Abstract
Objective: In this project, we study changes in the working hours of men and women with and without children in the early phase of the COVID-19 crisis in Germany until August 2020.
 Background: The COVID-19 outbreak in Europe led to a sharp decrease in economic activity, along with temporary closures of childcare facilities and schools. Subsequent changes in working hours in the early phase of the pandemic and during summer 2020 may have contributed to inequalities between men and women or parents and non-parents respectively.
 Method: We use a unique panel dataset containing monthly survey data of the Institute for Employment Research (the IAB-HOPP) combined with administrative data of the German Federal Employment Agency. We run regression models with the change in working hours (before the crisis vs. working time at each panel wave) as the dependent variable and gender, parental status, and childcare arrangement as the main independent variables.
 Results: We observe a comparable reduction in working hours for both men and women during the spring lockdown. However, only the working hours of women recover and return to their pre-crisis level in summer 2020. Most surprisingly, having children has an accelerating effect on recovery for mothers but not for fathers. At the end of the observation period, fathers do not recover as fully as mothers do.
 Conclusion: These results challenge concerns about a temporary or possibly persistent 're-traditionalisation' of gender roles during the COVID-19 crisis.
Highlights
In Germany, as in most countries, COVID-19 has led to a sharp drop in economic activity and working hours
Previous findings regarding the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the working hours of men and women—or mothers and fathers respectively—in Germany are ambiguous regarding the effect of these restrictions
After the World Health Organization declared the COVID‐19 outbreak a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, the German federal and state governments introduced several measures to reduce the further spread of the coronavirus, which profoundly restricted public and private life
Summary
In Germany, as in most countries, COVID-19 has led to a sharp drop in economic activity and working hours. This decrease was due to lower labour demand, as public and private life was considerably restricted. The government introduced social distancing regulations and closed schools and childcare facilities on March 12. The government introduced strong contact restrictions in public and private life, which affected citizens’ leisure activities and restricted meeting with others. The government extended these initial measures twice until the beginning of May. After seven weeks, the government lifted the first restrictions. The common term in Germany for this period from mid-March 2020 to mid-May 2020 is the first ‘lockdown’—a terminology we apply in this paper.
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