The impact of COVID-19 on migrant women workers in India

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 has emerged as a crisis that has impacted all spheres of human life. The pandemic has disproportionately impacted the world’s poor population in terms of livelihood and survival. India witnessed a massive crisis among migrant workers. In this context, this paper explores the impact of COVID-19 on women migrant workers and their families, analyzing qualitative interviews in two localities in Delhi and in Gurugram in Haryana State. Six themes were developed from the interview data about the impacts on, and experiences of, women migrant workers: loss of livelihood and resulting debt; compromises; captivity and the burden of responsibility; disrupted access; emotional geographies of COVID-19; and insufficient support. The study underlines the dismal state of women migrant workers and their families and argues that urgent policy interventions are required to address the impoverishment they are experiencing. The strengthening of social security measures is of the utmost importance.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• female migrant workers
• informal economy
• India

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Professor Craig Young for the critical comments and feedback on earlier versions of this paper. We also thank Ms Usha Jha for the assistance in data collection. We extend our thanks to Ms Sophia Raju and Garima Sharma for the photographs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A semi-pucca house is a structure which has permanent walls made of stones and bricks but the roof is made of materials such as mud, bamboo, thatch, and asbestos or iron sheets.

2. “Scheduled Castes” (SC) is a socially disadvantaged group in India who are constitutionally protected with special privileges and status. SC are “untouchables” as per the Indian caste system. The “Other Backward Class” (OBC) includes people who belong to castes that are socially and economically vulnerable. The “General” category is the mainstream population who fall under the upper caste groups in the Indian caste system or those who are comparatively better off in socio-economic and educational terms.

3. The ration card is an official document provided to individual households to allow them to purchase subsidized food commodities from the Public Distribution System.

4. Anganwadi is a type of childcare center started under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) in 1975. It is one of the largest government schemes in India aimed at providing health, nutrition, and pre-school services to children of 0-6 years.