Gendered Impacts of Covid-19 on women’s work, food and nutrition security

1. Gendered Impacts of Covid-19 on women’s
work, food and nutrition security
Nitya Rao
Professor Gender and Development
School of international development
University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

2. Seasonal agricultural
migration
• Santal women to West
Bengal for seasonal potato
harvest in March –
- Aloo jom: ‘potato as food’
- had to walk back from
Bardhaman to Pakur due to
lockdown.
- Cash and kind payments,
but could not carry potato
back, so sold it cheap

3. Employment Guarantee: Work or/and Care
• Strenuous physical labour
• Women’s responsibility to ensure household food security

4. Lockdown, Loss of Employment
and the Intensification of
Women’s work
Majority of women (and men) in informal
employment: domestic work, services, petty
manufacturing..
• Lost jobs and incomes
• Loss of dignity: Dependent on charities/NGOs
for daily food packets; no access to toilets and
clean water at destinations (urban slums)
• Indebtedness, distress sale and mortgaging of
assets to travel home and maintain households
• Increased care burdens – for children, elderly
and the sick – leading to longer working days

5. SDG 2 and the RIGHT TO FOOD: SIX DIMENSIONS
OF FOOD & NUTRITION SECURITY (FNS)

6. How has covid-19 affected
FNS and Gender Roles
• Thanks to good harvests and sufficient food
stocks, PDS has distributed 27 mt of basic
cereals, some pulses and oil, free or at
subsidized rates: to be discontinued from
August due to high costs
• Market disruptions and reduced purchasing
power have adversely affected availability,
affordability and choice of fruits and
vegetables, eggs, meat, milk, pulses – healthy
nutritious diets
• Lack of water, sanitation and public health
services: threat of malaria and other diseases
with the onset of the monsoons

7. Strategies to address
FNS and women’s work
Addressing the devaluation of women’s work
and all forms of structural (‘food-related’)
violence – central to dignity, equality, justice
• Recognize women as farmers/workers with
equal entitlements to resources – material,
financial and knowledge
• Redistribute public resources equitably,
especially social protection measures -
distribution of eggs and nutritional food
through schools and AWCs
• Reduce the drudgery of women’s work –
productive and reproductive - through public
health, education and care systems.
• Address unequal institutional norms by giving
women voice and leadership in decision-making
around their lives

8. Resources and References
• Its about food, nutrition and livelihood security.
https:/www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/its-about-food-nutrition-and-livelihood-security/article31484674.
• The achievement of food and nutrition security in India is deeply
gendered
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