A gendered pandemic: Childcare, homeschooling, and parents' employment during COVID‐19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically affected employment, particularly for mothers. Many believe that the loss of childcare and homeschooling requirements are key contributors to this trend, but previous work has been unable to test these hypotheses due to data limitations.This study uses novel data from 989 partnered, US parents to empirically examine whether the loss of childcare and new homeschooling demands are associated with employment outcomes early in the pandemic. We also consider whether the division of childcare prior to the pandemic is associated with parents' employment. For parents with young children, the loss of full-time childcare was associated with an increased risk of unemployment for mothers but not fathers. Yet, father involvement in childcare substantially buffered against negative employment outcomes for mothers of young children. For parents with school-age children, participation in homeschooling was associated with adverse employment outcomes for mothers but not fathers. Overall, this study provides empirical support for the current discourse on gender differences in employment during the pandemic and also highlights the role fathers can play in buffering against reduced labor force participation among mothers.

The gendered pandemic: The implications of COVID‐19 for work and family

“…Mothers' labor force participation was less affected in states that offered hybrid or in‐person instruction (Collins et al., 2021). These patterns highlight how additional responsibilities associated with online schooling particularly impacted mothers' employment and align with a non‐representative study of about 1000 U.S. parents, which found that women were more likely than men to drop out of the labor force, if they were responsible for creating all or some of the school content (Petts et al., 2021).…”

“…Additionally, given that men infrequently drop out of the labor market for childcare reasons (Livingston, 2018), childcare facilities and schools provide critical institutional support that enables women's working abilities (Ruppanner, Moller, & Sayer, 2019). The COVID‐19 pandemic and its associated mitigation measures, however, brought wide‐spread disruptions to childcare and schooling arrangements, affecting millions of parents and their paid and unpaid labor (Collins et al., 2021; Patrick et al., 2020; Petts et al., 2021). 2…”

“…As a result, the pandemic triggered unprecedented mass layoffs, caused unemployment rates to skyrocket, and at the same time, dramatically increased telecommuting (Bloom, 2020; Dias et al., 2020; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021a). Along with drastic changes in people's work lives, the pandemic also intensified demand for care work at home, particularly for parents with young or school‐aged children amidst daycare/school closures (Calarco et al., 2020; Carlson et al., 2020; Collins et al., 2021; Heggeness, 2020; Petts et al., 2021). Increased care demands compelled some parents to make significant adjustments to their paid and unpaid work routines (Collins et al., 2021; Petts et al., 2021).…”

Unpaid Work and Care During COVID-19: Subjective Experiences of Same-Sex Couples and Single Mothers in Australia

“…The unprecedented disruptions created an unusual opportunity, akin to a natural experiment, to see how an external shock that upended usual employment practices affected paid and unpaid work. Around the world, early findings showed that the restrictions not only created much more household labor and care, but also that men were doing more of this unpaid work alongside women (Carlson, Petts, and Pepin 2020;Sevilla and Smith 2020). This was also the case in Australia Churchill 2020a, 2020b).…”

Covid-19: emerging needs for unemployed and economically inactive individuals

“…) and, on a personal basis, separation/isolation from family (ONS, 2020). Separation and isolation create significant challenges for family life, with increasing inequality and poverty (Power, 2020;Van Lancker & Nieuwenhuis, 2020), domestic violence (Sharma & Borah, 2020), and reduced labour force participation (Petts et al, 2021). These challenges can significantly affect economic stability, which is heightened as individuals experience unemployment and economic inactivity.…”