Changes in employment and relationship satisfaction in times of the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from the German family Panel

Abstract

Families have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdown, but barely any research has been conducted yet, investigating how COVID-19-related stressorsand, specifically, disruptions in established employment arrangementsaffected couples' relationship quality. To account more comprehensively for such non-monetary costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, the present study investigates whether changes in partners' employment situation during the COVID-19 crisisparticularly home-office and short-time workhad an immediate impact on the relationship satisfaction of cohabiting married and unmarried couples. To do so, we estimated fixed-effects regression models, exploiting unique data from the German Family Panel (pairfam; wave 11) and its supplementary COVID-19 web-survey. We observed a substantial proportion of respondents experiencing positive (20%) or negative (40%) changes in relationship satisfaction during the crisis. Relationship satisfaction has decreased, on average, for men and women alike, almost irrespective of whether they experienced COVID-19-related changes in their employment situation. While partners' employment situation hardly moderated the negative association between respondents' employment and relationship satisfaction, the presence of children seemed to buffer partly against a COVID-19-related decrease. Our results thus confirm previous findings suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic constitutes a threat to couples' relationship quality and healthy family functioning more generally.

Positive and Negative Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Relationship Satisfaction in Male Couples

“…Additional pandemic-related stressors and behaviors that have previously been associated with relationship characteristics and quality were measured: employment change ( Balzarini et al, 2020 ; Biddle et al, 2020 ; Halliday Hardie & Lucas, 2010 ; Schmid et al, 2020 ; Vinokur et al., 1996 ; White & Rogers, 2000 ); chronic/pre-existing health conditions (associated with higher risk of serious COVID-19 illness) and COVID-19 case history ( Hagedoorn et al, 2000 ; Rapel li et al., 2020 ; Traa et al, 2015 ; Whisman et al, 2004 ); and changes in substance use ( Stephenson et al, 2021 ) and anal intercourse (AI) frequency ( Shilo & Mor, 2020 ; Stephenson et al, 2021 ). Respondents reported whether they had a pandemic-related change in employment (fired/laid off/furloughed from [their] job/or lost work, still employed but at reduced hours/workload, or other change); those who responded affirmatively were considered to have experienced pandemic-related employment changes.…”

The impact of the coronavirus crisis on European societies. What have we learnt and where do we go from here? – Introduction to the COVID volume

“…Fodor et al (2020) draw similar conclusions for Hungary: they examined the gendered division of childcare duties and found that despite a greater contribution by men, the gender gap further increased due to an even larger rise in female contribution, predominantly amongst the higher educated. Overall, partnership satisfaction and relationship quality also seem to have been severely threatened by the pandemic with the reduction being even greater among childless couples, implying an increase in conflict compared to the pre-pandemic period (Schmid et al 2020).…”

COVID-19: Psychologische Folgen für Familie, Kinder und Partnerschaft

“…Im Hinblick auf die Covid-19-Pandemie gibt es bislang noch keine wissenschaftlichen Studien dazu, welche Paare dies betrifft und welche Paare von einer Verschlechterung ihrer Beziehung betroffen sein werden. Daten des Beziehungs-und Familienpanels aus dem späten Frühjahr 2020 (Schmid et al, 2020) zeigen jedoch, dass Verschlechterungen der Paarbeziehungen überwiegen. Zwanzig Prozent der Befragten gaben an, sie seien in der Partnerschaft zufriedener als zu der Zeit, ehe COVID-19 in einen Lockdown mündete.…”