‘The children, the family, the household, and myself, these made the quarantine up for me, and I was really happy with it’ – positive evaluations of the first COVID-19 lockdown among middle-class Hungarian mothers
“…In-depth qualitative data also permit an exploration of mothers' personal narratives and sense-making efforts amidst the crisis. Our data support Çoban's (2022) conclusion that despite the weight of reproductive tasks mothers were compelled to shoulder, many were satisfied with how they and their spouses dealt with and shared the latter (Somogyi et al, 2022). In our sample, many respondents were unhappy with how authorities had tackled the pandemic or how teachers had adapted their courses to an online format, but despite the imbalance between husbands' and wives' involvement in care tasks, almost no expectations that partners should put greater effort into care provision were identified.…”
Section: Discussionsupporting
confidence: 86%
“…This also served as a means of compensating for the permanent lack of time and rush before the pandemic. The lockdown was seen as a period of “slowing down” and for offering family members more dedicated care (we have described in detail the conditions under which the lockdown became fulfilling for some in another paper; see Somogyi et al., 2022). Mothers often reported the positive impact of family time on toddlers' development.It means a lot that now we are also together in the mornings, that we eat all our meals together, during which time we talk.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 97%
“…This also served as a means of compensating for the permanent lack of time and rush before the pandemic. The lockdown was seen as a period of "slowing down" and for offering family members more dedicated care (we have described in detail the conditions under which the lockdown became fulfilling for some in another paper; see Somogyi et al, 2022).…”
The first lockdown, conferred upon us by the COVID‐19 outbreak in March 2020, created a unique, 3‐month‐long, laboratory‐like situation that made gender relations and women's work especially relevant for social research. Full‐time employed parents who switched to working from home were in a unique position to renegotiate the division of housework, childcare, or the management of school‐related tasks. This paper explores what happened to the gendered division of unpaid work and what factors explain the (failed) renegotiation between full‐time working parents. To explore this issue, we interviewed 52 Hungarian‐speaking mothers in two countries, Hungary and Romania, who were living in heterosexual dual‐earner families with children under the age of 14, and who were working full‐time. Results show that, despite the unusual situation, the usual pattern of the division of unpaid work was sustained by most parents. Even though they were unhappy and sometimes overwhelmed with their workload, most mothers did not mind the division of care duties. Research findings deliver evidence that mothers' lack of willingness and ability to renegotiate the division of unpaid labor in the household was determined both from “inside” and “outside” households. The gendered nature of care work and intensive parenting and mothers' position in the labor market, including the flexibility of their employment, are two sets of mutually interwoven factors that contributed to women's lack of willingness to challenge the unequal division of reproductive work.
“…In-depth qualitative data also permit an exploration of mothers' personal narratives and sense-making efforts amidst the crisis. Our data support Çoban's (2022) conclusion that despite the weight of reproductive tasks mothers were compelled to shoulder, many were satisfied with how they and their spouses dealt with and shared the latter (Somogyi et al, 2022). In our sample, many respondents were unhappy with how authorities had tackled the pandemic or how teachers had adapted their courses to an online format, but despite the imbalance between husbands' and wives' involvement in care tasks, almost no expectations that partners should put greater effort into care provision were identified.…”
Section: Discussionsupporting
confidence: 86%
“…This also served as a means of compensating for the permanent lack of time and rush before the pandemic. The lockdown was seen as a period of “slowing down” and for offering family members more dedicated care (we have described in detail the conditions under which the lockdown became fulfilling for some in another paper; see Somogyi et al., 2022). Mothers often reported the positive impact of family time on toddlers' development.It means a lot that now we are also together in the mornings, that we eat all our meals together, during which time we talk.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 97%
“…This also served as a means of compensating for the permanent lack of time and rush before the pandemic. The lockdown was seen as a period of "slowing down" and for offering family members more dedicated care (we have described in detail the conditions under which the lockdown became fulfilling for some in another paper; see Somogyi et al, 2022).…”
The first lockdown, conferred upon us by the COVID‐19 outbreak in March 2020, created a unique, 3‐month‐long, laboratory‐like situation that made gender relations and women's work especially relevant for social research. Full‐time employed parents who switched to working from home were in a unique position to renegotiate the division of housework, childcare, or the management of school‐related tasks. This paper explores what happened to the gendered division of unpaid work and what factors explain the (failed) renegotiation between full‐time working parents. To explore this issue, we interviewed 52 Hungarian‐speaking mothers in two countries, Hungary and Romania, who were living in heterosexual dual‐earner families with children under the age of 14, and who were working full‐time. Results show that, despite the unusual situation, the usual pattern of the division of unpaid work was sustained by most parents. Even though they were unhappy and sometimes overwhelmed with their workload, most mothers did not mind the division of care duties. Research findings deliver evidence that mothers' lack of willingness and ability to renegotiate the division of unpaid labor in the household was determined both from “inside” and “outside” households. The gendered nature of care work and intensive parenting and mothers' position in the labor market, including the flexibility of their employment, are two sets of mutually interwoven factors that contributed to women's lack of willingness to challenge the unequal division of reproductive work.
