Abstract:
Women are normally self-employed in businesses involving the buying and
selling of goods and services. Such employment was severely affected by the
COVID-19 pandemic. The research explored the impact of COVID-19 on
informal women’s employment. This study included mixed methods of
quantitative and qualitative approaches. The problem areas were identified in
a pilot survey conducted with the key informants drawn from the women’s
employment. The data was analyzed by descriptive and SWOT approaches.
According to the SWOT analysis results, the high mean value is maintained in
the strong improvement of demand for goods and services for a specific period
(3.25), the weakness of non-availability for gaining government subsidies
(4.11), the opportunity incensement of leisure time (4.06), and the threat of
curfew or lockdown (4.49). During a pandemic, the threat plays the most
important role in the employment cycle of women informal workers.
Furthermore, the results revealed that 74% of informal female workers lost
their incomes and 18.7% of informal female workers were unable to continue
their informal employment in the period of the pandemic. The Pearson’s chisquare non-parametric test shows internal factors are significant and external
factors are not significant. Policymakers should focus on providing social and
economic support to informal female workers. Further, the government and
non-governmental organizations should open training programs for informal
women workers, and social workers can develop outreach programs to include
informal sector women workers into the government database.
