Resilient during pandemic, home-based women workers' recovery far from over

The national lockdown and series of movement restrictions meant that supply chains were hit and demand for their labour dried up, which led to job losses and erratic wages, experts and studies said

Separated by more than 1,400 km, Shabnam Sheikh from Mumbai and Rupa Devi from New Delhi are unaware of each other's existence. Sheikh's job is to make ripped markings on 'distress jeans' while Devi strings together artificial garlands at home for a living.

Both Sheikh and Devi are home-based informal workers, who carry out paid work from their home or outside of the employer's workplace, and are near the bottom of India's labour chain. Livelihood for home-based workers was already precarious due to low wages (both earned less than Rs 100 a day) and poor access to social security, and the