Psychological Well-Being of Indian Mothers During the COVID-19 Pandemic
The Roles of Self-Compassion, Psychological Inflexibility, and Parenting Stress
Abstract
Abstract This study explored the associations among psychological well-being (PWB), self-compassion, psychological inflexibility (PI), and parenting stress (PS) in 242 urban Indian mothers of children 10 years old and younger in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Regression analysis revealed that greater self-compassion (SC), less PS, and greater psychological flexibility were associated with psychological well-being among the participants. Findings from this study contribute to research on maternal mental health by showing that, even in the context of the COVID-19 crisis, SC, PI, and PS are related to the PWB of urban Indian mothers, thus highlighting a need for evolving gender-based policies and emphasizing specific interventions for this vulnerable population.
Impact and Implications.
Findings of the current study revealed that psychological well-being (PWB) of Indian mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic was negatively related to parenting stress and psychological inflexibility, and positively related to self-compassion (SC). These findings provide a rationale for developing and disseminating compassion-based interventions and suggest additional ways to advance United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5, Gender Equality.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and sudden lockdown in March 2020, mothers have taken on countless responsibilities. Mothers' work includes engaging in multiple roles, as a parent, partner, employee, employer, sibling, caretaker/guardian, friend/peer, and teacher, and ensuring the smooth running of the household. With little or no support in the form of school, day care, nannies, grandparents, or domestic help, mothers are stressed and depleted of resources (Coyne et. al, 2020; Davenport et al., 2020). Parenting stress (PS), feelings of losing control, and daily challenges (Calarco et al., 2020; Janssen et al., 2020; Miller et al., 2020; Prime et al., 2020; Spinelli et al., 2020) have substantially increased during the pandemic (Chung, 2020; Cooney, 2020). In a study by Lee and Ward (2020), 50% of parents reported social isolation, 52% reported financial worries as obstacles to their parenting, and 61% reported yelling at their children at least once in the past 2 weeks, despite also extending warmth. These challenges can be even greater for mothers (Davenport et al., 2020; Pandey, 2020a). A study conducted in the United Kingdom revealed that mothers were interrupted over 50% more often than fathers while working from home (Andrew et al., 2020).
Like women around the world, Indian women engage in more unpaid care work than their male counterparts (Chauhan, 2020). A report from the International Labor Office by Charmes (2019) reported that prepandemic, urban Indian women spent a total of 312 min daily on unpaid care work compared to 29 min by men, whereas rural Indian women spent 291 min compared to 32 min by men. Moreover, recent statistics on time spent on overall paid and unpaid work by women in India was 536.6 min/d contrasted with an average of 442.3 min/d being spent by men (OECD, 2020). COVID-19 has deepened this inequality between mothers and fathers. Deshpande (2020a) reported that while the lockdown made both Indian men and women spend more hours on chores, women were largely still responsible for the major share of the household and childcare duties. With the disproportionate burden on mothers under the current pandemic and the added physical and emotional labor (Alon et al., 2020; Calarco et al., 2020; Craig, 2006; Deshpande, 2020a, 2020b; Power, 2020; United Nations [UN], 2020), there is a higher toll on mothers' mental health (Hamel & Salganicoff, 2020; Jungari, 2020).
Mothering in India is a multilayered process, dictated by a mother's family, faith, religion, customs, practices, superstitions, and sociocultural contexts (Pandey, 2010). Contrary to Western societies, Indian society is primarily a collectivist one where emphasis is placed on cohesion and family goals over individual goals (Avasthi, 2011; Triandis, 1993). Mothering is central to a woman's identity, placing her in a position of being revered by society (Oxfam India, 2020). Thus, Indian women's efforts and exhaustion may remain invisible (Pandey, 2020a; Sarkar, 2020). Gender role expectations in India push women toward “family roles,” leaving professionally employed mothers to experience higher levels of parental role-overload compared to their spouses (Aryee et al., 2005; Buddhapriya, 2009). Although there is a substantial rise in the number of Indian women joining the workforce, women participate in employment and decision-making much less than men (Komarraju, 1997; Rajadhakshya & Bhatnagar, 2000). Little has changed in the social narratives that construe mothers as the primary and preferred caregivers for children (Krishnaraj, 2010; Sinha, 2007).
