A Missed Opportunity for Men? Partnered and Employed Individuals’ Involvement with Housework during the COVID-19 Lockdown in the UK

İbrahim Sönmez

doi:10.3390/socsci10040135

Abstract

Given the outbreak of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), pandemic during March 2020, lockdown measures taken by governments have forced many families, especially those who have children, to re-arrange domestic and market work division. In this study, I investigate the factors associated with partnered and employed individuals’ involvement with housework during the COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom. Drawing evidence from the first wave of the Covid-19 Survey from the Five National Longitudinal Studies dataset with using OLS regressions, this study found that daily working hours, socioeconomic status, and partner’s key worker status are important indicators of daily time spent on housework. Furthermore, interaction analysis showed that women living with a key worker partner not only did more housework than women whose partner was working in a regular job, but they also did more housework than men living with a key worker partner during the lockdown. Policy implications of regulating maximum daily working hours and key worker status are discussed in the context of re-arranging paid and unpaid work between couples during the first lockdown in the United Kingdom.

Highlights

The rapid spread of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), during March2020 has led many countries to employ social distancing measures which have influenced almost all aspects of family life (Hank and Steinbach 2020)
Covid-19 Survey from the Five National Longitudinal Studies dataset with using OLS regressions, this study found that daily working hours, socioeconomic status, and partner’s key worker status are important indicators of daily time spent on housework
Interaction analysis showed that women living with a key worker partner did more housework than women whose partner was working in a regular job, but they did more housework than men living with a key worker partner during the lockdown

Summary

Introduction

The rapid spread of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), during March2020 has led many countries to employ social distancing measures which have influenced almost all aspects of family life (Hank and Steinbach 2020). The measurements implemented to control the spread of the pandemic led to the closure of schools, care centres, and non-essential work places These new circumstances have forced many families, especially those who have children, to re-arrange domestic and market work division. Recent studies from different countries have shown that the outbreak of the pandemic served as an opportunity to re-negotiate for a more egalitarian division of domestic and market work for heterosexual couples (Carlson et al 2020; Seiz 2020; Chung et al 2020; Hank and Steinbach 2020) These studies noted that the majority of domestic tasks still fall on women during the time spend at home due to the lockdown.

Methods

Results

Conclusion