The Changes in the Daily Activities Cycle of Women Informal Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Vulnerability and Resilience

This article is based on research discussing the daily activities cycle of women that work in the informal sector during the Pandemic of COVID-19 in Yogyakarta. The research method is qualitative, followed by gender perspective, to affirm the narrative based on women’s experiences and gender analysis. On one side, economic recession due to the Pandemic of COVID-19 has increased the vulnerability of women in the informal sector because their income depends on daily economic activity. On the other side, the implementation of social distancing has increased women’s workload at home. However, culturally, women’s works in private sectors such as care works, and mothering tend to be normalized. Economic activity is associated with men’s jobs as breadwinners, and it is limited on public space. Therefore, women seem not productive economically even though they have endless works (at home). This article does not only explore one single aspect of women’s double burdens. But it is also to discuss how women’s identical activity with care works has been dis­connected from the economic cycle chain itself. Meanwhile, living in the time of pandemic COVID-19 shows that women’s works become the vital pillar of resilience in handling crisis, whether in health and economy.