By Default: How Mothers in Different-Sex Dual-Earner Couples Account for Inequalities in Pandemic Parenting

Abstract

Mothers did a disproportionate share of the child care during the COVID-19 pandemic—an arrangement that negatively impacted their careers, relationships, and well-being. How did mothers account for these unequal roles? Through interviews and surveys with 55 mothers (and 14 fathers) in different-sex, prepandemic dual-earner couples, we found that mothers (and fathers) justified unequal parenting arrangements based on gendered structural and cultural conditions that made mothers’ disproportionate labor seem “practical” and “natural.” These justifications allowed couples to rely on mothers by default rather than through active negotiation. As a result, many mothers did not feel entitled to seek support with child care from fathers or nonparental caregivers and experienced guilt if they did so. These findings help explain why many mothers have not reentered the workforce, why fathers’ involvement at home waned as the pandemic progressed, and why the pandemic led to growing preferences for inegalitarian divisions of domestic and paid labor.

Imposed volunteering: Gender and caring responsibilities during the COVID-19 lockdown

“…A growing body of research demonstrates that a disproportionate part of the unpaid care work during the COVID-19 pandemic spurred by national lockdowns has fallen on the shoulders of women. Measures such as the closing of schools and public institutions shift care responsibilities back to families, and studies from the UK, the US, Australia, Italy, Canada and Germany indicate that women spend more time on unpaid care work than men (Aldossari & Chaudhry, 2020;Calarco et al, 2021;Collins et al, 2020;Craig & Churchill, 2020;Manzo & Minello, 2020;Qian & Fuller, 2020;Zoch et al, 2021). Even in Iceland, a country celebrated as a gender equality frontrunner (World Economic Forum, 2020), the pandemic entailed more new caring responsibilities for women than for men (Hjálmsdóttir & Bjarnadóttir, 2020).…”

Reorganizations of Gendered Labor During the COVID‐19 Pandemic: A Review and Suggestions for Further Research

“…When they inevitably failed to meet the impossible standard to create tranquil, immaculately clean, emotionally nurturing, and always entertaining households that doubled as schools and workplaces during a global pandemic, they often expressed intense anger, guilt, frustration, exhaustion, and anxiety (Calarco et al. 2020a ; Calarco, Meanwell, and Anderson 2021 ; Clark et al. 2020 ; Friedman et al.…”

“…The erasure of previously established boundaries between work and home stemming from paid and unpaid labor simultaneously being accomplished within households regularly caused substantial stress for those working from home—especially for mothers who often completed a greater share of childcare and housework as they simultaneously worked in paid labor markets from home (Akuoko and Aggrey 2021 ; Boncori 2020 ; Calarco et al. 2021 ; Clark et al. 2020 ; Friedman et al.…”

“…Further, Calarco et al. ( 2021 ) show that heterosexual mothers in the Midwestern United States repeatedly justified their increasingly inequitable share of unpaid domestic labor and dislocation from paid labor markets by indicating that this was the most practical, natural response to school and childcare facility closures. As a result, even when schools and childcare facilities reopened, many women remained out of the paid workforce so that they could fulfill their “natural” roles as child caretakers.…”

“…The growing list of interview studies illustrates the need to continue bolstering initial quantitative studies with diverse methodological approaches (Calarco et al. 2021 ; Carolan 2021 ; Friedman et al. 2021 ; Hennekam and Shymko 2020 ; Hjálmsdóttir and Bjarnadóttir 2021 ; Leap et al.…”