Parental Burnout and the COVID‐19 Pandemic: How Portuguese Parents Experienced Lockdown Measures

Abstract

Objective This work aimed to analyze parental burnout (PB) and establish a comparison between the times before (Wave 1) and during (Wave 2) the COVID‐19 pandemic. Background The COVID‐19 pandemic brought additional stress to families. The pandemic could be particularly difficult for parents experiencing parental burnout, a condition that involves four dimensions: an overwhelming sense of exhaustion, emotional distancing from the child, saturation or a loss of fulfillment with the parental role, and a sharp contrast between how parents used to be and how they see themselves now. Method A quasi‐longitudinal research design was adopted, comparing two cross‐sectional studies among Portuguese parents (N = 995), with an interval of 2 years between each wave of data collection. Participants were surveyed voluntarily through an online questionnaire located on the institutional web platform of the universities involved in the study. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to take into account the associations among variables, alongside controlling the possible confounding effects. Results Parents have overall higher parental burnout scores in Wave 2 than Wave 1, with increased exhaustion, emotional distancing, and contrast, but decreased saturation. Although parental burnout levels remain higher for mothers across the two Waves, the growth is greater for fathers than for mothers. Conclusion Reconciling childcare with paid work is a stressful and new experience for many fathers. However, results suggest that even amid a crisis, some parents had the opportunity to deeply bond with their children. Implications We expect this work to encourage stakeholders to consider proper intervention strategies to address potential parental burnout. Also, initiatives that strengthen gender equity within parenting context are needed.

Burnout in COVID-19 era - a literature review

“…Although men could objectively still do less than their female partners, they felt that the parental role was draining their emotional resources like never before. These findings may complement previous studies that have shown that fathers are more likely to experience burnout, even before the risks outweigh their resources, because they use up a lot of their resources in new situations [18,21,17].…”

“…Burnout in all these dimensions was higher in mothers than in fathers. Nevertheless, the level of exhaustion in mothers between waves was stable, whereas it increased significantly in fathers [18,19]. The reason may be that women are more involved in raising children and more likely to put children's needs before their own [20].…”

Colliding Identities During COVID-19: Identifying and Addressing the Challenges of Being an Academic Mother During a Global Pandemic

“…The implication of this for many mothers working in higher education, was that the obligation to support and teach their students suddenly sat alongside the need to teach their own children and support them as they navigated the impact of a global pandemic on their own lives. Inevitably, the slew of challenges that arose from the competing roles of both academic and parent while in the same house (or even sitting across the same table) did not allow for those previously crafted boundaries to remain in place, resulting in a decrease in the productivity of many academic women during this time (Brown et al, 2021) and an increase in parental burnout (Aguiar et al, 2021). This article reflects upon the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on gender disparity within working parents, and specifically in relation to obstacles faced by academic mothers during the pandemic, as they sought to reconcile two distinct identities as professional and parent, while traversing a range of barriers to productivity.…”

Burnout across boundaries: Can parental burnout directly or indirectly influence work outcomes?

“…This strain has been exacerbated by the additional caregiving demands placed upon parents during lockdown when many also provided home-schooling (Thorell et al, 2021). The effects of such a complex context have thus far provided mixed conclusions as to whether the dynamics between work and parenting have changed and, if so, for how long (Aguiar et al, 2021;Le Vigouroux et al, 2021). As the data reported in the current work were collected pre-pandemic, we therefore encourage great caution when attempting to apply our findings within context of the ongoing pandemic and encourage greater emphasis on longitudinal data collected during the pandemic to provide robust recommendations for supporting parents to help manage the many conflicting demands they continue to face.…”