With increased workload, women a stressed lot

SCARF undertakes study online

09/04/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,CHENNAI

The lockdown has had many effects on people from various walks of life. For a section of women at home, it added to the workload. It was no different with stress levels, with more women feeling stressed during the lockdown than men. Those who were single and staying alone were more stressed, an online survey by Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF) has found.

The survey had 502 participants — 196 men and 306 women — and was aimed at determining if there was increased task sharing in the families during the lockdown. Of the participants, nearly 65% were in the age group of 35-55. Eighty eight per cent were married, while eight per cent were single.

“We keep hearing women say that their work has increased as all family members were at home due to the shutdown. We wanted to know the real impact on people,” R. Thara, vice chairperson, SCARF, said.

Women participants expressed that their domestic responsibilities had increased by nearly 16% than usual (60% before lockdown), while for men, it increased by 13% than normal (36%). In fact, while the elders in the family were helping as usual with the domestic responsibilities, children were found to be helping more — an increase by 10% — during the lockdown, the survey found. A total of 36% of the participants were working from home, 33% were at home but were not doing any professional work from home, 16% were going for work as usual and 15% were homemakers.

Lakshmi Venkatraman, consultant psychiatrist, SCARF, said, “Working women continued to do work at home along with their professional work, so it was an added load. We wanted to look at how much sharing of labour happens between different family members. It is not surprising that the workload has increased, as before the lockdown, they would have had domestic help or a cook at home,” she said.

A total of 39% of the participants stated that they were stressed during the lockdown. Women accounted for a higher percentage — 66 % of women were stressed as compared to 34% men. Persons, who were single and staying alone, were more stressed.