Health Care for Women International

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Impact of COVID-19 on mental health of employed

women residing in Delhi-NCR, India: Mediating role
of working from-for home

Vanshika Beri

To cite this article: Vanshika Beri (2021) Impact of COVID-19 on mental health of employed
women residing in Delhi-NCR, India: Mediating role of working from-for home, Health Care for
Women International, 42:3, 323-334, DOI: 10.1080/07399332.2021.1882463

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07399332.2021.1882463

Published online: 01 Mar 2021.

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HEALTH CARE FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL
2021, VOL. 42, NO. 3, 323–334
https://doi.org/10.1080/07399332.2021.1882463

Impact of COVID-19 on mental health of employed

women residing in Delhi-NCR, India: Mediating role
of working from-for home
Vanshika Beri
Amity Institute of Psychology and Allied Sciences, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Women, who are “supposed” to do all their official and house- Received 17 December 2020
hold work are now required to do all of it simultaneously Accepted 24 January 2021
because of lockdown amid covid-19. I did this study to ana-
lyze the perceived stress and depressive tendencies among
the non-clinical population of employed women residing in
Delhi-NCR and whether work from-for home is acting as a
mediator between the two. Further, marital status and family
status were also taken into consideration. A sample of two-
hundred-three responses depicted that there is a significant
and positive correlation between perceived stress and depres-
sive tendencies. Further, working from-for home significantly
acts as a mediator between the two variables. Moreover, there
is no significant interaction between family status and working
from-for home on depressive tendencies. However, there is a
significant interaction between marital status and working
from-for home on depressive tendencies. The implications,
limitations, and future suggestions are discussed in the end.

The problem of discrimination between men and women is not new, but a
very old practice that is still prevalent. Women fight for their equal rights
around the globe, and the same is with India. Now-a-days, we can see
women working in almost all the professions, in both higher and lower
positions. But has their entrance into the public domain made any differ-
ence in terms of responsibilities that society has assigned to them? A very
simple response is no! Females have entered the public domain, but they
are still expected to do all the household work. In addition to that their
goal “should be” to rear children so that they could make a perfect home
life. Studies in the past have also established that the traditional sex roles
have not changed and that women’s entry into the public arena has
increased or doubled the burden on them (Lahiri-Dutt & Sil, 2014).
The onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) has acted as fuel to the fire for
women. Earlier at least there was a time in their mind in which they used to

CONTACT Vanshika Beri berivanshika@gmail.com Amity Institute of Psychology and Allied Sciences, D-
Block, Amity University Campus, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India.
ß 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
324 V. BERI

divide both the duties, but now they are required to do all their work simul-
taneously. In the same physical settings, at the same point in time, they are
expected to do their official work, household work, take care of their family
members including their child(ren). This amount of burden might lead to
health problems, physically and psychologically (Sharma et al., 2016).
I did this study to assess the relationship between perceived stress and
depressive tendencies amid COVID-19 among employed women
(18–40 years old) residing in Delhi-NCR, India. Further, I assessed whether
working from-for home acts as a mediator between perceived stress and
depressive tendencies. Family status and marital status were also taken into
consideration.
It is important to conduct this study because this combination has never
been used in this scenario in India. The workload on women, specifically
in a situation where everyone is stuck inside their homes and working
from home because of a pandemic, has never been assessed. Further, it will
give an idea regarding the emerging pattern of what is happening to
women all around the world because the whole world is going through a
shift in living style. Finally, it would contribute to different disciplines like
feminism, gender studies, psychology, and sociology.

