A Missed Opportunity for Men? Partnered and Employed Individuals’ Involvement with Housework during the COVID-19 Lockdown in the UK

İbrahim Sönmez
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İbrahim Sönmez: Political and Social Sciences Department, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27, 08005 Barcelona, Spain

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-13

Abstract: Given the outbreak of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), pandemic during March 2020, lockdown measures taken by governments have forced many families, especially those who have children, to re-arrange domestic and market work division. In this study, I investigate the factors associated with partnered and employed individuals’ involvement with housework during the COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom. Drawing evidence from the first wave of the Covid-19 Survey from the Five National Longitudinal Studies dataset with using OLS regressions, this study found that daily working hours, socioeconomic status, and partner’s key worker status are important indicators of daily time spent on housework. Furthermore, interaction analysis showed that women living with a key worker partner not only did more housework than women whose partner was working in a regular job, but they also did more housework than men living with a key worker partner during the lockdown. Policy implications of regulating maximum daily working hours and key worker status are discussed in the context of re-arranging paid and unpaid work between couples during the first lockdown in the United Kingdom.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; housework; working from home; working hours; key worker; COVID-19 Survey in Five National Longitudinal Studies; United Kingdom (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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