Abstract
Objective
This article extends pre-pandemic theories, empirically testing the salience of pandemic-based absolute and relative resources and time availability mechanisms for understanding gendered divisions of childcare across the COVID-19 pandemic.
Background
Multiple cross-sectional studies have examined gender differences in pandemic divisions of childcare, yet few longitudinal studies exist, particularly using pandemic-specific theoretical mechanisms.
Method
The authors used five waves (six data points, April 2020–November 2021) of probability-based longitudinal data from the Netherlands to estimate fixed-effects regression models (person-wave data; 2165 mothers and 1839 fathers) to analyze the division of childcare.
Results
Essential occupation was associated with a relative decrease in childcare tasks for mothers but not fathers. Mothers whose partner worked in an essential occupation experienced a relative increase in childcare tasks. Time availability also mattered; primarily for fathers. Working from home was associated with a relative increase in father's involvement in childcare, whereas an increase in work hours was associated with a decrease. Unemployment affected mothers only and was associated with an increase in relative childcare.
Conclusion
Having an essential occupation potentially functioned as a new resource for some mothers to bargain for more gender-egalitarian divisions of care but also reaffirmed the relative importance of men's paid employment over that of women's in shaping divisions of care. Time availability played a role in divisions of care during the pandemic, but mostly for fathers.
Implications
The findings extend traditional resources and time availability theories to explain pandemic-based gender differences in the division of care across the pandemic.
This article extends pre-pandemic theories, empirically testing the salience of pandemic-based absolute and relative resources and time availability mechanisms for understanding gendered divisions of childcare across the COVID-19 pandemic.
Background
Multiple cross-sectional studies have examined gender differences in pandemic divisions of childcare, yet few longitudinal studies exist, particularly using pandemic-specific theoretical mechanisms.
Method
The authors used five waves (six data points, April 2020–November 2021) of probability-based longitudinal data from the Netherlands to estimate fixed-effects regression models (person-wave data; 2165 mothers and 1839 fathers) to analyze the division of childcare.
Results
Essential occupation was associated with a relative decrease in childcare tasks for mothers but not fathers. Mothers whose partner worked in an essential occupation experienced a relative increase in childcare tasks. Time availability also mattered; primarily for fathers. Working from home was associated with a relative increase in father's involvement in childcare, whereas an increase in work hours was associated with a decrease. Unemployment affected mothers only and was associated with an increase in relative childcare.
Conclusion
Having an essential occupation potentially functioned as a new resource for some mothers to bargain for more gender-egalitarian divisions of care but also reaffirmed the relative importance of men's paid employment over that of women's in shaping divisions of care. Time availability played a role in divisions of care during the pandemic, but mostly for fathers.
Implications
The findings extend traditional resources and time availability theories to explain pandemic-based gender differences in the division of care across the pandemic.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 219-236 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Journal of Marriage and Family |
| Volume | 87 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 21 Nov 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Feb 2025 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Marriage and Family published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of National Council on Family Relations.
Funding
This work was supported by the Dutch Science Council (NWO) with a NWO VENI talent grant (grant number VI.VENI.211S.046 to the first author). The data collection was facilitated by a grant from Open Data Infrastructure for Social Science and Economic Innovations (ODISSEI) and funding from the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Utrecht University, the Department of Public Administration at Radboud University Nijmegen and the Department of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. The authors would like to thank the members of the COVID Gender Inequality Survey Netherlands (CoGIS‐NL) for their work on the project as well as two anonymous referees for very useful and constructive feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Department of Public Administration at Radboud University Nijmegen | |
| Dutch Science Council | |
| Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Utrecht University | |
| Open Data Infrastructure for Social Science and Economic Innovations | |
| Department of Sociology, University of Alabama at Birmingham | |
| Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek | VI.VENI.211S.046 |
Keywords
- absolute resources
- division of care
- essential occupations
- gender
- parents
- relative resources
- time availability
