The Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Intra-household Interactions in India

B Devi Prasad, A Eswara Rao, Sumati Thusoo, Vedika Inamdar

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic brought the institution of family and intra-household interactions during the lockdowns into focus. Apart from speculative essays and social media content, there is a dearth of empirical data on the interactions within families globally. To understand the impact of the stay-at-home diktat, this paper examined survey data (N = 388) on these broad domains: intra-household interactions, including interpersonal communication, work from home, leisure time, use of digital media, and overall subjective well-being. Our findings reveal increased food consumption and relationship-centred conversations among the sample households, followed by an increase in women’s responsibilities in the context of work from home. Elderly respondents, as compared to youth, and those from multigenerational households reported better well-being.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent lockdowns imposed worldwide forced people to be confined to their homes (Dunford et al 2020). This forced isolation provided an opportunity to examine the interrelationships between the economy, people’s livelihoods, climate change, globalisation, international migration, travel, and the lock- down’s impact on interactions within the household (Banzie 2020; Denworth 2020). The unprecedented lockdown has brought the institution of family into greater focus everywhere (Economist 2020a).

Middle-class families who occupy a privileged social space, with a roof over their heads and a reasonably secure income, were confined to their homes due to the threat posed by COVID-19, especially in developing countries like India. Given the uniqueness and historical importance of such a lockdown, it is of great sociological interest to explore the impact of the stay-at-home diktat on intra-household dynamics in the Indian context. For this reason, an online survey was conducted to understand the impact of the lockdown on four broad domains within intra-household interactions, including interpersonal communications and work from home (WFH), leisure time use, digital media consumption, and subjective well-being (SWB).

COVID-19 and India

On 31 December 2019, China reported a new virus to the World Health Organization, which later became known as the COVID-19. In a bid to stop the transmission of the virus, several countries, including India, implemented lockdown measures and other restrictions (Dunford et al 2020; University of Oxford 2020). Compared to the earlier pandemics or wars, the worldwide lockdown due to COVID-19 is an unprecedented phenomenon in human history. For instance, in previous pandemics, such as the Spanish (Swine) flu pandemic of 1918–19 that resulted in 50 million deaths, of which around 18 to 20 million deaths oc- curred in India alone, there was no such lockdown imposed (Hays 2005; Sekher 2021). With few and far cases between January and March 2020, the Government of India ordered a 21-day nationwide lockdown on 24 March 2020, which was extended first to 3 May and subsequently to 17 May, making it a 55-day long quarantine period. The easing of lockdown measures began in phases from 1 June 2020 onwards (Shakil and Vikram 2020).

During the initial stages of the lockdown, most of India’s 1.3 billion residents were pushed into home isolation. The country came to a grinding halt with the closure of non-essential services, public transportation, offices, and markets. The lockdown and the subsequent closing down of schools, colleges, and work- places resulted in many young people moving back with their parents and grandparents, leading to multigenerational house- holds under one roof (Huang 2020). India also witnessed such a phenomenon (Krishnankutty 2020; Kumar et al 2020).

We wish to add two caveats here. First, the survey for this study was conducted during the first lockdown between March and May 2020 when life was not as turgid and uncertain in India as after the devastating COVID-19 second wave starting February 2021. When the first lockdown was announced, India was at the threshold of the pandemic, with 500 infections and 10 deaths recorded (Shakil and Vikram 2020). Second, as dif- ferent sections of society were impacted differently due to the lockdown, the narratives of families and their experiences of lockdown were dependent on their social location and eco- nomic status, varying between the rich and poor, town and vil- lage, and of course, from one nation to another. The focus of this study is the impact of the lockdown on the interactions within urban middle-class households, as they were accessible for an online survey. In this study, we focus on four domains of intra-household interactions during the lockdown.

There were several narratives of how the interactions within families during the prolonged forced quarantine were looked at as opportunities to strengthen family bonds (Nanda 2020) with parents, grandparents, children, siblings, extended relatives, and even with pets in the house (Hordinski 2020; Krishnankutty 2020; Moore et al 2020). The restrictions on mobility and the fear of contagion significantly affected food habits and eating out, resulting in food cooked at home, eating meals together, and a sharp spike in the internet traffic for searches relating to cooking during the lockdown (Koeze and Popper 2020; Mittra 2020; Economist 2020b). There were also references about multigenerational living and the sharing of childcare and de- pendents by other family members (Huang 2020; Times of India 2020). Besides giving people space for contemplation, the isola- tion made them nostalgic too (Campoamor 2020; Nixey 2020).

