Abstract
The lockdown imposed following the COVID-19 pandemic of spring 2020 dramatically changed the daily lives and routines of millions of people worldwide. We analyze how such changes contributed to patterns of activity within the household using a novel survey of Italian, British, and American families in lockdown. A high percentage report disruptions in the patterns of family life, manifesting in new work patterns, chore allocations, and household tensions. Though men have taken an increased share of childcare and grocery shopping duties, reallocations are not nearly as stark as disruptions to work patterns might suggest, and families having to reallocate duties report greater tensions. Our results highlight tightened constraints budging up against stable and gendered patterns of intra-household cooperation norms. While the long-run consequences of the COVID-19 lockdown on family life cannot be assessed at this stage, we point toward the likely opportunities and challenges.
Highlights
Trying to limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide imposed severe lockdown policies that suddenly changed the daily lives and routines of millions of people
Our study finds a dramatic increase across Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States in the proportion of shared childcare, and increases in the sharing of most other tasks, with the exception of grocery shopping which instead became a more specialized task done largely by men during the lockdown
In all three countries we surveyed, the reallocation of household tasks mirrors the relative changes of job status within the couple: respondents who lost their job or who are working from home are shouldering a greater share of household chores
Summary
Trying to limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide imposed severe lockdown policies that suddenly changed the daily lives and routines of millions of people This lockdown artificially created a fusion between the work and family life of men and women, who had to come to terms with their relative contribution to childcare and household chores. Household bargaining models (Manser and Brown, 1980; McElroy and Horney, 1981; Lundberg and Pollak, 1993, 1994, 1996) predict that the division of tasks inside and outside of the household will be shaped by new labor market constraints, such as restrictions or expansions of working hours as well as the possibility of remote working and its relative flexibility Updating this theoretical literature on household bargaining based on the expected results from the COVID-19 pandemic, Croda and Grossbard (2021) shows that the shifts taking place with the COVID-19 crisis suggested those with less bargaining power would acquire the majority of the additional domestic tasks. We can expect: (1) an increase in household bargaining with its associated tension and stress; and (2) an increase in strategic behavior, with partners believing the situation to be temporary signaling a higher willingness to cooperate than would normally be the case but revealing their true colors by specializing at gendered tasks
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