Job loss in women-centric sectors, family care & more: Why young female workers were worst hit by Covid 

Women were disproportionately affected, accounting for 38.9 per cent of total employment before the Covid-19 crisis but making up 47.6 per cent of employment losses in 2020, the report underlined.

Commercial activities might be limping back to normalcy but the scars of Covid on the Indian economy will take time to heal. However, it is also true that the coronavirus-induced job crisis since the onset of 2020 had impacted differently across age groups and genders, with women, especially the younger ones, bearing maximum brunt of the bloodbath.

While the overall employment-to-population ratio fell 1.6 per cent between January and March 2020, it fell 5.6 per cent for younger women (15-24 years), showed the latest report by the International Labour Organization. The ratio plunged 1.5 per cent for adult women, 3.7 per cent for younger men and 1.7 per cent for adult men. The comparison is done with reference to the same duration in the pre-Covid year 2019. Even till April-June quarter of the current year, the trend remained the same.