Coping with the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Plight of Urban Slum Dwellers in Kolkata, India

We analysed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on slum dwellers in Kolkata, West Bengal, using a primary questionnaire-based survey and time use survey of the head of the household and his or her spouse from 252 households, with a total of 504 respondents. The unconditional quantile regression analysis shows that the monthly household income didn't change significantly during the pre- and post-COVID-19 periods even though there was a slight decrease in the income of male slum dwellers in the post-pandemic period. Second, women's full-time and part-time employment increased in the post COVID-19 period compared to the pre-COVID-19 era, because women who had not worked prior to the pandemic joined the labour force to maintain their monthly household income. We also conceptualized the "Me-Time" concept, which is the sum of time spent on leisure and sleeping. We used a 70% percent median me-time in the sample data as a threshold for the time poverty line during the post-COVID-19 period. Our findings show that me-time is 48 minutes and 88 minutes less, respectively, for fully employed or partially employed women, compared to their male counterparts. The number of children under 10 years significantly reduces an individual me-time across all employment status subgroups. We also used a time poverty threshold based on the committed time of the respondents, where the threshold is defined as 1.5 times the median committed time in the sample. We observe that 25% of fully employed women are time poor, compared to only 8.3% of fully employed men.