A study revealed that mothers bore more parenting burdens than fathers during the pandemic.
Mothers who needed to work from home when the pandemic hit were found to have an increase of two hours in their supervisory parenting more than the fathers did, according to a first-of-its-kind study on work arrangements of parents during the pandemic.
The study entitled "Parents' Work Arrangements and Gendered Time Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic" also showed that women were more likely to embrace new parenting demands and adjust their work schedules.
"We found that women working from home shouldered more of the parenting burden during the pandemic. While the shift to work from home offered more flexibility, the lack of separation between work and family contributed to more challenging work environments, especially among mothers," declared Kelly Musick, researcher and professor of public policy and sociology and senior associate dean of research in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.
Other key findings
The study utilized time diaries to examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on working parents and how they managed their children's school closures and childcare disruptions.
A group of American participants was tasked to record their daily activities in detail, including the specific amount of time they spent on each task, where they were, and who was present. The gathered data were then compared with how parents allocated their time before the pandemic using the data from the American Time Use Survey from 2017 to 2020.
The Findings:
1. Parents working from home did not increase their childcare time doing feeding, bathing, reading, or playing with the kids. The increase in hours was focused on supervisory parenting tasks such as monitoring children's activities and safety while doing other activities simultaneously, mostly paid work.
This was where the two-hour gap between mothers and fathers surfaced, which reflects a "disproportionate responsibility for children," Musick stressed.
It was found that mothers spent four-and-a-half hours per day indirectly supervising children while multitasking, while fathers spent only two-and-a-half hours in charge of the children, CTV News stated.
Musick also stressed how previous studies showed the downside of multitasking - increased stress levels and negative impact on mental and emotional well-being.
2. Moreover, even if the activities did not affect work duties or involve multitasking, more division was discovered between mothers and fathers. Mothers disproportionately increased their time playing with the kids during the pandemic, while fathers took on more household chores, reflecting a significant reverse from what data suggests about pre-pandemic home lives.
3. While the pandemic gave parents more time to spend at home with children, surprisingly, most of the time was spent "juggling paid work" compared to those parents who continued working on-site. However, both mothers working from home and on-site needed to adjust their work schedules during the pandemic. "Nonstandard hours and spells of work" in the entire day increased, presumed to better accommodate the increasing demands of parenting.
Reflects where the problem lies
What could be the implication of this study for work and family now that the world is already in its post-pandemic era?
Despite the pandemic easing and things returning to normal, remote work continues and might be staying for good now that people, especially parents, have seen that it is possible to work and stay home closer to the kids and family.
Thus, this is where the value of this current study lies.
Despite the opportunity to work and be home with family being opened and made real to parents, the study revealed how the pandemic highlighted the American culture of work that is unwelcoming of care demands and an "ill-equipped" policy infrastructure unable to support working parents, Cornell Chronicle reported.
Musick emphasized that there is a need for change at public and private levels to ensure better help for working families in terms of health, productivity, and well-being.
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