Work arrangements and father involvement during COVID‐19 lockdown: A mixed methods study

Abstract

ObjectiveThis study aimed to examine how father involvement and family relationships changed during the COVID‐19 lockdown and their relations to fathers' work arrangements.BackgroundThe COVID‐19 pandemic has transformed how parents arrange their work and family in China and elsewhere. Many fathers, once working long hours at the workplace, had to adjust their work arrangements, working reduced hours or working from home.MethodThis study used a mixed methods design. Participants were parents of preschool or school‐age children in China. In Study 1, 31 mothers were interviewed about the change in father involvement and family relationships during the COVID‐19 lockdown compared with pre‐COVID‐19. In Study 2, a sample of father–mother dyads (N = 637) completed survey measures of work arrangements, father involvement, and family relationships.ResultsStudy 1 suggested increased father involvement and improved family relationships amid the lockdown and highlighted the role of fathers' work. Study 2 revealed that fathers' changed work arrangements (i.e., working from home) were associated with higher father involvement and more positive family relationships during the lockdown. Father involvement may mediate the associations between fathers' work arrangements and father–child closeness as well as mothers' marital satisfaction.Conclusion and ImplicationsWorking from home could promote involved fathering and stronger family relationships, strengthening the family's overall capacity to combat the stressors and challenges brought by the COVID‐19 pandemic.

The science of families: Nurturing hope, happiness, and health

“…Specific to the collection, the submission of articles included two Lessons From the Field articles (Cherry et al, 2024;Contreras et al, 2023), one mixed method article (Ni et al, 2024), three quantitative articles (Ben Brik et al, 2024;Horton et al, 2024;_ Iplikçi et al, 2023), and three qualitative articles (Cypress & Allred, 2024;Oerther & Papachrisanthou, 2024;Xiao, 2024). Three of the nine articles did not focus specifically on COVID-19: (a) the review article focused on the utility of the Chronic Disease Self-Management Programs (CDSMP; Contreras et al, 2023), (b) a qualitative study on the health and stress of parents with preteens who lived in the rural Ozark Mountains (Oerther & Papachrisanthou, 2024), and (c) an article about building patient and family satisfaction between health-care provider visits in intensive care units (Cypress, & Allred, 2024).…”

“…Three of the nine articles did not focus specifically on COVID‐19: (a) the review article focused on the utility of the Chronic Disease Self‐Management Programs (CDSMP; Contreras et al, 2023), (b) a qualitative study on the health and stress of parents with preteens who lived in the rural Ozark Mountains (Oerther & Papachrisanthou, 2024), and (c) an article about building patient and family satisfaction between health‐care provider visits in intensive care units (Cypress, & Allred, 2024). The authors unpacking issues of COVID‐19 focused on (a) the influence of homestay on child behavioral health and parental mental health (Cherry et al, 2024); (b) Chinese father‐involvement family relationships and father change of work arrangements (Ni et al, 2024); (c) relationship and couple satisfaction, stress pileup, and parental stress (Ben Brik et al, 2024); (d) ambiguous loss (Horton et al, 2024); and (e) better parenting during the pandemic (Xiao, 2024). Overall, the meanings attached to health included understanding how to manage mental and physical chronic health, relationship quality or satisfaction, and resilience aspects of ambiguous loss (Boss, 2016).…”