IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/vikjou/v48y2023i1p39-53.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of Work from Home and Family Support on Indian Women’s Work Productivity During COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Shradha Kundra
  • Naman Sreen
  • Rohit Dwivedi

Abstract

The work-from-home practices initiated during the COVID-19 pandemic have caused a paradigmatic shift in how we work. Work from home (WFH) led to an intermingling of the domestic and professional spaces, and the WFH phenomenon has asymmetrically impacted women’s work. In such a scenario, women professionals experience a greater work–life conflict, and the significance of family support comes to the fore. Studying this phenomenon in the Indian context is interesting because the primary responsibility for Indian women lies in the domestic arena. Female Indian professionals are expected to seamlessly fulfil their domestic duties no matter how demanding their job is. The multiplicity of challenges that affect women professionals’ productivity at work only gets compounded when women are expected to work from the domestic sphere where the demand of domestic duties constantly confronts them. Several global scholars have indicated that the burden of domestic duties was greater for women during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the burden of child-care, elderly care and cooking activities increased as outsourcing such activities was not an easily available option during the lockdowns which led to reduced work productivity amongst women. However, this study revealed that Indian female professionals reported better work productivity than female professionals working from their workspace. Indian women are used to fulfilling domestic and professional duties even prior to the pandemic, and Indians perceive greater satisfaction in interpersonal relational experiences rather than individualistic career goals. The study also revealed that family support did not increase when women were working from home, but the increase in family support increased women’s work productivity. Findings also indicate that female professionals with children showed significantly lower work productivity than female professionals (married and unmarried) without children.

