Work-Family Conflict While Working Remotely During Covid-19 Lockdown: A Phenomenological Study on Working Indian Mothers

Keywords: Work-Family Conflict, Working Indian Mothers, Remote Working, Covid-19

Abstract: The objective of the paper is to understand the gender specific challenges faced by Indian working mothers who had to work from home amidst a raging pandemic. It is to gain an insight into the daily decisions in family during the lockdown as they were negotiated by women and through this develop an understanding of the phenomenon of the double shift. As a secondary purpose, the study also uses the boundary concept between work and family to explore if the boundaries between work and family were asymmetrical, thereby attempting to re-explore work-family linkages or conflicts in a pandemic crisis situation such as Covid-19. A unique contribution is also to understand the role of the Indian techno-social system in spurring these challenges faced by these women. The paper used a phenomenological method of research that captures lived experiences of people to draw inferences. Responses from 14 semi-structured interviews of working Indian mothers were analyzed through thematic interpretation and content analysis to draw first order and second order themes. The emerging themes were then categorized into a 3*2 matrix that represented work-family conflict dimensions (Time-based, Strain-based, and Behaviour-based) on the X axis and work-family conflict directions (Work-to-family and Family-to-work) on the Y axis.