/ Work

ICRW Report: COVID – 19 & Women in Informal Work in India

with International Centre for Research for Women

Client

ICRW

Relationship

Since 2020

Services

Visual Design, Illustration, Print and publication Design, Art Direction

Visit the website

Unveiling the Struggles

Aiming to represent the isolation women feel being away from their families and the psychological effects

What we set out to do

The International Centre for Research for Women (ICRW), a global research institute anchored in the principle of human dignity—with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) worked on a scoping report that understands the impact and aftermath of the first wave of COVID-19 on informal workers in India under a gender lens.

COVID-19's Socioeconomic Impact on Vulnerable Populations

The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought a global socio-economic crisis, with profound implications for the well-being of individuals, households and communities. It has further deepened existing social inequalities, heightened the risks for gender-based violence (GBV), and limited the access to health services, including sexual and reproductive health among marginalized groups.

As countries move to mitigate the health threats of the COVID-19 pandemic, immediate policy action has often led to large economic and social costs that are majorly borne by vulnerable and low-income populations, among whom women are the most affected.

Gender inequity lies at the root of every major problem the world faces. And so gender must inform every solution, from creating sustainable business practices to expanding opportunities for youth, to addressing the ever-changing health challenges globally

This review examines the COVID-19 policy response period from March 2020 to February 2021 to understand the implications of the national lockdown and immediate policy responses as well as the slow recovery through the unlock phases. It discusses how COVID-19-related health and economic shocks, and the policy responses to them, interacted with pre-existing vulnerabilities to impact livelihoods, the experience of GBV and healthcare outcomes for women who work in the urban informal economy in India.

While most surveys have documented the relative disadvantage of migrant households in being able to access public safety nets, either in the villages of their origin or destination cities, due to a lack of identification documents or non-registration as workers or simply a lack of information.

This report is centred around women, whose nature of occupation and gendered access to entitlements makes them doubly vulnerable. There is no doubt that lives have to take precedence over livelihoods. However, in an economy where the informal sector is large (with 93 percent of the total workforce being informal), extended lockdowns mean that migrant workers cannot protect their livelihoods. For them, this is a matter of not just livelihood but basic survival. Furthermore, much of the discourse on the urban informal worker (often a migrant) being pushed out or marginalised by the COVID-19 policy response has failed to take into account the gendered dimensions of impact.

This review examines the COVID-19 policy response period from March 2020 to February 2021 to understand the implications of the national lockdown and immediate policy responses as well as the slow recovery through the unlock phases. It discusses how COVID-19-related health and economic shocks, and the policy responses to them, interacted with pre-existing vulnerabilities to impact livelihoods, the experience of GBV and healthcare outcomes for women who work in the urban informal economy in India.

While most surveys have documented the relative disadvantage of migrant households in being able to access public safety nets, either in the villages of their origin or destination cities, due to a lack of identification documents or non-registration as workers or simply a lack of information.

This report is centred around women, whose nature of occupation and gendered access to entitlements makes them doubly vulnerable. There is no doubt that lives have to take precedence over livelihoods. However, in an economy where the informal sector is large (with 93 percent of the total workforce being informal), extended lockdowns mean that migrant workers cannot protect their livelihoods. For them, this is a matter of not just livelihood but basic survival. Furthermore, much of the discourse on the urban informal worker (often a migrant) being pushed out or marginalised by the COVID-19 policy response has failed to take into account the gendered dimensions of impact.