The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of human life. In Nepal, a strict lockdown was imposed by the government starting on March 24, 2020. This resulted in all citizens having to be confined to their respective homes. Families who could afford domestic household staff and had arrangements for live-out domestic workers were then left on their own, since the commuting housemaids could not travel to and from work. In this climate of home confinement, the burden of all the household work – ranging from cooking, cleaning, washing, and managing children – most likely fell on the women in the household.

We postulated that one of the consequences of the lockdown is an increased workload for women in the household. For the purpose of assessing this hypothesis, we designed and implemented an online survey (spanning 3-5 minutes), and also conduced telephone interviews with respondents who did not have access to the internet. We collected data for eight days in early May (in 2020). We obtained a total of 317 responses from 29 districts in all seven provinces in Nepal.

The average age range of the survey respondents was 21 to 35 years. Three-fourths of the respondents were married women. Just over 50% of the women had completed a post-bachelor degree. A large percentage of them were engaged in the non-governmental (NGO) sector.

Obviously, the survey included responses only from those women who wished to respond, and had access to the internet or a telephone, and furthermore, were interested in responding to the request. Mindful of this limitation in the data obtained, we summarize the main findings that emerged from the survey below.

Nearly half (48%) of the women reported that household/ care work during the lockdown has been challenging because of the increased work burden. Similarly, 47% of the respondents stated that they also had to extend their office work hours. Nearly two-thirds (65%) claimed that balancing work for both home and professional career had been a challenge. Further, the working office hours were extended for the majority of unmarried women. However, doing household work had been comparatively more challenging to married women than single women (50% v 32%). Overall, the overwhelming

majority of the women (80%) reported increasing their working hours, from one hour to more than four hours.

Nearly one in 10 women did not get any help from their family members in undertaking household chores. Consequently, they needed to increase their workload, particularly during the lockdown. Nearly half (47%) reported that they had the burden of multi-tasking. Likewise, one-third felt they had an increase in stress. They also stated that other family members were expecting all the household chores to be done by them. Some women (4%) also experienced having to spend a lot of time dealing with an abusive spouse.

Despite having had the additional burden of household chores during the lockdown, the overwhelming majority of respondents (82%) felt that they did not have any particularly bad experience, but that they had a good experience in being together with family and being confined in the house. Three out of five respondents felt that they were protected from the coronavirus by being confined to their homes. They did not have to spend time commuting to and from work, they were able to apply their discretion in managing office work from home, and they were able to balance and manage time between home and office work while at home.

The lockdown also adversely affected  the  health  of the respondents. Nearly two in five reported having faced some kind of psychological health issues. About 31% reported having had physical health issues, and additional one in 10 reported to have experienced sexual and reproductive health issues.

The above data make it clear that the protracted lockdown period in Nepal has placed an additional burden on women, and particularly on married women. The women were multitasking as a coping mechanism to accomplish the work of both home and office during the lockdown. It is also clear that the women have felt additional stress, and have experienced additional mental and psychological health problems during the lockdown period.

Clearly, domestic work is still considered a gendered work; primarily a female’s work, and married women share more burden than single women in their households. Conscious efforts, through discussions and awareness, need to be made so that domestic work such as cooking and cleaning are not a gendered role, but rather viewed and treated as basic life skills. Such an orientation can and should begin with the family at an early age. Expectedly, a change can come about easier and faster in urban and educated households, than in the more rural and less educated households.