A considerable number of Indian homes are not equipped with vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, or even washing machines, leaving much housework to be done manually (Buddhapriya, 2009; Pandey, 2020a). Being labor-intensive, those chores often get outsourced to hired domestic help, such as cleaners, cooks, and nannies, especially in urban areas. Those employees become an indispensable part of household functioning, above all for women in the formal labor sector living in nuclear family units (Basnet & Sandhya, 2020; Dickey, 2000). Consequently, the pandemic and lockdown resulted in many mothers having to manage without the presence of usual support structures (Deshpande, 2020a, 2020b; Hazarika & Das, 2020; Pandey, 2020a, 2020b). The pressures of never-ending tasks led to potential stress among mothers, raising concerns about how they have been coping with the new reality of COVID-19 (Chauhan, 2020; Deshpande, 2020a, 2020b; Jungari, 2020).
SC has been found to be an important factor in effective coping strategies (Neff, 2003b; Neff & Faso, 2015), especially when facing difficult life circumstances that are outside our control (Sirois et al., 2019), such as the COVID-19 pandemic. SC is compassion directed inwards. Neff (2003a; 2003b) operationalized SC as kindness to oneself, common humanity, and mindfulness. It is found to be important in mothering as it amplifies parental well-being (Sirois et al., 2019). Without SC, one may become irritable, experience fatigue, and suffer maternal guilt, all of which might hinder mothering capability (Bogels et al., 2010).
PWB emphasizes eudaimonic well-being, which is understood as the fulfillment of human potential and living a meaningful life (Ryff, 1989). PWB has been found to be consistently related to SC (Akin & Akin 2015; Beshai et al., 2017; Neff, 2011; Neff & Germer, 2017) and to promote resilience by buffering against and reducing the adverse effects of negative life events (MacBeth & Gumley, 2012; Sirois et al., 2015). In the context of the pandemic, however, the increased time families have been able to spend with each other has increased the feeling of positive bonding (Grover et al., 2020; Roshgadol, 2020) that may have contributed to positive well-being and partially counteracted the pandemic-related stress.
PS has been defined as an aversive psychological reaction resulting from a mismatch between perceived parenting demands and available parenting resources (Deater-Deckard, 1998; Rantanen et. al., 2015). PS in mothers is indicative of higher anxiety, lower well-being, less happiness, more fatigue, less time for oneself (Meier et al., 2018; Musick et al., 2016; Nelson-Coffey et al., 2019; Skreden et al., 2012), and parental burnout (Mousavi, 2020). Research has also shown that PS relates to dysfunctional parenting and negativity toward the child (Deater-Deckard, 2004) and PS may lead to maternal anxiety and ineffective parenting strategies (Grant et al., 2012).
Psychological inflexibility (PI), defined as the “rigid dominance of psychological reactions over chosen values and contingencies in guiding action” (Bond et al., 2011, p. 678), may occur when people attempt to get rid of unwanted thoughts and feelings. Because it results in increased distress, PI is seen as a maladaptive psychological state (Calvo et al., 2020). In contrast, a psychologically flexible coping style has been found to be related to several aspects of psychological health (Butler & Ciarrochi, 2007).
SC was positively associated with life satisfaction, hope, and goal re-engagement (Neff & Faso, 2014). It was also found to be positively associated with well-being and psychological flexibility, and negatively associated with parental stress (Marshall & Brockman, 2016; Neff & Faso, 2014; Sirois et al., 2019).
Urban Indian mothers are juggling multiple responsibilities including household work, childcare, and care for other family members, while often maintaining a full-fledged professional career. The current study aims to study the association among PWB, SC, PI, and PS in Indian mothers with children 10 years old and younger. It was hypothesized that SC, PI, and PS would be predictors of PWB. Furthermore, we hypothesized that SC, PI, and PS would predict a larger proportion of unique variance compared to sociodemographic factors.
