Childcare Facility Closure and Exacerbated Gender Inequality in Parenting Time during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The unprecedented large-scale childcare facility closure during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a dramatic increase in the childcare burden at home, which is shouldered disproportionately by women more than men. Leveraging anonymized mobile tracking data and nationally representative time-use survey data from the USA, this study adopts a quasi-experimental approach to examine the impact of childcare facility closure on the gendered division of household childcare time. It further investigates whether this impact varies according to respondent education, family income, and employment status. Results show an expanding gender gap in parenting time on child education with young children during the pandemic. The gender gap expanded even more in places and months with more childcare facility closures, but this gendered effect is only evident among parents with lower education and family income. Our findings call for institutional support during similar public crises to mitigate the potentially negative impact on gender equality.