Suggested Citation

  • Shradha Kundra & Naman Sreen & Rohit Dwivedi, 2023. "Impact of Work from Home and Family Support on Indian Women’s Work Productivity During COVID-19," Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers, , vol. 48(1), pages 39-53, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:vikjou:v:48:y:2023:i:1:p:39-53
    DOI: 10.1177/02560909231162918
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02560909231162918
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/02560909231162918?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deshpande, Ashwini & Goel, Deepti & Khanna, Shantanu, 2018. "Bad Karma or Discrimination? Male–Female Wage Gaps Among Salaried Workers in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 331-344.
    2. Guido Matias Cortes & Eliza C. Forsythe, 2020. "Impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the CARES Act on Earnings and Inequality," Upjohn Working Papers 20-332, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    3. Nicholas Bloom & James Liang & John Roberts & Zhichun Jenny Ying, 2015. "Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(1), pages 165-218.
    4. Kyle R. Myers & Wei Yang Tham & Yian Yin & Nina Cohodes & Jerry G. Thursby & Marie C. Thursby & Peter Schiffer & Joseph T. Walsh & Karim R. Lakhani & Dashun Wang, 2020. "Unequal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientists," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(9), pages 880-883, September.
    5. Giuliana Viglione, 2020. "Are women publishing less during the pandemic? Here’s what the data say," Nature, Nature, vol. 581(7809), pages 365-366, May.
    6. Battiston, Diego & Blanes i Vidal, Jordi & Kirchmaier, Thomas, 2017. "Is distance dead? Face-to-face communication and productivity in teams," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 83603, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Kim Toffoletti & Karen Starr, 2016. "Women Academics and Work–Life Balance: Gendered Discourses of Work and Care," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(5), pages 489-504, September.
    8. Bosch, Maria José & Heras, Mireia Las & Russo, Marcello & Rofcanin, Yasin & Grau i Grau, Marc, 2018. "How context matters: The relationship between family supportive supervisor behaviours and motivation to work moderated by gender inequality," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 46-55.
    9. Ruomeng Cui & Hao Ding & Feng Zhu, 2020. "Gender Inequality in Research Productivity During the COVID-19 Pandemic," Papers 2006.10194, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2021.
    10. Stephan Klasen & Francesca Lamanna, 2009. "The Impact of Gender Inequality in Education and Employment on Economic Growth: New Evidence for a Panel of Countries," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 91-132.
    11. Batia M. Wiesenfeld & Sumita Raghuram & Raghu Garud, 1999. "Communication Patterns as Determinants of Organizational Identification in a Virtual Organization," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(6), pages 777-790, December.
    12. Sue Newell, 1993. "The Superwoman Syndrome: Gender Differences in Attitudes towards Equal Opportunities at Work and towards Domestic Responsibilities at Home," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 7(2), pages 275-289, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brad M. Barber & Wei Jiang & Adair Morse & Manju Puri & Heather Tookes & Ingrid M. Werner, 2021. "What Explains Differences in Finance Research Productivity during the Pandemic?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(4), pages 1655-1697, August.
    2. Liu, Meijun & Zhang, Ning & Hu, Xiao & Jaiswal, Ajay & Xu, Jian & Chen, Hong & Ding, Ying & Bu, Yi, 2022. "Further divided gender gaps in research productivity and collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from coronavirus-related literature," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    3. Lucas Rodriguez Forti & Luiz A. Solino & Judit K. Szabo, 2021. "Trade-off between urgency and reduced editorial capacity affect publication speed in ecological and medical journals during 2020," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.
    4. Ourania Tzoraki & Svetlana Dimitrova & Marin Barzakov & Saad Yaseen & Vasilis Gavalas & Hani Harb & Abas Haidari & Brian P. Cahill & Alexandra Ćulibrk & Ekaterini Nikolarea & Eleni Andrianopulu & Miro, 2021. "The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Working Conditions, Employment, Career Development and Well-Being of Refugee Researchers," Societies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-13, July.
    5. Hani Al-Dmour & Rima Al Hasan & Motasem Thneibat & Ra’ed Masa’deh & Wafa Alkhadra & Rand Al-Dmour & Ali Alalwan, 2023. "Integrated Model for the Factors Determining the Academic’s Remote Working Productivity and Engagement: Empirical Study," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(3), pages 21582440231, August.
    6. Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury & Cirrus Foroughi & Barbara Larson, 2021. "Work‐from‐anywhere: The productivity effects of geographic flexibility," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(4), pages 655-683, April.
    7. Tatyana Deryugina & Olga Shurchkov & Jenna Stearns, 2022. "Public School Access or Stay-at-Home Partner: Factors Mitigating the Adverse Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Academic Parents," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 112, pages 267-271, May.
    8. Squicciarini, Mara & Juhász, Réka & Voigtländer, Nico, 2020. "Away from Home and Back: Coordinating (Remote) Workers in 1800 and 2020," CEPR Discussion Papers 15578, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Andrew L. Kun & Raffaella Sadun & Orit Shaer & Thomaz Teodorovicz, 2022. "How does working from home during Covid-19 affect what managers do? Evidence from time-use studies," CEP Discussion Papers dp1844, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. Kwon, Eunrang & Yun, Jinhyuk & Kang, Jeong-han, 2023. "The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on gendered research productivity and its correlates," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    11. Okubo, Toshihiro, 2022. "Telework in the spread of COVID-19," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    12. George, Elizabeth. & Chattopadhyay, Prithviraj., 2015. "Non-standard work and workers : organizational implications," ILO Working Papers 994883083402676, International Labour Organization.
    13. Ayodya S. R. Dahanayake, 2022. "The Next Normal Impact on Organizational Dynamics by Telecommuting Practices in Information Technology Industry of Sri Lanka," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 6(1), pages 300-303, January.
    14. Jian Gao & Yian Yin & Kyle R. Myers & Karim R. Lakhani & Dashun Wang, 2021. "Potentially long-lasting effects of the pandemic on scientists," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-6, December.
    15. Balazs Aczel & Marton Kovacs & Tanja van der Lippe & Barnabas Szaszi, 2021. "Researchers working from home: Benefits and challenges," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-13, March.
    16. Brindusa Anghel & Marianela Cozzolino, 2020. "Teleworking in Spain," Economic Bulletin, Banco de España, issue 2/2020.
    17. MORIKAWA Masayuki, 2018. "Long Commuting Time and the Benefits of Telecommuting," Discussion papers 18025, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    18. Alexandre Mas & Amanda Pallais, 2020. "Alternative Work Arrangements," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 631-658, August.
    19. Kosteas, Vasilios D. & Renna, Francesco & Scicchitano, Sergio, 2022. "Covid-19 and Working from Home: toward a "new normal"?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1013, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    20. Walters, Cyrill & Mehl, Graeme G. & Piraino, Patrizio & Jansen, Jonathan D. & Kriger, Samantha, 2022. "The impact of the pandemic-enforced lockdown on the scholarly productivity of women academics in South Africa," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(1).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:vikjou:v:48:y:2023:i:1:p:39-53. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.