Method
Participants
This study consisted of 242 urban Indian mothers with children 10 years and younger, who had completed their higher secondary education, living in India during COVID-19. All had completed higher secondary education. They were recruited through a snowball sampling method. The study received ethical clearance from the Institute Review Board of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
Procedure
Given the restrictions of mobility in India during COVID-19, quantitative data were collected through an online survey, which included a brief sociodemographic profile followed by four scales measuring SC, PWB, PI, and PS. The web link to the survey was shared widely to Indian mothers through social media such as Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
Measures
The study used the following self-report measures to explore the psychological constructs.
The Self-Compassion Scale-Short Form (SCS-SF; Raes et al., 2011) was used to measure SC. The scale consists of 12 statements divided over six subscales corresponding to six components of SC like “When something painful happens I try to take a balanced view of the situation.” The total score on this scale ranges from 12 to 60. SCS-SF has demonstrated a near-perfect correlation with the long form of SCS (r ≥ .097; Raes et al., 2011). The Cronbach's α for the current study was .79 indicating adequate internal consistency.
PWB was measured using the Psychological Well-Being Scale–Short (Ryff, 1989), the short form of the 42-item scale. It consists of 18 items like “The demands of everyday life often get me down.” It measures six aspects of well-being and happiness. The total score on this scale ranges between 18 and 126. Cronbach's α was .81 indicating good internal consistency.
To measure PS, the Parental Stress Scale (Berry & Jones, 1995) was used. It consists of 18 items like “Caring for my child(ren) sometimes takes more time and energy than I have to give” that measure that assesses positive and negative components of parenthood. The total score for this scale ranges between 18 and 90. Cronbach's α of .79 indicated adequate internal consistency.
PI was measured using the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (Bond et al., 2011) to assess PI. It consisted of 7 items like “I worry about not being able to control my worries and feelings” with the total score ranging from 7 to 49. Cronbach's α of .91 indicated excellent internal consistency.
Analytical Plan
The quantitative data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 25. To examine the intercorrelation between different variables that were continuous but not normally distributed, bootstrapping was done followed by Pearson's correlation. This was followed by hierarchical regression analyses that were used to examine the extent to which SC, PI, and PS were associated with PWB in mothers. Age, education, and employment status were entered in Step 1, and psychological variables were entered in Step 2. To facilitate the regression analysis further, the categories for education and employment were coded using dummy variables.
Results
The sample consisted of 242 Indian mothers with the age range of 26–47 years (M = 35.50, SD = 4.25). Their sociodemographic details are provided in Table 1.
The Shapiro–Wilk test for normality revealed that the data from all four scales were not normally distributed. Thus, the data were transformed using the bootstrapping method to enable the usage of Pearson's correlations. It was found that SC had a positive moderate association, while PI and PS had a negative moderate association with PWB (see Table 2).
The first hierarchical regression model examined the unique contribution of sociodemographic characteristics, age, education, and employment status on PWB. Overall, the two-step model (including both sociodemographic characteristics and psychological variables) accounted for 46.6% of the variance in PWB (see Table 3).
Discussion
The experience of mothering is largely associated with the trope of femininity and gender (Arendell, 2000). In Indian society, women are pushed toward family roles over professional roles (Aryee et al., 2005; Buddhapriya, 2009), and mothering is intrinsically tied to a woman's identity (Oxfam India, 2020). Urban Indian mothers during the COVID-19 experienced higher levels of stress while working for home and from home due to the increase in unpaid care work, household chores, and sometimes professional engagements, without much support in place (Basnet & Sandhya, 2020; Deshpande, 2020a, 2020b; Hazarika & Das, 2020; Pandey, 2020a, 2020b; Sarkar, 2020).
Of the mothers in this study, 70% were professionally employed in some capacity or engaged in advanced studies while 30% were homemakers. However, although employed, Indian mothers continue to be the preferred and primary caregivers for their children (Krishnaraj, 2010). Despite research about parental attitudes (Jambunathan & Counselman, 2002), work–family balance and conflict (Buddhapriya, 2009; Munn & Chaudhuri, 2016), nutrition education (Agarwal & Udipi, 1989), and postpartum depression (Goyal et al., 2015) among Indian mothers, there is limited information on the experiences of urban Indian mothers in the context of PWB, SC, PI, and PS.