Several articles focused on the inescapable shifting of work from factories and offices to the home as the pandemic pro- gressed. This shift had its implications on family time, the divi- sion of work at home, and (bereft of domestic help) the increased burden on women, especially with dependents around, thus reinforcing the gendered image of housework (Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities [CCSA] 2020; Desh- pande 2020; John 2020; Joy 2020). Schools, colleges, corpora- tions, and even governments were left with no option but to accept that the incumbents learn or WFH (Economist 2020a; Thompson 2020; Usborne 2020). Studies have also highlight- ed the importance of parental burnout due to the lockdown and related financial insecurity, unemployment or precarious work conditions, low levels of support from family or friends, and a lack of leisure time (Griffith 2020).

During the lockdown, gyms, parks, and walk tracks were closed, which led to a spike in the purchase of bicycles in India and worldwide (Sarkar 2020). Social media became an essential tool for the state and private sports enterprises to inspire people

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to participate in physical activity with powerful and inspirational images using sports role models (Hayes 2020). Reading, catching up with a long-forgotten hobby or a friend over a phone call, and contemplating COVID-19’s lessons to humanity were some other topics (Banzie 2020; Pinsker 2020; Srinivasan 2020). The lock- down also reconstituted everyday geographies of social institu- tions and relationships for children. This reconstitution was cap- tured in the varied narratives of leisure and the creative ways in which children and parents adapted to the quarantine (Mukher- jee 2020; United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2020). A national survey in Canada found that children were less active outdoors and engaged more in recreational screen-based activities during the lockdown period. The survey also found that households with pets had higher physical activity and increased outdoor time (Moore et al 2020).

In addition to other factors, the lockdown invariably increased people’s digital consumption. Stuck at home, with outdoor life almost completely shut off, a majority shifted to digital devices— computers, tablets, or smartphones—for work, learning, and connecting. The use of print and digital media, and telephone/ video call conversations to connect with the outside world, and the traffic on Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, and TikTok increased during the quarantine period compared to the pre-quarantine period (Koeze and Popper 2020; Economist 2020b). An online survey in India showed that the use of cell phones and comput- ers among office workers and students increased significantly during the lockdown (Majumdar et al 2020). Surprisingly, the much-criticised realm of social media and smartphones be- came the most extensive support to avoid isolation-related anxiety, thus partly countering the debates over the adverse effects of screen time (Kamenetz 2020; Vargo et al 2021).

There have been mixed outcomes of the lockdown on the well-being of people, depending on their social and economic background (Brooks et al 2020; Srivastava 2020). Financial loss, potential layoffs, and the fear of getting infected were reasons cited for the increase in depression and mental health issues (Carey 2020; Davis 2020; Wan 2020). A survey in India found that home confinement, physical inactivity, lack of academic schedules, and stress led to an increase in screen-time associated with escaping the isolation and anxi- ety induced by the lockdown (Majumdar et al 2020). A panel survey conducted in Great Britain to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people and households reported that the youth and women experienced comparatively lower levels of well-being during the lockdown (Office for National Statistics 2020).

Data and Methods

The specific objectives of this paper are: (i) to study the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on household interactions, interpersonal communications, use of leisure time, and SWB of sample re- spondents from different households; (ii) to examine the dif- ferences in the digital consumption of respondents before and during the lockdown periods; and (iii) to assess the possible impact of the first lockdown on sample households, including wherever possible to households in general.

ce interaction, only an online survey was possible. As it is an exploratory study, a purposive sampling method was followed. We collected email IDs and WhatsApp numbers from willing individuals. The link of the Google form was sent with a request to the respondent (one per household) to fill in the form, provided they were 18 years and older at the time of the survey. Persons residing in certain institutional, non-family situations, such as prisons, hospitals, hotels, hostels, guest houses, and public quar- antine facilities, were excluded. Respondents were informed that participation in the survey was voluntary. To understand the structure of sample households under the study, the following operational definitions were used. Respondents were asked to choose from the following household types into which they fit in: (i) elementary—comprising a wife, husband, and unmarried children staying under one roof; (ii) joint—an undivided household of two or more generations staying together under one roof and eating food from the same kitchen (can be collat- eral or linear joint households); (iii) extended—it extends beyond the nuclear/elementary household with one or more extended relative(s) (such as an unmarried sibling, aunt, uncle, cousin, or grandparent[s] staying with a couple with unmar- ried children) living in the same household; (iv) staying alone as a single individual, either unmarried, widowed, or divorced; (v) live-in couple, including heterosexual partners staying under one roof (even for the period of lockdown); and (vi) others, which could include one or two members who are part of either an elementary or joint/extended households but stuck elsewhere with another household due to the lockdown (Verma 1986).

