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Abstract
Background: India and other parts of the world have witnessed a health emergency due to COVID-19 that immensely affected the globe. These infectious diseases changed the lives of people, and the condition of working women worsened due to the responsibility of work, home, children, family, house, etc. altogether simultaneously. In a patriarchal society like India, where women are considered as ‘nurturing sex’ where domestic chores and care giving responsibilities are shouldered on women, the juggle between work and home elevated the work demand and heightened the level of stress. Based on the background discussed above, this research is an attempt to address the condition of working women the juggling between work and home elevated stress, work pressure amid COVID-19.
Introduction: The world has been struggling with the greatest health crisis for the last two and a half years, affecting everyone’s life, especially working women. The condition of working women has worsened by bearing the heap of responsibilities of work, home, children, family, house, etc., which undoubtedly results in stress, frustration, and anger affecting women’s physical and mental health. This paper is to study the condition of working women who are juggling between work and home amid this COVID-19 pandemic.
Method: For conducting the comprehensive study, a questionnaire was designed, which consisted of 14 questions excluding the demographic information, namely Name, Age, Gender, Profession, Experience, etc. Questionnaires were floated to 60 working women under different job profiles. Convenience Sampling was used to collect the data. Out of a sample of 60, 50 women recorded their responses via Google Sheets, and 38 questionnaires were finally used for analysis. The authors have utilized qualitative data analysis techniques to address the issue with the help of computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software NVIVO. For analyzing the qualitative data, NVIVO 12 was used by applying three tools Word Cloud Analysis, thematic analysis, and sentiments analysis.
Result: The findings of the study show that working women are facing continuous challenges and are under stress due to multiple roles, responsibilities, and work demands since the onset of COVID-19. It is supported by Word Cloud Analysis, thematic analysis, and sentiment analysis.
Conclusion: The outbreak of this COVID-19 pandemic, and its exceptional impact on lives, has generated an array of challenges in everyone’s life, but it shattered the lives of working women. The objective of this research is to unearth the stress in working women’s life amid COVID-19 due to the juggling between personal and professional life simultaneously. Results show that amid COVID-19, working women are under stress due to familial responsibility, household chores, work demands, caregiving, etc., all simultaneously without any breather. This societal stereotype lays high pressure and exceptions on working women leading to stress affecting the personal well-being and health of the woman.
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