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CAS Luncheon Series
Thursday, October 10 at 12:30pm
Denison Arts & Sciences Building, room 146

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in increased carework burdens for women around the world. In Indonesia, many low-income women needed to work for pay during the pandemic, but they were also primary caregivers for children and other family members. What can we learn about gender and social change from examining their experiences?

This work-in-progress paper explores how Iow-income Indonesian women managed during the pandemic and afterwards. First, many women fell back on their religious faith, expressing how they simply “surrendered to God,” and hoped that God would help them to stay alive. Second, some women gained a stronger sense of financial independence during this time, motivated by the need to support their families, sometimes becoming the family breadwinner. Finally, many women creatively found new ways to earn income or adjust work practices and routines, some of which have continued past the pandemic.  

As these strategies reveal, low-income women stayed in the labor force during the pandemic. Their narratives make clear that they faced especially weighty burdens. Women often emphasized their lack of choice in this situation, yet their taking on even greater responsibilities in a time of crisis demonstrates their resilience and adaptability. 

Feminist scholars have long viewed women’s ability to earn income as significant for their autonomy and empowerment. During the pandemic and continuing afterwards, low-income Indonesian women stepped up their income-earning but remained primarily responsible for the domestic sphere. 

The case of Indonesia suggests that women’s adaptability and resilience does not necessarily challenge deeply embedded gender norms or social structures, particularly with respect to care work. There is little institutional childcare in Indonesia and women have long combined paid work with unpaid caregiving. Thus, while women are increasingly important as income earners in Indonesia and the Global South more broadly, it may take more than income to challenge longstanding gendered inequalities. 

Rachel Rinaldo is a cultural sociologist interested in gender, globalization, social change, religion, and qualitative methods, with a special focus on the developing world and Muslim societies in Southeast Asia. She has conducted fieldwork in Indonesia since 2002. Her first book, Mobilizing Piety: Islam and Feminism in Indonesia (Oxford 2013) is an ethnographic study of Muslim and secular women activists in the country with the world's largest Muslim population. Her current research projects include a study of marriage and divorce in urbanizing Java, a study of how global and transnational processes are influencing the emergence of contemporary art in Southeast Asia, and a study of gender and family dynamics in the COVID-19 pandemic in the US.