Numbers revealed by a study in Kerala suggest that homemakers are the most distressed lot during the COVID-19 lockdown. More than 93% of the homemakers interviewed for the study were stressed over the economic situation brought on by the lockdown.
The study was conducted by the Campaign Against Pseudo Science Using Law & Ethics (CAPSULE), a democratic health group of the Kerala Sashtra Sahitya Parishad. The study was led by Dr Nandakumar, a medical doctor and chairman of CAPSULE, and MP Anil Kumar, convener.
Dr Nandakumar says that the study was conducted on people belonging to the lower economic strata to understand the socio-economic impact of the lockdown. “This included daily wage labourers, homemakers, those without permanent jobs such as domestic workers, plumbers or electricians. Many of them could not go to work during the lockdown. This has caused a lot of anxiety issues,” he says.
About 284 people from different parts of Thiruvananthapuram, from Parassala to Varkala, were surveyed for the study. About 94% of the daily wage workers who were interviewed had either lost jobs or their income. Sixty-nine percent of the people said that their quality of life has been affected.
“A significant number of the people – 62% – are relying on debts to get on with life. If the lockdown continues, this will get worse and their debts will further increase,” Dr Nandakumar says.
However, more than 83% of the people surveyed said that they could survive because of the free rations, community kitchens and welfare pensions provided by the government.
Dr Nandakumar reckons that the homemakers were the most affected because they have never learnt to value their own work as economical and depended on someone else in the family to bring in the money. When that suddenly stopped, they got anxious. “They are very productive, they do lots of work. But it’s never been valued as an economic activity and they could not gauge the new situation when even the people whom they depended on could not bring the money home,” he says.
The CAPSULE team included a list of 15 questions – requiring mostly yes or no answers – for the study. This included such questions as, ‘do you have debts’, ‘is anyone dependent on you financially’.
“One needs to understand that they depend on other types of economy. Someone in a different economic stratum may use a credit or debit card to buy their groceries. But people in the lower economic strata do not rely on electronic money, they need cash,” Dr Nandakumar explains.
He says that the stress now seen is a common psychological distress arising out of the economic distress. “These are early stages and it is now seen as a family issue, a society issue. But later on, there would be individual distress and that’s when it gets worse,” he says.