Work from-for home, stress and health

The time of COVID-19 has acquainted us with the concept of “work from-
for home.” “Work from-for home” refers to a situation where an individual
who is employed virtually, completes official tasks by staying at home and
simultaneously is also working for their home by performing all household
duties. In this scenario, where females have to do all their work from
home, they are required to do “all” their work, household and official, sim-
ultaneously, which might, in turn, lead to conflicting situations. In this
conflicting situation, an individual as “a woman” is supposed to give more
time to household work because she is in that environment.
Many employed women face the issue of doing extra work in compari-
son with their male counterparts. Studies have depicted that some house-
hold works are gendered and therefore major household work done by
women, does not receive any help from male counterparts like for instance,
male counterparts rarely helped their spouse in washing clothes (Luke
et al., 2014). This duty of maintaining a balance between household work
and official work might lead to emotional exhaustion and lower life satis-
faction (Zhang et al., 2012). This conflict also might lead to stress which in
turn leads to psychological health problems (Sharma et al., 2016). Stress is
a situation where a person finds it difficult to meet the demands of the
environment and that interferes with the psychological and physical
 HEALTH CARE FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL 325

wellbeing. The situation of stress might lead to problems like lowered

immunity (McLeod, 2010), somatization (Henderson, 2017), depression,
anxiety, and even psychosis (Crannage, 2018). A study was done by
Sharma and Vaish (2020) in India, depicted that majority of women
reported moderate to severe effects on mental health due to an increased
amount of workload (official plus household chores) during the lockdown.
Most of them reported pain in the back and neck and strain on the eyes.
Many recent studies that are done in the context of COVID-19 reported
that people are facing mental health issues due to the current scenario (Raju
et al., 2021). Studies have reported that females are getting more depressed
and anxious due to lockdown as compared to males (Sathyamurthi et al.,
2020). This could be because women, especially those who are working, are
facing an increased amount of workload and that is, in turn, contributing to
the deterioration of their psychological well-being (Kaur & Sharma, 2020).
These studies helped me in deriving my first two hypotheses.
H1: There would be a significant correlation between perceived stress and
depressive tendencies.
H2: Working from-for home will act as a mediator between perceived stress and
depressive tendencies.

Work from-for home and family structure

Besides the amount of work, another thing that contributes to the health
status is the role of family structure. Family structure refers to the way a
family is living. This mainly includes the number of members living in a
family. A family type that consists of three or more generations is known
as a joint family, while a family that includes only includes a couple and
their children are called a nuclear family.
A study was done by Sathyamurthi et al. (2020) in India depicted that
people are facing mental health issues like anxiety and depression because
of changes that took place due to COVID-19. They found that women are
more affected by these changes than men. However, as they reported in
their limitations, they could not study these differences in different types of
families. Therefore, I tried to explore whether the family structure will
make any difference in depressive tendencies. However, I did this study
only on the female population. This gives the third hypothesis.
H3: There would be a significant interaction between working from-for home and
family structure on depressive tendencies among employed women.

Work from-for home and marital status

Another factor that contributes to health is marital status. Marital status refers
to the status of whether an individual is married or unmarried. Considering
326 V. BERI

the current scenario of the pandemic, where women are working from home,
it is important to see whether their marital status is playing a role or not.
Studies in the past have shown that employed women who are married are
likely to have more stress (Husain & Rahat, 2012) and face a greater level of
anxiety and depression (Akhouri et al., 2019) as compared to unmarried
women and that could be because married women have more responsibilities
over them. However, since no study, as per my knowledge, has been done in
the Indian context amid the pandemic, it is important to explore whether
unmarried employed women are easily coping with this change, or are they
also facing the same problems as married women, looking after their home
with their mother, for instance. From this perspective, the fourth hypothesis
was derived.
H4: There would be a significant interaction between work from-for home and
marital status on depressive tendencies among employed women.

Method
Participants
A total of 292 participants took part in the study out of which 203 met the
inclusion criteria and were therefore included in the study. The demo-
graphic details of the participants are given in Table 1.

