Impact of Covid-19 on people and Work from Home

This pandemic has affected family life around the world. As a result of lockdown individuals are already experiencing significant revenue and job losses. The ability to ‘Work from Home’ (WFH) can help damp down the impact of the situation, undoubtedly. Overall, the effects of WFH arrangements rely a lot on the job status of parents and presence of dependents (children & elderly), and this current situation is likely to intensify these differences. It does not necessarily mean, however, that the effect of the crisis should inevitably be gender neutral. Working women have been particularly affected. It seems to be very fascinating to work from home, while sitting on a comfortable couch, casually dressed, even sometimes in sleep suits, without stepping out in scorching heat and wasting time in traveling, but this may not be a preferred situation for everybody, especially women. The most significant impact on working women during the crisis will be trying to balance household demands, childcare needs and work demands. The group most likely to be hardest hit then would be lower income families with young children, and single mothers in particular. Generally women are in charge of planning, organizing and recalling of everything that needs to be remembered. The mental stress and load that comes with such work has risen exponentially in present circumstances. Even though many countries are relied on lockdown to control widespread of COVID-19 pandemic, the mental problems such as depression, anxiety, insomnia, suicidal thoughts and other psychological trauma are most common in case of normal individual and extensive in case of people who are psychologically ill. Females are more prone to psychological distress. The main concern is to manage and provide opportunities for regulation of stress caused due to anxiety and lack of peer contact. Another main threat is an increased risk of parents to develop mental illness, women may also suffer from domestic violence and consequently it results child maltreatment. The current scenario may be particularly challenging especially for children and adolescents with special needs or disadvantages, such as disabilities, also if someone has prior trauma experiences, undiagnosed mental health problems, background of migration and low socioeconomic status.

Impact of National Elections on Stock and Commodity Market of Pakistan 1997-2013

This study aims to explore the impact of national elections on stock and commodity market of Pakistan for the sample period of 1997 to 2013. Four national elections were held during the sampled period. The impact of these four national elections on stock market and the latest two national elections on commodity market are analyzed. The later are restricted to national election 2008 and 2013 due to establishment of Pakistan mercantile exchange in 2007. The stock and commodity returns that is average abnormal return (AABR) and cumulative average abnormal return (CAABR) are computed for a time window of 41 days that is 20 days prior, Election Day, and 20 days after the election. The returns of 120 days before the proposed time window are taken as a benchmark. The results indicate both positive and negative abnormal return in the proposed time frame for both average abnormal return and cumulative average abnormal return by employing market model and market model adjusted for GARCH. Similarly, the cumulative average abnormal returns are tested for different time span and results show abnormal return for all the national elections both for stock and commodity markets. The results indicate that both Karachi stock exchange and Pakistan mercantile exchange exhibit inefficient behavior around these national elections.