Work from home during the Covid pandemic has its benefits but it has also put working women under a “triple burden”, said President Ram Nath Kovind. In a letter to young Indians published in the Manorama Yearbook 2022, he said women already have the double burden of paid work and “unpaid work”, that is, domestic responsibilities.

“On top of that, as children attend school from home, their learning has to be supplemented by the parents, and that task usually falls on the mother,” Kovind wrote in the letter, titled “Arise, The Future Beckons”. “The new stress on family time should be welcome for male employees, so that they can share some of the responsibilities of their partners. In any case, studies show that hard work in itself can be even counterproductive and as the number of hours spent on work goes up, productivity comes down in some instances,” he wrote.