Gender and the pandemic: Associations between caregiving, working from home, personal and career outcomes for women and men.

Vasilena Stefanova,Ioana Latu,Lynn Farrell

doi:10.1007/s12144-021-02630-6

Vasilena Stefanova, Ioana Latu + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02630-6

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Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic lockdowns have led to an increase of caregiving and household responsibilities for many employees while working from home. We aimed to investigate whether there was a gender imbalance in the division of household labour within families during the pandemic, and whether this imbalance was associated with gender differences in personal outcomes (work-family conflict, burnout) as well as career-related outcomes (career self-efficacy and aspirations). Participants were 240 heterosexual individuals with or without caregiving responsibilities who lived with a partner and worked from home during the pandemic. They completed self-report questionnaires and indicated the division of domestic tasks within their household, the extent to which they experienced burnout and work-family conflict, and their career aspirations and career self-efficacy. The findings showed a significant gender imbalance, such that female caregivers spent significantly less time on work compared to the other groups and significantly more time on caregiving compared to male caregivers during the lockdown. There was a significant direct effect of caregiving on career outcomes for women, such that the more caregiving women performed during the lockdown relative to other tasks, the more negative their self-reported career outcomes were. Among men, caregiving did not predict career outcomes. Overall, our study showed that the gender imbalance in distributions of caregiving duties during the pandemic is associated with negative personal and professional outcomes for women who are caregivers. Practical implications are discussed accounting for this gender imbalance in the context of the pandemic and its influence on wellbeing and career outcomes, particularly for heterosexual women.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-021-02630-6.

Highlights

The advent of lockdown and social distancing measures imposed by governments across many countries during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to a conundrum for many employees: their regular work demands were expected to be met from home, their domestic responsibilities increased
On the basis of this literature, we hypothesised that more time spent on household and caregiving responsibilities during the pandemic would be related to greater work-family conflict, especially among caregivers (Byron, 2005; Del Boca et al, 2020), and we aimed to examine the consequences of this conflict on career outcomes
Our findings provide initial evidence about how lockdown can contribute to potentially long-term gendered outcomes in career development and personal wellbeing, which offers a basis for further exploration of the shift in domestic dynamics in times of crisis

Summary

Introduction

The advent of lockdown and social distancing measures imposed by governments across many countries during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to a conundrum for many employees: their regular work demands were expected to be met from home, their domestic responsibilities increased (e.g., caregiving, home-schooling, cooking, cleaning). Current Psychology understanding whether gender moderated the distribution of daily tasks (including paid and unpaid work) during the pandemic within heterosexual couples, and whether these particular domestic dynamics were associated with differential personal and career outcomes for women vs men. With many countries still facing some form of lockdown restrictions including advice to work from home where possible, these domestic arrangements may continue for many heterosexual couples for the foreseeable future It is important, to advance the literature in this domain by exploring whether a potential increase in gender imbalances in domestic labour and caregiving during lockdown is associated with negative personal and professional outcomes. Women have reported feeling more dissatisfied with how they and their partner shared domestic labour during the pandemic, with many reporting they complete more than their fair share of these tasks (Craig & Churchill, 2020)

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