The pandemic is much tougher for Indian women than men, reveals survey

A majority of women found it much more challenging to manage both professional work from home and personal responsibilities at the same time than their male counterparts, according to a report.

About 61% woman respondents felt that work-life balance during the pandemic was much more challenging for women than men in their house, job portal SCIKEY Market Network said in a report.

It added that the pandemic has been affecting the woman employees more due to the struggle of managing professional work from home and personal responsibilities at the same time and location. Eighty-five per cent of women said it was challenging for them to work from home, while 81% believed that it was difficult to draw a boundary between personal and professional life, it noted.

The report is based on a survey done among 2,500 woman professionals across India in nine sectors including IT and IT service, finance, healthcare, media and entertainment, human resource and education technology (edtech).

Further, the report showed that during this hustle, 24% women said they were able to find time for themselves amid this chaos, 21% said they would like to work from home if given a choice in future while 48% felt that the choice of the workplace should be an option.

About 61% women responded that they were conflicted between meeting the demands of home and demands of family during the pandemic, it said.

When asked about the organisational support during this challenging time, 36% women responded that their organisations were very cooperative during these times and 27% said they received no cooperation from their companies whatsoever.

On the other hand, 21% women said they were provided with WFH as support from the organisation and only 8% said they were getting support for hardware and the internet.

The report also revealed that 65% women expected flexible or reduced working hours as an incentive from their organisations, considering the juggling of roles at home.

This difficult time has induced a lot of mental health issues with the employees across the globe. Out of all the woman respondents, only 12% said the company provided support to improve and nourish their mental wellbeing, whereas 6% said they were being provided with guidance on health and wellbeing at this time, the report noted.