The Gendered Division of Paid and Domestic Work under Lockdown

Alison Andrew (), Sarah Cattan (), Monica Costa Dias, Christine Farquharson (), Lucy Kraftman (), Sonya Krutikova (), Angus Phimister () and Almudena Sevilla ()
Additional contact information
Alison Andrew: Institute for Fiscal Studies, London
Christine Farquharson: Institute for Fiscal Studies, London
Lucy Kraftman: Institute for Fiscal Studies, London
Sonya Krutikova: Institute for Fiscal Studies, London
Angus Phimister: Institute for Fiscal Studies, London
Almudena Sevilla: London School of Economics

No 13500, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: COVID-19 has uprooted many aspects of parents' daily routines, from their jobs to their childcare arrangements. In this paper, we provide a novel description of how parents in England living in two-parent opposite-gender families are spending their time under lockdown. We find that mothers' paid work has taken a larger hit than that of fathers', on both the extensive and intensive margins. We find that mothers are spending substantially longer in childcare and housework than their partners and that they are spending a larger fraction of their paid work hours having to juggle work and childcare. Gender differences in the allocation of domestic work cannot be straightforwardly explained by gender differences in employment rates or earnings. Very large gender asymmetries emerge when one partner has stopped working for pay during the crisis: mothers who have stopped working for pay do far more domestic work than fathers in the equivalent situation do.

Keywords: childcare; gender; COVID-19; Coronavirus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J21 J22 J24 J33 J63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2020-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (56)

Published - published in: Fiscal Studies, 2022, 43 (4), 325 - 340

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Related works:
Journal Article: The gendered division of paid and domestic work under lockdown (2022)
Working Paper: The gendered division of paid and domestic work under lockdown (2022)
Working Paper: The gendered division of paid and domestic work under lockdown (2021)
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