The gendered division of paid and domestic work under lockdown

Abstract

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A year of COVID: the evolution of labour market and financial inequalities through the crisis

“…Conditional on occupation, women in couples with children were 6 ppt more likely to stop working positive hours in the Spring of 2020 than men, suggesting that differences in the distribution of childcare responsibilities within couples may have affected female labour supply. This finding is consistent with studies showing that increased childcare responsibilities during the pandemic were disproportionally borne by women in the UK (Andrew et al, 2021).…”

Psychological Well-Being of Indian Mothers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…These challenges can be even greater for mothers (Davenport et al, 2020;Pandey, 2020a). A study conducted in the United Kingdom revealed that mothers were interrupted over 50% more often than fathers while working from home (Andrew et al, 2020).…”

Home sweet home: Working from home and employee performance during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK

“…Mothers are still the primary childcare givers in Western countries, which explains why women are less productive than men, mainly apparent among respondents with children ( Gallen, 2018 ). New research also finds that the COVID-19 situation translated into a relative increase in mothers’ time spent providing childcare and performing housework, a decrease in working hours, and a higher probability of job loss ( Andrew, Cattan, Dias, Farquharson, Kraftman, Krutikova, Phimister, Sevilla, 2020 , Sevilla, Smith, 2020 , Zamarro, Prados, 2021 ). In contrast, for Germany, Kreyenfeld and Zinn (2021) do not find evidence of the gender gap in childcare as they show that fathers and mothers expanded their time spent providing childcare to similar degrees.…”

“…Accordingly, the closure of schools and childcare facilities, a “disruptive exogenous shock” to family life ( Huebener et al., 2021 ), increased the need for private childcare ( Alon et al., 2020 ) and employees’ time spent parenting. Andrew et al. (2020) show for the UK that parents’ time spent providing childcare increased by 3.5 hours per day during the first lockdown, while working time decreased equally, partly driven by large employment losses.…”