Artha: Journal of Business and Finance

Impact of COVID-19 on working hours – A gendered study

Nishi Malhotra

Keywords: Time spent on job, gendered difference, COVID-19

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Abstract

In the wake of COVID-19 the relationship between the number of hours spent on job and overall job performance and efficiency is a focal point of discussion for the policy makers and the business leaders. Recently, the corporate leaders have sparked a debate on causal relationship between number of hours spent on the job and business performance. COVID-19 saw a majority of businesses move to remote and online mode, leading to substantial decline on time spent on job. The study aims to empirically analyze the impact of COVID-19 on hours worked and time spent on job. Moreover, difference in difference method has been used to examine how COVID-19 impacted working hours for men and women differently. The second part of the study uses the regression dynamic panel to study the impact of COVID-19 on household income and its gendered impact. The data for the analysis was taken from Consumer Pyramid dx, Peopledx wave 18, 19 and 20. Overall the results show that there is significant decline in hours worked during COVID-19 with average number of working hours for women experiencing a greater decline than the men. In the second part of study, regression analysis is undertaken to measure the impact of region, education and gender on income of households. As per the analysis, rural regions have lower income as compared to urban regions. And higher education leads to significantly increase in income.

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