As the pandemic raged through the lives and livelihoods of people around the world, women had it harder. A study conducted by McKinsey revealed that while women constitute 39 percent of global employment, they accounted for 54 percent of the jobs lost during the pandemic. The numbers look much worse for India—we already have a worrying statistic of only 20 percent of the workforce pre-pandemic being women, but women accounted for 47 percent of job losses during the first wave of the pandemic. One out of every four working women in India had to bid goodbye to her financial independence in the last two years.

The primary reason for this is the burden women face with unpaid domestic work and family obligations. It was not just women in blue-collar jobs that bore the brunt, but also gold-collar women professionals such as doctors and lawyers who found it hard to keep a balance between their professional and personal lives. I believe there are three key lessons that the Covid-19 pandemic…