The results indicated that the psychological variables, SC, PI, and PS, accounted for 46.8% of the variance in PWB. In line with the existing literature, mothers were found to be high on SC if they were high on PWB (Akin & Akin 2015; Beshai et al., 2017; Neff, 2011; Neff & Germer, 2017). It is possible that those mothers who were accepting of their own situation and limitations, thereby being compassionate to themselves, allowed themselves more space to grow and experienced greater resiliency. Conversely, those who experienced higher feelings of well-being were able to better manage parenting challenges and consequently gave themselves more time and care (Bogels et al., 2010; MacBeth & Gumley, 2012; Sirois et al., 2015).
The current study found PI and PS to be inversely related to PWB. This finding was consistent with the existing literature (Calvo et al., 2020; Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010; Leary et al., 2007). PI is seen as a maladaptive psychological state (Calvo et al., 2020). It is also possible that lack of support, inequality of gender norms, high societal expectations of motherhood, and increased workload due to the pandemic contributed to PS in mothers (Calarco et al., 2020; Deshpande, 2020b; Meier et al., 2018; Mousavi, 2020; Musick et al., 2016; Nelson-Coffey et al., 2019; Pandey, 2020a). PS when associated with dysfunctional parenting and potential negativity directed toward the child (Deater-Deckard, 2004) may also be a factor in decreasing overall PWB (Calarco et al., 2020; Janssen et al., 2020; Miller et al., 2020; Prime et al., 2020; Spinelli et al., 2020).
Other factors potentially influencing these findings may include the buffering effects of increased time with partners, family, and children leading to improved relationships and greater bonding, increasing positive moods and feelings of well-being (Grover et al., 2020; Roshgadol, 2020). Moreover, stronger interpersonal relationships may develop when people realize the merit in reconnecting with their families (Calarco et al., 2020; Foster, 2020; Grover et al., 2020). Despite these positive protective factors, the pandemic has still seen a rise in feelings of loneliness, sadness, fear, anxiety, depression, stress, and parental burnout (Calarco et al., 2020; Grover et al., 2020; Mousavi, 2020). It is also possible that due to the pandemic, for some families, there was a shift toward realignment of traditional gender roles and norms, where many fathers took on active parenting and homeschooling duties and easing some of the burdens that mothers otherwise experienced (Alon et al., 2020; Deshpande, 2020b; Power, 2020).
Limitations
The sample of largely educated mothers from Indian urban cities limits the applicability of our findings in clinical and community samples. The study was available to those mothers who had access to smartphones or computers to fill out the survey form. The participants were not representative of all Indian mothers across the country. However, this methodology was the most practical approach given the COVID-19–related movement restrictions in the country.
Implications and Future Research
The findings of this study add to the limited empirical evidence on mothering experiences in India. Moreover, a qualitative enquiry aimed at delving into the lived experiences of these mothers could help identify factors contributing to SC, PI, PWB, and PS and further explore their coping strategies, information that could aid in developing effective interventions to improve maternal mental health and well-being. Thus, interventions for mothers need to look at SC, PI, and PS as important components contributing to overall well-being. As India is a culturally vibrant and diverse country, it is also crucial to extend this study to community and rural populations where caste and class differences are more prevalent.
The results also highlight the need to establish and enforce stronger policies around recognizing and appreciating unpaid care and domestic work in keeping with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 (UN, 2016). Gender inequality in India persists despite high rates of economic growth (UNDP, 2020). India has policies in place to improve the child sex ratio through protection of the girl child and free education for girls (Ministry of Women & Child Development, Government of India, 2015). However, there are no schemes or policies aimed at gender equality in the workplace or in the home. These may be enacted through psychoeducation and advocacy around a realignment of traditional gender roles and norms, by encouraging shared responsibilities within the family units, and through the development of appropriate infrastructure, social protection policies, and delivery of public services.
Conclusion
The current study explored the roles of SC, PI, and PS on PWB of urban Indian mothers with children of 10 years and below. The findings indicated that SC, PI, and PS were associated with PWB in Indian mothers.
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