The online questionnaire covered the respondents’ demo- graphic profile and household composition, aspects of SWB, and issues that closely reflect the overall well-being of indi- viduals during the lockdown. We used the measure of SWB proposed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD 2013: 253) to capture respondents’ well-being during the lockdown. The six core questions were slightly modified after a pre-test to capture the issues under study.

The scoring and reporting of the SWB measure is based on three overall life evaluation questions that focus on how people felt during the lockdown and three short affect questions intended to capture the respondent’s positive and negative affect state on the previous day. An 11-point scale was used (0–10) to measure the outcome of each question. The information on responses to individual questions (Numbers 1–4) was presented as the mean value of responses. For questions one to three, the higher the score, the more relaxed, satisfied, and worthwhile respondents were feeling about their respective lives. Similarly, for ques- tion four, higher scores represented being happy for a greater part of the day. As for questions five (worried) and six (depressed), which showed a strong positive correlation (r=0.69), a composite index (the mean of the two scores for each individual) was calculated to indicate the negative affect index of the re- spondent. For the purpose of reporting, the use of the mean score as a summary statistic of SWB was considered valid. Given the 11-point scale, a mean score of five and above was considered a threshold value to represent a desirable level of

well-being. Similarly, a mean score below five represents the negative affect index score, and a lower score represents a low- er negative feeling experienced by the respondent.

Profile of the Sample

Of the 388 respondents distributed between 25 states and union territories of India, about half were from Andhra Pradesh (20.1%), Maharashtra (17.3%), and Telangana (12.6%). The next big representation was from Uttar Pradesh (7.7%), Delhi (7.2%), and Karnataka (7.2%), followed by Madhya Pradesh (4.1%), West Bengal (3.9%), and Gujarat (3.4%). Bihar, Jharkhand, and Tamil Nadu had 2.1% respondents each, followed by Assam (1.8%), Rajasthan (1.5%), Kerala (1.3%), and Haryana (1%). Himachal Pradesh and Punjab had a share of 0.8% of respondents each, whereas Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha, Puducherry, and Uttarakhand had 0.5% each. Goa and Meghalaya had one respondent (0.3%) each. A summary of the profile of sample respondents given in Table 1 shows that nearly half of the study sample were women (53%) who were younger (age=34.8 years) than the men in the sample (age=41.4 years), with half of them being single. Less than 10% of our sample respondents were older than 60 years. The respondents were well educated, comprising around 53% postgraduate and 30% professionals, such as doctors, engineers, bankers, social workers, and journalists. About 40% reported working in the private sector, followed by around 20% in the government sector. The data further reveals that more than half of the respondents (54%) lived in elementary households, and close to 32% of families had more than two generations in their household, indicating the presence of grandparents and/or grandchildren in their households. Those staying alone (10.8%) happened to be primarily young employees and others stuck away from their families because of the lockdown. Approxi- mately, 66% of the respondents in the age group of 20–40 years were found to be staying in slightly larger households of four or more members (mean=4.2, SD=2.3). However, few report- ed staying in households of more than 10 members. About 26% of the respondents fell in the 40–60 years group with a smaller average household size (mean = 4.1, SD = 2.2). Those who were 61 years and above (8%) reported residing in much smaller households. On the whole, it can be construed that a consider- able percentage of the younger and productive age group was living in larger and multigenerational households.

Our sample is also diverse based on how severe COVID-19 was in respondents’ place of residence. Of the total respondents, 51% and 28% reported residing in red and orange zones, respectively, followed by 16% in green zones, with 5% not sure under which zone their place of residence fell.1 However, only three respond- ents reported ever having contracted COVID-19 in our sample. Around 37% had never been tested. A quarter of the total sample consisted of families from which at least one or more members went out to work on all days during the lockdown. Of these 95 members, 12% were healthcare workers, such as doctors and sanitation workers followed by 11% families with members from essential services, such as power and water supply, press, and banking, and 2.5% from the police/law enforcement categories.

Intra-household Interactions

The interactions mostly revolved around food, conversations, looking after children and other dependents, and WFH.