Instruments
Working from-for home scale
I created this scale to assess whether employed females who are currently
working from home amid COVID 19 are successfully able to adjust with
the change and can create a balance between household chores and official
duties or, are they facing problem in balancing the same due to various fac-
tors like lack of social support. I created it on my own because this con-
struct has never been studied, as per my knowledge and therefore there is
no established tool to assess the same. This self-report scale consists of 9
Table 1. Demographic details of the participants.
N (n ¼ 203) Percentage (%)
Age
18–25 46 22.7
26–30 67 33
31–35 62 30.5
36–40 28 13.8
Family structure
Nuclear family 104 48.8
Joint family 99 51.2
Marital status
Married 107 52.7
Unmarried 96 47.3
 HEALTH CARE FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL 327

items which require respondents to respond on a 5-point-Likert scale rang-

ing from 1—strongly disagree to 5—strongly agree. Four out of nine items
are reverse scored (item 1–4) . Two items (items 3 and 4) are optional. The
scores will vary from range 7–45. A high score on the scale depicts a prob-
lem in creating a balance between household chores and official duties
whereas a low score depicts no problem in creating the balance. The
Cronbach a for the scale, on the current sample, is .94. The scale is pro-
vided at the end of this article in the appendix section.

Perceived stress scale

The PSS is a self-report, 14-item instrument that is used to measure the
degree to which one’s life is perceived as stressful. There are seven items
out of fourteen that are positive and therefore are reverse scored (Cohen
et al., 1983). The coefficient a done for the sample of college students was
reported to be .85 (Cohen et al., 1983).

Patient Health Questionnaire-9

The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) is a 9-item self-report
questionnaire that is used to assess depressive symptoms (Kroenke
et al., 2001). The respondents are required to mark how often have they
been bothered by the problems that are mentioned in the questionnaire.
The internal consistency of the questionnaire is .83 and the correlation
between PHQ-9 and the other two similar scales was .63 (Chagas
et al., 2013).

Design and procedure

An online survey was formulated using three instruments. The form was
then distributed using a simple random sampling method, in which
emerging and young adult women, residing in Delhi-NCR, who are cur-
rently employed, were tracked on LinkedIn and were then approached.
The participants were not met in person because of the risk of contracting
the virus. The form was given to around 400 employed women out of
which 292 responded. Eighty-eight responses were excluded from the
study because they did not match the inclusion criteria, which is given in
Table 2. A large number of responses had to be excluded because it was
important to control the extra factors. In this study, I have tried to assess
the level of perceived stress and depressive tendencies among the non-
clinical population of employed women who are working from home. If I
would have included women with prior physical or psychological distress
or the ones who have someone to look after in their home, then that
328 V. BERI

Table 2. Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Inclusion criteria
1 Females
2 18 to 40 years old
3 Residing in Delhi and NCR
4 Currently employed
5 Currently working from home due to Covid-19
6 Have not employed any helper or maid
7 Have not been diagnosed (by a doctor) with
any physical or psychological disturbance in
the last 1 month
8 No one in the family has been diagnosed (by a
doctor) with any physical or psychological
disturbance in the last 1 month
9 Someone who scored 4 or below on the
statement “On a scale of 7, how much do
you agree with the following statement: “I
am preoccupied with Thoughts about the
Coronavirus/Fears of contracting
Coronavirus”.
Exclusion criteria
Any other gender
19 and below; 41 and above
Outside Delhi and NCR
Currently unemployed
If employed, currently going to the office
Have employed helper or maid
Have been diagnosed (by a doctor) with any
physical or psychological disturbance in the
last 1 month
If someone in the family has been diagnosed (by
a doctor) with any physical or psychological
disturbance in the last 1 month
Someone who scored 5 or above on the
statement “On a scale of 7, how much do you
agree with the following statement: “I am
preoccupied with Thoughts about the
Coronavirus/Fears of contracting Coronavirus”.

Table 3. Correlation between perceived stress and depressive tendencies.

Depressive tendencies
Perceived stress Pearson correlation .856
Sig. (two-tailed) .000
N 203
p < .001.

would have been a major influencing factor that would have contributed
to the deterioration in their health. Further, women who scored four or
above on their preoccupation with thoughts of coronavirus were also
excluded because the main idea of the study was to show whether work-
ing from-for home is acting as a mediator between stress and depression,
or not. Finally, women who have a helper in their home were also
excluded because of the same reason mentioned.
A total of 203 responses were used for the analysis. Correlational analysis
was done for the first hypothesis, mediation analysis for the second hypoth-
esis, and two-way ANOVA was for the last two hypotheses with the help
of SPSS (20) software.

