COVID-19 and the Housework Gender Division: Traditional or New Gender Patterns?

Abstract

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the gender dimension of its more visible socio-economic impacts has been the topic of study by several researchers. The current paper takes this further by focusing on the invisible chores done in the families at home. This paper studies how people’s behavior towards housework changed during and after the confinement period in Spain. We analyze whether people did more housework during the lockdown period than before it, the way this housework was distributed between women and men, and whether this has changed since the end of lockdown. The empirical analyses point to a new trend in the housework gender gap: differences between men and women have narrowed since the lockdown, although women continue to bear most of the responsibility.

Nurses’ Work–Family Strategies during COVID-19 Lockdown and Their Association with Individual Health and Family Relations

“…Other family members, such as grandparents, and outside helpers, also took on more family responsibilities during the lockdown period [29,38]. Nevertheless, women still took on the main responsibilities and performed more childcare and housework than men [7][8][9][10][11][12][39][40][41]. In particular, nurses struggled to balance both their work and family roles, which became a major barrier for them to participate in the work of healthcare during the pandemic [13][14][15].…”

“…The division of childcare labor during normal work hours. Following Shockley et al [4], we measured the division of childcare during the lockdown period with 12 options: (1) performing all childcare during work hours; (2) performing most of the childcare except occasional relief; (3) alternating working days with spouse; (4) staggering shift work (e.g., the husband works at night and the wife takes care of the children); ( 5) having mini-shifts throughout day while both are remote; (6) both working remotely, alternating childcare with spouse based on meeting commitments; (7) only providing occasional childcare relief; (8) full outsourcing; (9) performing all childcare when it is not outsourced; (10) performing none of the childcare when it is not outsourced; (11) performing none of the childcare; and (12) other division, please specify. The responses to option 12 were further coded and merged into the previous options.…”

“…Work-family management strategies are often highly gendered, with women taking on more childcare responsibilities and men focusing on their jobs [5,6]. Although the division moved toward more gender equality during the pandemic of COVID-19 due to the remote work status of both genders, women still performed more childcare and housework than men [7][8][9][10][11][12]. The situation was more challenging for female health workers, particularly nurses.…”