Food: The quarantine pushed people to become food-focused. Almost 97% reported cooking food at home. About 90% of the respondents expressed that food prepared at home was better than the food ordered from outside, and 80% felt that eating meals together more frequently during lockdown led to better bonding with each other.2 As can be seen from Figure 1, around 41% of the women respondents and almost the same percent of men confirmed that women prepared food in the house. However, in the response “both spouses about the same,” more men (24%) claimed that they partook in prepar- ing food than women had concurred with. The differences in perception could be due to men’s lack of familiarity with the various tasks associated with cooking and other domestic chores. Because of the differential perception about work– family roles, women also tend to perceive men’s involvement in household chores as low compared to men’s perception of their own involvement.

Interpersonal communication: Three forms of conversations were ascertained by asking respondents about “who spoke to whom?” “who made you laugh and whom you made to laugh?” and “with whom you had instances of conflict during the last month?” The data (Figure 2) revealed that two forms of communication, speaking to others and making others laugh, showed an increase during the lockdown. Parents mostly spoke to children, followed by children to parents, with mothers speaking to children topping the list (that is, 58.3%). The frequency of husband speaking to wife and wife to husband (51% and 47%, respectively) came in the middle of these two conversational trends. The incidence of conversations between grandchildren and grandparents was reported significantly (between 22.2% and 20.9%). The least hike (11.9% and 13.7% for father and mother, respectively) reported in the proportion of the two com- munication patterns was between parents and grandparents.

Only a quarter of the total sample respondents reported interpersonal conflict. An increase in tiffs between husband with wife (27.3%) and wife with husband (25%) was reported followed by mother with children (18.3%). The instances of conflict between grandparents and grandchildren, and parents and grandparents were very few. Next, the respondents were asked to mention who in the family was most challenging to deal with during the lockdown period. A majority of respond- ents (58%) stated that three relatives—the father and the mother, followed by the son in that order—featured in the list. Around 13% identified themselves as the most challenging person to deal with within their households.

Care: The COVID-19 lockdown led to a situation where all the household members stayed under one roof for an extended period. Around 8.3% and 13.1% of women reported that they looked after and disciplined the children, respec- tively. In comparison, only 1% and 5% of men were involved in the two respective functions during the stay-at-home period, respectively. Besides the spouses, other extended family members, including grandparents, were reported to be in- volved in these two functions considerably (Figure 3). In the absence of domestic help and the closure of schools, day- care programmes for children, and workplaces, domestic chores, cooking, childcare, and care of other dependents fell on the family and, in the context of the prevailing gender norms, on women. The sharing of the responsibility of child- rearing between spouses shows a discrepancy between what men claimed regarding sharing the two roles and what women accepted that their husbands were sharing, poten- tially due to a differential perception of their shared house- hold responsibilities.

Work from home: The work scenario during the lockdown was still fluid as not many had moved into the WFH mode. However, we asked four questions relating to the interface of WFH with other household interactions (Table 2). Around half (52.1%) of the respondents opined that if WFH became the new norm, women were most likely to be burdened with housework. A majority (62.1%) also felt that household activi- ties constantly interfered with WFH, though it did not affect the care of the elderly at home.

Gains and losses to households: Next, we asked respond-

ents—in two separate open-ended questions—to mention the potential gains and possible losses, if any, that households in general experienced during the lockdown. Regarding gains to households, 41% of the total sample said they did not see any gains during the lockdown. The rest of the respond- ents (n=230) came up with a list of six maximum gains to the households in the order of their frequency, namely to- getherness with family and elders (38%), improved commu- nication between members of the family (21%), eating healthy home-cooked food (6%), spending on essentials only (4%), reconnecting with relatives and friends (3%), and pro- tection from the virus (2%). About 39% of the total sample reported that there were no losses to households because of the lockdown. The remaining respondents (n = 238) came up with a list of losses, of which the top six categories, in the or- der of their frequency, were loss of income (37%), loss of live- lihood/job (15%), feeling cooped up (11%), lack of face-to- face interactions with relatives and friends (11%), a sense of insecurity about future (11%), and inability to attend impor- tant family events, medical, funerals, and other emergencies (9%). In brief, the substantial gains were togetherness and improved communication between members of the house- holds, whereas the deepest worries were about the loss of income and livelihoods.

