More women wear masks than men, study finds

As the third wave of COVID-19 has led to the upsurge of positive cases, it is hard to spot people wearing masks in some cities. About 50 per cent of people in Chandigarh, Raipur, and Kolkata are not masked up, as opposed to Mumbai, where 78 per cent of people are wearing masks, according to a survey by Digital India Foundation (DIF), a think-tank working on digital inclusion.

After Mumbai, Hyderabad has the highest proportion of fully masked at 45 per cent and Shimla and Kolkata at 40 per cent. In contrast, Raipur has 60 per cent population not wearing any masks, followed by Chandigarh at 52 per cent.

About 48 per cent of the population in Delhi are unmasked. Seven out of 11 cities surveyed have more than 50 per cent of the people not wearing a mask. 

DIF has conducted an observational mask adherence study across 11 cities in India (Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Jammu, Delhi, Guwahati, Raipur, Chandigarh, Shimla, Chennai and Pune)to determine mask adherence levels.


With most cities recording an increase of up to 30 per cent in active COVID-19 cases every day, World Health Organization suggests that face masks can substantially slow transmission. 

Masks could only work if adopted widely, but the disparity within states wearing masks is noteworthy.

The study shows that mask use is higher in women than in men in all 11 cities, and a higher proportion of men do not wear masks than women.

About 47 per cent of women in Delhi wear masks, compared to 31 per cent of men. In Kolkata, 45 per cent of women and 36 per cent of men wore masks. Mumbai has 47 per cent women wear masks, and 31 per cent women. A similar pattern is observed in all cities.

However, in Chennai, more women did not wear a mask than those who did. In Chandigarh, most women (49 per cent) did not wear a mask and 38 per cent of women did. 

The survey also finds many fine-grained local differences. 

There are also variations in the kind of masks worn. N95 masks, which are suggested as the most potent against virus transmission, have low uptake in all 11 cities. Washable cloth masks are the most popular, the survey data show.

In Delhi, only four per cent of people wear N95 masks. In comparison, 73 per cent used cloth masks, and 23 per cent used surgical masks. In Mumbai, out of the fully masked, 13.6 per cent used N95; in Chennai 22 per cent, Chandigarh 21 per cent, Hyderabad 22 per cent, Jammu 19 per cent, Shimla 28 per cent and in Raipur 33 per cent wore N95 masks.