The lockdown initiated to curb the COVID-19 pandemic brought all aspects of our lives to an abrupt halt. Students are no longer in schools or colleges, employees are being retrenched or asked to work from home, and shops selling non-essential commodities are closed. We are witnessing drastic transformations, particularly in the worlds of education, work, and business. Such paradigm shifts are largely technology-enabled. Does this signify that the future is digital? Are these shifts temporary or is this the dawn of the post-COVID world? How will this digital revolution remodel our ways of working? What will be its impact on our social interactions and relationships?
To begin with, there is an increasing push for online education. From toddlers in metropolitan private English-medium schools learning phonetics online to university students forced to appear for WhatsApp examinations, virtual learning is becoming the new normal.[[i]] However, in a diverse country such as ours, inequalities of access are a pressing constraint. Problems of irregular power supply and poor internet connectivity are a lived reality in rural areas as well as urban slums. Moreover, the teacher-student relationship is not a mere patron-client contract for the exchange of syllabi, question banks, and grades. A teacher is also a mentor who has a key role in shaping the future of students. In an online 40-minute session, how would the teacher be able to sense that student C is not convinced of what was just explained, or that Q has been depressed due to conflicts in her family? In contrast with the classroom which must be an equalizing space, the online chatroom is a highly divisive and hierarchizing space that erects many walls of separation between the teacher and the learner, as well as among learners themselves.
How will our worlds of work be reshaped? There are several possibilities, each more bizarre than the other. In the formal sector, work from home might be here to stay. For instance, Facebook and Google [[ii]] have already extended work from home until the end of the year, while Twitter [[iii]] has gone a step ahead and asked employees to permanently work from home if they wish. However, for women, the idea of a workspace can be that of an emancipating space, which pushes her outside the four, confining walls of the household. WFH regimes, much like home-based work in the unorganized sector, can be inherently exploitative. It can restrict the mobility of women, allowing them no personal space and time. They would be torn amidst their double, even overlapping shifts of office work as well as of domestic duties (unpaid care work) to which men usually do not contribute.[[iv]]
Besides, manufacturing activities in the informal sector might also undergo a shift from labour-intensive to capital-intensive techniques. Manufacturing giants might escalate automation, which might be labour-displacing and result in the massive retrenchment of workers. We might see the much-hyped AI-driven Industrial Revolution 4.0 unravel sooner than expected. In India, with the unemployment rates hovering around 23.5% [[v]] for May 2020, the lockdown has driven more than one in every four people jobless. More than 90% of India’s workforce is informal and enjoys no social insurance or legal protection. In the world’s largest instance of reverse migration, it is estimated that at least 23 million migrant workers will return to their home states.[[vi]] Will they be able to find adequate livelihood opportunities there? Will they have the choice of never returning to cities in search of work? The push for digital cannot deal with such humanitarian crises arising from state apathy and other structural failures.
The future of services is certainly digital. E-commerce, food delivery services, and the app-based gig economy might see an upsurge in demand. But what about other services which require care-giving? As tele-counselling is being encouraged instead of visiting a doctor for mild ailments, the doctor is reduced to a mere prescription-provider. How can she/he be a healer? BPOs and call centres will continue to thrive in the wake of the increased telephonic (impersonal) conversations with clients, and so will the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing anti-depressants and other drugs necessitated by the ‘night shift’.
More importantly, the pandemic is going to significantly transform our social interactions. Every person out there – the other – is now a potential virus carrier. One will have to think a million times before hugging or shaking hands with an old friend who has come from a containment zone. We might not be able to recognize an old neighbour because of his mask. We might never allow outsiders inside our gated communities, lest they let the virus in. Reunions might now only take place over Zoom. We might suffer from anxiety attacks if we are unable to find the sanitizer bottle inside our bag. Fearful and suspicious, we might never be our relaxed and jovial selves in a social setting again. A virtual meeting embellished with a Goffmanian [[vii]] performance would be preferable to face-to-face interaction. We might never savour the sheer ecstasy of meeting again.
Technology is being hailed as the panacea for the problems that have emerged as a result of the pandemic. While our classrooms have shifted to virtual spaces, our worlds of work are undergoing dramatic transitions which might have serious repercussions for the future of jobs, more so for those in insecure and precarious employment. As life without gadgets becomes unimaginable, we might feel connected with the entire world and yet grow distant from our dear ones under the same roof as us. While the switch to digital might help us address our immediate priorities, there might be too many dangers of adopting it as the new normal.
[i] Sharma, K. (2020, April 16). This Bihar University is conducting exams from tomorrow – on WhatsApp. The Print. Retrieved from https://theprint.in/india/education/this-bihar-university-is-conducting-exams-from-tomorrow-on-whatsapp/403197/ on 9th January 2020.
[ii] Facebook and Google extend working from home to end of the year (2020, May 8). BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52570714, on 9th January 2020.
[iii] Paul, K. (2020, May 12). Twitter announces employees will be allowed to work from home ‘forever’. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/12/twitter-coronavirus-covid19-work-from-home, on 9th January 2020.
[iv] Ferrant, G., Pesando, L.M., & Novacka, K. (2014, December). Unpaid Care Work: The missing link in the analysis of gender gaps in labour outcomes. OECD Development Centre.
[v] Vyas, M. (2020, June 2). 21 million jobs added in May. Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. Retrieved from https://www.cmie.com/kommon/bin/sr.php?kall=warticle&dt=2020-06-02%2011:43:41&msec=800, on 9th January 2020.
[vi] Kundu, S. (2020, May 25). At least 23 million migrants are returning to India’s villages. Can the rural economy keep up? Scroll.in. Retrieved from https://scroll.in/article/962804/at-least-23-million-migrants-are-returning-to-indias-villages-can-the-rural-economy-keep-up, on 9th January 2020.
[vii] Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday.
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Aishwarya Bhuta is pursuing her MA in Development and Labour Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, (JNU), New Delhi.