Dual‐earner parent couples’ work and care during COVID‐19

Abstract

COVID‐19 and the associated lockdowns meant many working parents were faced with doing paid work and family care at home simultaneously. To investigate how they managed, this paper draws a subsample of parents in dual earner couples (n=1,536) from a national survey of 2,722 Australian men and women conducted during lockdown in May 2020. It asked how much time respondents spent in paid and unpaid labour, including both active and supervisory care, and about their satisfaction with work‐family balance and how their partner shared the load. Overall, paid work time was slightly lower, and unpaid work time was very much higher, during lockdown than before it. These time changes were most for mothers, but gender gaps somewhat narrowed because the relative increase in childcare was higher for fathers. More mothers than fathers were dissatisfied with their work‐family balance and partner's share before COVID‐19. For some the pandemic improved satisfaction levels, but for most they became worse. Again, some gender differences narrowed, mainly because more fathers also felt negatively during lockdown than they had before.

COVID-19 Life Events Spill-Over on Family Functioning and Adolescent Adjustment

“…Families may rally around parents in frontline jobs and such parents may especially value family support and their relationships with children as they face the daily realities of the pandemic at work. Thus, although such care providers clearly have experienced signi cant stress and demands in their work that impact them in other ways (Craig & Churchill, 2020), for some these experiences may bring their family closer or at least protect against pandemic-related decrements in family functioning during this time.…”

“…As one key example of a broad pandemic stressor, families around the world report being affected by quarantine and mandatory social distancing (Brooks et al, 2020). These quarantine practices result in challenges to work-family balance through less support for parents from employers and spouses Craig & Churchill, 2020), unemployment (Brown et al, 2020), online schooling demands (Segre et al, 2020), and increased caregiver burden (Russell et al, 2020;Patrick et al, 2020). Although quarantine may entail spending more time at home with family, Ammar et al (2020) found that family members in Asia, Africa, and Europe reported feeling more socially isolated as a result of fewer opportunities to visit with family outside of the home as well as friends and neighbors during quarantine.…”

“…In addition, recent scholarship has investigated the ways in which certain types of pandemic stressors are impacting family and individual functioning. Craig and Churchill (2020) found that the quarantine period was associated with increased burden in household labor and that Australian mothers and fathers reported a greater dissatisfaction with how that labor was divided during the pandemic. Moreover, Chung, Chan et al (2020) found that Singaporean couples with strong support from spouses and employers experienced less martial and parental stress during the pandemic and, in turn, better work-family balance was associated with lower parenting stress and decreased marital con ict.…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic and associated public and governmental responses have led to rapid and at times drastic changes in the life of the family (e.g., Craig & Churchill, 2020;Gambin et al, 2020). Although some of these changes result in stressors that challenge family functioning (Chung, Chan et al, 2020;Fontanesi et al, 2020) others may offer opportunities to preserve or even bolster family functioning in the face of the pandemic (Orgilés et al, 2020).…”

“…Although some of these changes result in stressors that challenge family functioning (Chung, Chan et al, 2020;Fontanesi et al, 2020) others may offer opportunities to preserve or even bolster family functioning in the face of the pandemic (Orgilés et al, 2020). Emerging research from around the world documents the impact of the COVID-19 and previous epidemics/pandemics on families in terms of economic and resource loss, work-related stress, isolation and separation, illness and exposure concerns, caregiving burdens, and schooling needs for children (Ammar et al, 2020;Brooks et al, 2020;Brown et al,, 2020;Craig & Churchill, 2020;Del Boca et al, 2020;Garcia de Avila et al, 2020;Hawryluck et al, 2004;Orgilés et al, 2020;Saurabh & Ranjan, 2020;Segre et al, 2020). Evidence that these stressors impact the mental and physical health of both parents and children is growing (Brown et al, 2020;DelBoca;Origlés et al, 2020;Patrick et al, 2020;Saurabh;Segre et al, 2020;Xie et al, 2020).…”