COVID-19 and Agency of Women Construction Workers in Chennai: A Sociological Study

The construction sector in India was adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This led to a re-examination of the rights of women construction workers, as the government’s support measures were largely limited to provisioning cash benefit transfers for registered workers. In this article, the authors explore how women respond to the exacerbated vulnerabilities of COVID-19 through strategies of agency in the absence of state interventions for women workers’ welfare at work and at home social systems during the pandemic. This qualitative multi-method study is based on field observations and semi-structured interviews with women construction workers at construction work sites in Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu, during October–November 2020 and June–July 2021. Women workers exercise agency in a gendered construction sector through their everyday practices of negotiation of workplace relationships, wages and solidarities. Substantial improvements in work participation and social security in the sector require mainstreaming gender and enhancing structural empowerment measures for women construction workers in Tamil Nadu.