Covid-19 impact taking a toll on work-life balance of working women in India

Facts first. The female economy is poised to outpace the economy of some of the biggest nations in the next five years. With more women entering the workforce, there will be a significant shift in financial and economic power toward women - both in the household and in professional environments.

When it comes to numbers, there will be 100 million more women in the global labour force by 2030. And by that time, women will change the workforce landscape with a more than 40 per cent average participation rate. That's not all. The global female income is expected to reach $24 trillion annually in 2020, up from $20 trillion in 2018. At least that's what Frost & Sullivan's latest research, Global Mega Trends to 2030, suggests.

With longer work hours and a work from home set-up during the Covid-19 pandemic, about 80 per cent of women bore the maximum brunt by performing a dual role as a working professional as well as a caregiver. According to the report, 'Women@Work', which was launched by Aspire for Her and Sustainable Advancements today, 38.5 per cent of working women surveyed said they were adversely affected by the burden of added housework, childcare and eldercare while 43.7 per cent stated that work-life balance has become worse.

As high as 61.1 per cent of women, who lost their job due to Covid-19, felt women be worse off than men, followed by women who took a break (46.7 per cent), closely followed by working women (42.3 per cent), students at 35.6 per cent and self-employed women at 30.3 per cent.

Going back to the encouraging facts and figures, we started with, if the Frost & Sullivan's study is to be believed, women are expected to control $43 trillion of global consumer spending through voluntary private consumption or an exchange of money for goods and services in near future. Women-owned companies will represent over 40 per cent of registered businesses worldwide. And when 100 million more working women are added to the global economy that would bring down the gender gap in labour participation rates by 25 per cent by 2025.

It wouldn't be a wrong notion to believe that the increasing economic power of women will result in a big transformation in product design and marketing. Women are expected to spend more than $40 trillion in the next couple of years, ushering in the need for more focused user-centric strategies and products. An interesting trend to note is the change in gender strategies, moving from being women-centric to more gender-neutral. In many ways, this is the key to succeed with this segment. Women are not asking for exclusivity, they are looking for inclusivity - gender-neutral experiences that, unfortunately, are still lacking in many user experiences.