ABSTRACT
Delving into the nexus of the pandemic, gender, and livelihoods, this study uses semistructured interviews and other secondary data from journals, news reports, and books to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdown on 38 domestic workers in Titwala, an extended suburb of Mumbai (India), which has recently emerged as a preferred residential area of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. With the fast growth of residential real estate within the last decade, this area has witnessed a tremendous influx of households where many female domestic workers have found employment—a typical lifestyle maintained by most middle-class families in Indian society. However, following the pandemic and the lockdowns across India, many of these domestic workers not only lost their livelihoods, but also their return after the end of the lockdown was largely marked by underemployment, reduced wages, loss of bargaining power, accumulated debts, COVID-19-induced social discrimination, and loss of access to education by their school-age children due to unaffordable Internet data. This has exacerbated the already prevalent insecurities among the domestic workers, further threatening their livelihoods. This chapter proposes legal recognition of domestic work and informal workers such that their basic human and income rights can be protected.