Results
Correlational analysis was done to analyze the first hypothesis. My analysis
of the data (see Table 3) indicates that there is a significant and positive
correlation between perceived stress and depressive tendencies.
In the second hypothesis, it was assumed that working from-for home
will act as a mediator between perceived stress and depressive tendencies.
The data I analyzed indicate that working from-for home is a significant
mediator between perceived stress and depressive tendencies. As can be
 HEALTH CARE FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL 329

Figure 1. Working from-for home as a mediator between perceived stress and depres-
sive tendencies.

Table 4. F value for interaction between working from-for home and family status on depres-
sive tendencies.
df F Sig
Working from-for home 1 971.80 .000
Family status 1 1.918 .168
Working from-for home  family status 1 .290 .591
Error 199
DV, depressive tendencies.
p < .001.

seen in Figure 1, the total effect of perceived stress on depressive tendencies

was significant (total effect: b ¼ .22, SE ¼ .00, and p < .001). The direct
effect of perceived stress on depressive tendencies was also significant (dir-
ect effect: b ¼ .05, SE ¼ .01, and p < .001). Finally, the indirect effect was
significantly different from 0 (b ¼ .17, p < .05). Therefore, from my ana-
lysis, it is evident that working from-for home acts as a mediator between
perceived stress and depressive tendencies.
Further, two-way ANOVA was used to analyze the last two hypotheses.
For the third hypothesis (Table 4) my analysis of the data revealed that
there is a significant difference between women scoring high and low on
work from-for home scale on depressive tendencies. However, there is no
significant difference between women from joint family or nuclear family
on depressive tendencies. Finally, there is no significant interaction between
family status and working from-for home on depressive tendencies.
Similarly, the analysis for the last hypothesis (Table 5) indicates that
there is a significant difference between married women and unmarried
women on depressive tendencies. Finally, there is a significant interaction
between marital status and working from-for home on depres-
sive tendencies.
330 V. BERI

Table 5. F value for interaction between working from-for home and marital status on depres-
sive tendencies.
df F Sig
Working from-for home 1 246.99 .000
Marital status 1 49.62 .000
Working from-for home  marital status 1 58.46 .000
Error 199
DV, depressive tendencies.
p < .001.

Discussion
The onset of coronavirus has disrupted our normal routine life. Most peo-
ple are now working from home because there is a risk of catching the
virus at every step. This has contributed further to the burden that women
were facing already. Some women were able to cope up with the change
while some faced issues. Studies depicted that the pandemic has led to
issues in adjustment and deterioration in overall mental health (Rossi
et al., 2020).
Based on my results, I believe that many women are perceiving an
increased amount of stress. There is a significant positive correlation
between perceived stress and depressive tendencies. This means women
who are perceiving an increased amount of stress are also likely to face
depressive tendencies. These findings are consistent with earlier researches,
which also concluded that people are facing issues of anxiety, depression,
and stress along with sleep disturbances and other problems (Gualano
et al., 2020; Mahure et al., 2020; Rossi et al., 2020).
Further, my data revealed that working from-for home acts as a mediator
between perceived stress and depressive tendencies. This means that
employed women who are working from home are perceiving more stress
and this together, in turn, is leading to depressive tendency. The findings
are consistent with the study done by Kaur and Sharma (2020). In their
descriptive study, they found that in the time of coronavirus, women are
working more as compared to earlier times and that working from home is
a challenging task for them. This mediating role further becomes clear
because of the inclusion criteria. Women who are not preoccupied with the
thoughts of coronavirus; are not diagnosed with any physical or psycho-
logical problem and do not have any responsibility of a caregiver for a dis-
abled family member were included, so that a clear-cut relation could be
established between stress and depression due to working from-for home.
Women are required to do all the official tasks and household chores
together, along with managing other family members, including the online
classes of their child(ren). This has increased the total number of hours
they are working and this in totality is leading to psychological problems.
My analysis of the ANOVA test indicates there is a significant difference
 HEALTH CARE FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL 331

