Intra-household discrimination and women’s agency: A case of domestic workers in Delhi during the COVID 19 Pandemic

Discrimination against women within a household turns out to be particularly severe during economic hardships. Studies have pointed out that the employment and ownership of assets such as land, help improve women’s agency role within a household. This in turn reduces the possibility of discrimination during hardship. It has also been argued that the lack of paid employment and property rights turn out to be instrumental behind relatively higher deprivation of women at difficult times. This paper aims to see how far this claim is tenable. During the recent Covid-19 pandemic we studied women domestic workers of Delhi who have achieved some agency via their employment. We juxtapose our discussion of the pandemic with a case from Indian history, the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, when a large number of women were abandoned simply because of their lack of agency and weak fallback positions. Our study is based on primary data.