Covid'19 has had a significant impact on the daily lives and work of women across the globe. The pandemic-induced lockdown forced women belonging to all strata of society to spend an unprecedented amount of time with their patriarchal heteronormative families, which have imposed differential expectations upon the different genders especially in terms of work since time immemorial. The blurring of paid work and domestic responsibilities during the lockdown accelerated these expectations which in turn caused psycho-social distress in women. In this context, with educational institutions closed, female students found themselves confined within their homes and overwhelmed with domestic duties such as helping other women in the family, taking care of their siblings or elders and so on. Additionally, these students, who were about to enter the labour market, immersed themselves in internships in the hope of being “productive”. As a result, these women, who were simultaneously coping with academic pressure and social isolation caused by the pandemic, experienced psychosocial distress, including anxiety and depression. The added burden led to a disruption of their daily routine. This research, employing in-depth-interviews, delves deeper into how in subtle ways familial expectations inform the performance of paid and unpaid work by middle-class Bengali female students (in the age group 18-22) in the context of the Covid'19 pandemic and how these expectations result in psycho-social distress in these young women. Furthermore, to understand the distinctiveness of the expectations faced by these women, the paper incorporates a comparison between the experience of work of these female students with that of their siblings (both male and female) and mothers. The study is a contribution to anthropology as it deals with the intersections of culture, gendered work, education, and family dynamics and their impact on the mental health of young unmarried women in a “new normal” society.
