Gender Gaps within Couples: Evidence of Time Re-allocations during COVID-19 in Argentina

Victoria Costoya, Lucia Echeverria, María Edo, Ana Rocha and Agustina Thailinger
Additional contact information
Victoria Costoya: CEDH - San Andrés University
Ana Rocha: CEDH - San Andrés University
Agustina Thailinger: CEDH - San Andrés University

Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 2022, vol. 43, issue 2, No 2, 213-226

Abstract: Abstract Based on a novel survey for Argentina, this paper provides evidence of the changes in time allocation within couples during the COVID-19 emergency. The survey was conducted online during the period of national lockdown in 2020 and collected information on hours allocated to paid work, housework, child care, educational childcare and leisure by both members of the couple before and during the lockdown, as well as socio-demographic characteristics. Our sample consists of 961 couples of which 785 have children. Our results indicate that during the lockdown, despite a reduction in time assigned to paid work and an increase in time spent in unpaid activities for both members of the couple, gender gaps regarding the latter increased. Specifically, while the load of men and women’s work for pay became more equitable, women took up a larger proportion of the additional housework and childcare. We found that some factors mitigated (whether the man reduced his hours of work or whether both partners kept on doing so) while others potentiated (whether the woman reduced her hours of work, whether she continued working from home, or whether the couple outsourced housework before lockdown) the changes in the within-couple gender gaps in unpaid activities.

Keywords: Time allocation; Unpaid work; Within-couple gender gaps; COVID-19; D10; D13; J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10834-021-09770-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Gender gaps within couples: Evidence of time re-allocations during COVID-19 in Argentina (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jfamec:v:43:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s10834-021-09770-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... es/journal/10834/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10834-021-09770-8

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Family and Economic Issues is currently edited by Joyce Serido

More articles in Journal of Family and Economic Issues from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().