Use of leisure time: Respondents were asked to mention three leisure activities that they have engaged in mostly on their own and with their families during the lockdown. A leisure activity is defined as an activity taken up to relax and sometimes to learn a skill or acquire information. Individual and family leisure ac- tivities were reported by 365 and 339 respondents, respectively. Watching television/movies figured as the most engaged pastime alone (37.3%) and with family (41.3%), followed by 38.6% play- ing games—online, offline, indoor, and outdoor with family members. Lastly, 37% mentioned that they enjoyed cooking and eating meals with family members. At the individual level, in contrast, 31.2% of the respondents reported reading fictional, historical, religious, and spiritual books, and 29.6% engaged in hobbies such as gardening, singing, crafts, listening to music, dancing, painting, sketching, embroidery, browsing through old photos, photography, and doodling, in that order.

Digital consumption: Stuck at home during the lockdown, the respondents spent more time online, connecting, learning, and working remotely. The respondents were presented with a list of communication media to rank their preference from first as the most preferred to third as the least preferred with regard to the suggested list. The weighted mean ranks were calculated for each medium based on the responses of the total respondents: telephone calls (156.7), WhatsApp, and video calls (154.7 and 125.7), in that order, were reported as the most preferred mediums to connect with relatives, friends, and colleagues during the lockdown. Next in line were Facebook (69.5) and email (63.3), and the least preferred mediums were short messaging service (59.5) and Instagram (54.3). If these preferences are combined with the use of the mobile phone, playing online games, watching Netflix or YouTube, attending online classes and webinars, it can be construed that respondents spent a big chunk of their time online during the self-isolation period.

Subjective well-being: We assessed the well-being using ques- tions sourced from the OECD’s (2013) modules to measure SWB. Table 3 provides the means and standard deviations (SDs) of the well-being scores by sex, age, and type of household. Our results show a positive correlation between age and well-being, with younger respondents having reported less relaxed and more worried. However, a further break-up of the data (not shown here) revealed that women presented lower levels of well-being throughout, which remained unchanged even though we con- trolled for the age of the respondent and type of household.

Did the type of household make any difference in their well-being? This question assumes importance as around 32% of the respondents reported living in joint/extended house- holds with parents, grandparents, and relatives during the lockdown period. As far as the effect of the type of household is concerned, respondents from joint households reported consistently being
(mean = 6.3, SD = 2.6), and happy (mean = 4.8, SD = 3.0). Next, a little more than half (54%) were residing in elementary households. Almost all of them reported keeping in touch with their parents and siblings staying elsewhere through phone and video calls. However, those staying alone during the lock- downs were found to be less relaxed and more worried than those from elementary and multigenerational households.

Discussion

We report the results of an exploratory study to understand the nature of interactions in urban middle-class households during the first 55-day nationwide lockdown enforced in India. As the study sample is purposive, the results pertain to sample households only. The sample is skewed towards southern, western, and northern regions and comprises young (mean = 38 years), salaried, and urban respondents with mostly post- graduate and professional qualifications. More than half (54%) and 32% of the total respondents are from elementary and multigenerational households, respectively.

To begin with, the pandemic brought about changes in the complex meaning of home in most work-driven urban metro- politan households, from a space to sleep to a place of collective engagement with activities related to work, leisure, schooling, parenting, housework, and religion (Lee et al 2020). Watching films, playing games, cooking food at home, and eating meals together were the most significant preoccupations for most re- spondents, either on their own or with family members during the lockdown. People became food-focused and a majority of the respondents extolled the virtues of home-cooked food and eating together. Our next area of focus was interpersonal com- munication, both positive and negative. With regard to positive communication, we found that conversations and pleasant inter- actions showed a sharp increase during the lockdown. Parents spoke more frequently to children and children to parents, followed by conversations between spouses. Though grandpar- ents and grandchildren exchanged conversations and humour, the older generation, that is, parents and grandparents did not speak or exchange pleasantries as much. On negative communcation, only a quarter of the total sample respondents reported an increase in interpersonal conflict, a high proportion between respond- ents and their spouses. However, when it came to who was the most difficult person to deal with in the family during the lockdown, it was the father and the mother of the respondent. The younger gen- eration that reached home be- cause of the lockdown found their parents, especially their father, perhaps difficult to deal with. This may not signify outright con- flict but probably is indicative of a generation gap.

