pandemic-induced mental stress is partly explained by men's employment losses, which affected wives more than husbands. In contrast, women staying employed during the pandemic is associated with worse mental health for them and their (unemployed) husbands. Fourth, pre-existing social networks are associated with higher mental stress for women relative to men, possibly due to the 'home-based' nature of women's networks.

Keywords: gender; social networks; mental health; wage employment; COVID-19; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J22 J23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 67 pages
Date: 2022-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-iue and nep-lma
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Published - published in: Feminist Economics , 2023, 29 (3), 40–74.

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Working Paper: The gendered crisis: livelihoods and mental well-being in India during COVID-19 (2021)
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