Abstract
Objective: This paper examines how participation in the short-time work scheme affected the gendered division of child care during the COVID-19 crisis in Germany.
 Background: Short-time work (Kurzarbeit) has been one of the main policies used to combat the economic and labour market repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic in Germany. We examine whether and, if so, how the growing prevalence of short-time work has affected care patterns.
 Method: We use data from the IAB-HOPP, a longitudinal study monitored by the German Institute for Employment Research (IAB). The analytical sample includes couples with children aged 12 and younger. We employ multinomial logistic regressions in which the outcome variable is the change in the division of care work from a period before to a period during the coronavirus crisis (June to October 2020).
 Results: We find that among men, receiving short-time work benefits resulted in more gender-equal care patterns. The positive effect of short-time work on the division of child care is moderated by the level of education. Fathers with low or medium education are more likely to increase their child care share when receiving short-time work benefits compared to fathers with high education. However, we also find that participating in the short-time work programme had no strong or significant effects on the gendered division of care among women.
 Conclusion: The evidence from this study suggests that men’s working time is a major vehicle to change the gendered division of care in couple households.
Highlights
Life has been affected by the coronavirus crisis in multiple ways
Objective: This paper examines how participation in the short-time work scheme affected the gendered division of child care during the COVID-19 crisis in Germany
The analysis shows that fathers and mothers had different perceptions of their contributions to child care, with women being much more likely than men to say they believe that the mother is “entirely” responsible for child care, while men were more likely to say that the mother is “mostly” responsible
Summary
Life has been affected by the coronavirus crisis in multiple ways. There is consistent empirical evidence that satisfaction with family life declined sharply during the (first) lockdown in Germany (Hübener et al 2021), with lone-parent families, families with children of kindergarten age, and families with children with special needs reporting the largest declines in well-being (Langenkamp et al 2020; Hübener et al 2021; Möhring et al 2021a). We examine the question of whether fathers’ child care contributions increased during the pandemic as a result of their participation in the short-time work programme. Our analysis adds to the growing body of research on the impact of the coronavirus crisis on gendered care patterns (e.g., Hank & Steinbach 2021; Kohlrausch & Zucco 2020; Kreyenfeld & Zinn 2021) It provides insights into the scope of paternal involvement in a welfare state that has recently intensified its efforts to increase maternal employment rates, and to promote a more equal division of labour. While the focus of the analysis is on how fathers’ participation in the short-time work programme affected the division of labour in the household, we briefly present results for mothers (see online appendix).
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