The other theme that emerged is the family’s strengths as a unit of support in crisis and an acknowledgement of the importance of multigenerational bonds. A look at childcare, elderly care, interface between work and domestic responsi- bilities, and household gains during the lockdown highlight- ed the importance of togetherness, understanding, sharing, and caring. Whether they are insecure about their job or fu- ture or grateful that they are back home, both categories of respondents were with their families during the lockdown to wade through the difficult times. Most of them acknowl- edged the help of family members in child-rearing, house- work, and cooking. Some reconciled their differences, and some deepened their bonds with family members.

The present paper’s findings show that even though fewer than a quarter of sample respondents mentioned sharing domestic responsibilities equally between spouses, the cooking of food, looking after children, and other chores came to be borne mostly by women rather than by men. Around half of all respondents also expressed that in case of a shift to a WFH sce- nario, women might still have to bear substantial household responsibilities. However, if a large chunk of office work can be carried out remotely, as is the case during the lockdown, it will bring about—as Toffler (1980: 221) predicted—an “elec- tronic expanded family” into existence where a more equita- ble division of responsibilities can be negotiated out of sheer necessity. Deshpande’s (2020) observation about a decrease in the gap between the average number of hours spent on domestic work by men and women due to the shift in the dis- tribution of men’s work hours in the first month of the lock- down indicates the possibility that such adjustment can happen in the future.

With an increase in leisure time and a reduction in leisure op- portunities, the lockdown enabled people to generate makeshift leisure activities, as with elsewhere in the world (Bond et al 2020). Apart from cooking, the other frequent activities reported were conversations, telling children stories, and playing games with them, both elaborate and participatory. This helped mem- bers bond and improved their interpersonal communication, similar to the findings in the paper by Moore et al (2020). Beyond the pandemic clichés of watching films and series on digital plat- forms such as Netflix, trying new recipes, or playing board games, people also became more inward-looking and nostalgic (a sense of longing for memories) during these trying times as noted in Cam- poamor (2020) and Nixey (2020). As the temporal distinction be- tween leisure and work spaces, and the public and private were significantly removed, the home became a blended space of lei- sure and labour during the lockdowns (Easterbrook-Smith 2020).

Digital consumption dominated the respondents’ lives during the lockdown to connect with the outside world through work, play, and schooling from home. What might have taken years to change in terms of the use of the internet and online presence, for both the young and old, the lockdown has changed in two months although at varying levels. With digital supersaturation, the ubiquity of mobile (smart) phone use was indicated by the study respondents in three words: “be on mobile.” As Greenfield (2017) observed, for many of us, smartphones are the last thing we look at before going to sleep each night and the first thing we reach for upon waking. Though Gergen (2002) argued that too much screen time and online presence eroded the depth of face-to-face relationships by erasing the physical presence of individuals, thus creating an “absent presence” situation during

the lockdown, nevertheless served an essential function of bringing people together. However, with the sinister agenda of social media giants to profit from the infinite tracking and manipulation of our behaviours to serve their commercial and political purposes, one can only imagine how the quantum of data fed to social media by us during the lockdown will be used (Orlowski 2020).

The last theme highlighted in the paper was the lock- down’s impact on the well-being of respondents. Contrary to the emphasis on the stressful impact of lockdown on people’s mental health (Carey 2020; McGinty et al 2020; Trad et al 2020; Wan 2020), the levels of the overall well-being of sample respondents were well on the positive side. Respondents reported being relaxed, satisfied, happy, and less worried. We observed that older respondents, compared to younger respondents, and those from multigenerational households reported better well-being. However, women, as compared to men, consistently expressed lower levels of well-being during the lockdown.

Conclusions

As we begin adjusting to the new normal, marked by a re- shaped economy, politics, and family life (Harari 2020; Leon- hardt 2020; Scudellari 2020), it is difficult to imagine which changes brought about by the pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns will stay and which will fade based on the findings of the present paper alone. Much water has flown under the bridge since the time of the paper in the sense that the pan- demic, especially the second wave of COVID-19 starting Febru- ary 2021, has taken many lives, wreaking havoc with econo- mies worldwide, with no end in sight. While the virus seems to enter and exit intermittently, every subsequent wave is leaving its footprints, the sad stories of losing close relatives without being able to conduct or attend last rites, incomplete emotional closures, wiped out livelihoods, and social stigma are now slowly getting repeated in our midst (Yuan 2020; Zhong and Wang 2020). The changes brought about during the lockdown in shifting office and school spaces to home-based spaces, the way we use the internet and digital devices to negotiate our lives, and consumer preferences, including food, travel, and other commodities, will stay, though not in the same manner.

This article was first published on EPW Engage on April 16, 2022