Livelihood Transitions of Women Workers During COVID-19: The Case of Domestic Workers in Dhaka

COVID-19 posed an impossible trade-off between lives and livelihoods across the world, especially for economically vulnerable people with limited or no fallback option. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 55% of the world’s population do not have any form of social protection. Most informal workers in the Global South are in this group—they are generally poor, have weak or no social protection, and have had to cope with the crisis on their own. For these workers, their livelihoods are their lives. Domestic workers form one of the most vulnerable informal occupational groups in Bangladesh. Estimates of the number of domestic workers in Bangladesh vary between two and four million, but it is generally agreed that the majority of them are women. The entire sector belongs to the informal economy and hence outside the purview of the country’s labour legislation.