Title: The Balancing Act: Gender Dynamics of Remote Working in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Care work is an essential – often unquantified – service that ensures the physical, psychological, and emotional wellbeing of adults and children, and contributes towards the reproduction of the future workforce, through the meeting of needs (Addati, Cattaneo, Esquivel & Valarino, 2018). It is recognised that women and girls across the world perform three-quarters of the total unpaid care work, while two thirds of the care work providers are women (ILO, 2018); with women residing in middle income countries found to experience a higher burden of unpaid care work (ILO, 2018). This is due to gendered, social, and cultural norms that view unpaid care work as a female prerogative, deeming that women across different regions, socio-economic classes and cultures spend an important part of their day meeting the expectations of their domestic and reproductive roles, even when they have a paid job outside the home (Ferrant, Pesando & Nowacka, 2014; Razavi & Staab, 2017).

The COVID-19 pandemic brought to the fore discussions on the role and responsibility of care work during the lockdown as work from home measures were introduced as a means of controlling the spread of COVID-19. Sri Lanka was no stranger to the impact of the pandemic, and its citizens continue to experience the ripple effects nearly a year after the first identified case in early 2020. The onset of the pandemic resulted in changes to how individuals went about their regular activities in almost every aspect from learning, working, and even socializing. With schools shut for extended periods, households with young children not only had to navigate the challenges associated with movement restrictions and remote working, but they also had to take on the responsibility of adapting to new learning methods. This study sought to understand the impacts of the changes in terms of opportunities as well as the long-term consequences, particularly regarding household dynamics and responsibilities, while attempting to
understand the impacts on gendered responsibilities from a Sri Lankan context. Although challenges are expected when adapting to the ‘new normal’ there is also a need to delve deeper to understand the intricacies of these challenges and what is necessary to ensure long term success or embrace the changes going forward. This paper presents a snapshot of the experiences of families with young children in Sri Lanka in the months since the first movement restriction was imposed.