between women who have scored high and low on work from-for home on
depressive tendencies. This means that women who might have adjusted to
the changes and are not perceiving an increased amount of stress, might
not be facing depressive tendencies.
Further, family status and marital status were taken into consideration to
see whether these components are making any difference. My data revealed
that there is no significant difference between women from joint family or
nuclear family on depressive tendencies. Moreover, there is no significant
interaction between family status and work from-for home on depressive
tendencies. This means that it does not matter whether an individual is
belonging to a nuclear family or a joint family, if a person is perceiving an
increased amount of stress due to work from-for home, then she is likely
to face depressive tendencies.
Importantly, my analysis of the ANOVA test indicates that marital status
is playing a significant role in facing depressive tendencies. Further, there is
a significant interaction between work from-for home and marital status on
depressive tendencies. This means that whether a woman is married or
unmarried, plays a role in whether one can adjust in working from home
scenario. As per the data, unmarried women are better able to adjust in
working from the home scenario (M ¼ 23.85, SD ¼ 6.09) as compared to
married women (M ¼ 33.73, SD ¼ 2.54). Unmarried women are therefore
experiencing less depressive tendencies (M ¼ 2.99; SD ¼ 2.75) as compared
to married women (M ¼ 7.09, SD ¼ 1.25). These findings are consistent
with researches done on marital status (Akhouri et al., 2019).

Implications, limitations, and future suggestions

One of the major findings of the study is that most of the women included
in the sample are perceiving an increased amount of stress and depressive
tendencies due to working from-for home. Because the study has been
done on a nonclinical population of employed women, it is not a good
indication that women who earlier did not face any psychological problems
are now facing depressive tendencies due to work from-for home.
The practitioners should consider this and an extra step might be taken
to address employed women who are not aware of how the current scen-
ario is impacting them. Facing depressive tendencies is a terrible sign of
deterioration of mental health, which might worsen soon, if not addressed
on time.
Spreading awareness regarding the issue is important. The organizations
shall become aware of problems that women are facing, and the same goes
for the family members. It is important to sensitize people to create a sup-
portive environment where a woman is not doing everything alone.
332 V. BERI

One major limitation of the study is that it does not consider the male’s
perspective. Future researchers might try to analyze the impact of how
work from-for home is impacting married–unmarried gays or single fathers
who are working for their family as well as for their workplace. Another
limitation is that the age differences were not taken into consideration.
Future researchers can examine the effect on different age groups.

Conclusion
I did this study to analyze the mental health of nonclinical population of
employed women who are currently working from-for home amid covid-
19. The sample size of 203 responses depicted that there is a significant
and positive correlation between perceived stress and depressive tendencies.
Further, working from-for home significantly acts as a mediator between
the two variables. Moreover, there is no significant interaction between
family status and working from-for home on depressive tendencies.
However, there is a significant interaction between marital status and work-
ing from-for home on depressive tendencies. The implications, limitations,
and future suggestions are discussed in the end.

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank all the participants who gave their time to this research.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID
Vanshika Beri http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3683-8433

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Appendix
Work from-for home
1. My family members help me in carrying out household chores and that gives me time
to complete my official tasks.
2. Work from home gives me happiness and satisfaction since I can fulfil both my duties
at the same time.
3. My spouse equally contributes to all household duties.
4. I get help in looking after my child(ren).
5. All my energy is directed toward my household work (despite working from home)
and that makes me tired to perform my official work.
6. I feel that working at an office is better than working from home.
7. It is difficult for me to give enough time to my official work because of my household
responsibilities.
8. At times I feel like quitting my job because of the increasing workload at home.
9. My overall contribution to official tasks has deteriorated due to work from home