“…However, several studies also noticed positive evaluations of lockdown experiences (Abrefa Busia et al, 2022;Krajewski et al, 2021). Somogyi et al (2022) showed how middle-class Hungarian mothers evaluated the experiences of the first lockdown overall positively; the authors explained this by a specific context of refamilialisation and the spread of intensive motherhood ideals, in which the mothers welcomed the lockdown as a situation in which they could comply with the time-consuming intensive and neoliberal mothering expectations. Beck (1992) conceptualised risk as a socially constructed phenomenon.…”
Section: Covid-19 Pandemic and The Social Contradiction Of Capitalismmentioning
Using an intersectional approach, we explore how parents in the Czech Republic coped with the increased demands of childcare and how their perceptions of childcare changed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on Nancy Fraser’s theory of the social contradiction of capitalism, we address the question of whether the pandemic situation can be viewed as an opportunity to increase recognition of care. Qualitative interviews with parents from various socioeconomic backgrounds conducted from spring 2020 to summer 2021 demonstrate ambivalent experiences of care during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first school closure in spring 2020 was perceived as a rather positive interruption to everyday affairs. As the pandemic became protracted, the long-term negative effects of care under lockdown arose, especially among mothers, which included weakening labour market position, deteriorating economic situation, and growing dependence on a male breadwinner or social welfare. Our research shows the temporality of the COVID-19 care crisis. In the first stage of the pandemic, care was (also) assessed as an opportunity, a source of purpose, and a new value. In the next period, the experiences and expectations were rather negative. Over time, gender inequality at home increased as women took on most of the increased care burden and the social inequalities deepened, with some using their resources to compensate for the risks associated with the care crisis and others facing further exhaustion and income losses. Overall, parental care did not win greater societal recognition during the pandemic.
“…Fodor és szerzőtársai például az otthoni munkamegosztás változásaival kapcsolatban azt találták, hogy az első hullám lezárásai alatt a hirtelen megnövekedett igényeknek megfelelően a férfiak és a nők hozzájárulása a gyermekgondozási fe-ladatokhoz átlagosan nagyjából ugyanolyan mértékben emelkedett -ám mivel a nők már a járványt megelőzően is jóval több időt töltöttek ezekkel a feladatokkal, mint a férfiak, így a nemek szerinti gyermekgondozási szakadék (childcare gender gap) a járvány alatt csak tovább nőtt (Fodor et al 2021: 97). Hasonló eredményekre jutott az az interjús kutatás is, mely azt vizsgálta, hogy a home office üzemmódba kényszerült anyák hogyan élték meg a Covid19 első hulláma idején a lezárásokat Magyarországon és Romániában (Somogyi et al 2022). A megkérdezettek arról számoltak be, hogy a figyelmük elsődlegesen az otthoni feladatok elvégzésére, a gyermeknevelésre és a gyerekek otthoni tanítására összpontosult, háttérbe szorítva a fizetett munkát.…”
Section: Magyar Empirikus Vizsgálatok: a Covid19 Hatása A Családok éL...unclassified
Ebben a kutatásban arra kerestük a választ, hogy a Covid19-világjárvány hogyan hatott a reprodukciós döntésekre Magyarországon. A kérdés megválaszolásához félig strukturált interjúkat készítettünk 2020 őszén 18 és 45 év közötti gyermektelen vagy egygyermekes férfiakkal és nőkkel. Az eredmények azt mutatják, hogy a világjárvány leginkább az egészségügyi ellátórendszerre nehezedő terhek által hatott a reprodukciós döntésekre. Különösen a gyermekes interjúalanyok fogalmazták meg azon aggodalmukat, hogy a pandémia alatt az egészségügyi rendszer nem alkalmas a terhességgondozás és a szülés megfelelő minőségű biztosítására. Emellett a társadalmi távolságtartás következményei is fontos szerepet kaphattak a reprodukciós döntésekben. Ha az anyák szülési szabadságon voltak, és az apák otthonról dolgoztak, az kedvezően befolyásolhatta ezeket a döntéseket, de ha az anyák fizetett munkahelyen dolgoztak, az negatívan hatott a termékenységi tervekre, míg a gyermektelen nők ilyen hatásokról nem számoltak be. A pandémiától függetlenül a családok anyagi helyzete kulcsszerepet játszik a reprodukciós döntések meghozatalában. Ugyanakkor arra is találtunk bizonyítékot, hogy további bizonytalanságok is befolyásolhatják a reproduktív döntéseket: például a munkahely elvesztésétől való félelem és az, hogy az egyének hogyan ítélik meg jövőbeli kilátásaikat.
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