Childcare, work or worries? What explains the decline in parents' well-being at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany?

Abstract

Objective: We examine how care arrangements, general and altered working conditions, and worries influenced subjective well-being at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic for working parents in Germany.
 Background: Prior research suggests several reasons for declines in subjective well-being, particularly for working mothers. We employ Pearlin's (1989) stress process model to explore the role of parental childcare, altered working conditions and amplified worries of working parents in terms of increased stressors and modified resources to cope with the extraordinary situation.
 Method: We use data from two starting cohorts from the National Educational Panel Study and its supplementary COVID-19 web survey from spring 2020 to examine possible heterogeneities in contextual factors for individual-level changes in the well-being of working mothers and fathers.
 Results: We confirm a more pronounced decline in well-being for working mothers than fathers. Part-time work and access to emergency care reduce the gender gap in decreased well-being. Conversely, young children in the household and personal worries are associated with lower well-being for both parents. However, we cannot explain the more significant decrease in mothers’ well-being by increased childcare responsibilities or altered working conditions.
 Conclusion: A greater decline in well-being indicates a particular burden among working mothers. However, it cannot be linked solely to gendered inequalities in the changes of paid and unpaid work during the first months of the pandemic.

Parenthood and dynamics of life satisfaction in times of COVID‐19

“…A particularly well-investigated example is the German case: Huebener et al (2021) found that during the lockdown in spring 2020, life satisfaction declined disproportionally among parents, especially those with young children, as well as for women and those with lower levels of education. Their results were largely corroborated by Vicari et al (2022), who-for the same period of time but using a different data source-further suggest that working and childcare conditions as well as personal worries contributed to the observed decline in working parents' subjective well-being (also see Hiekel & Kühn, 2021). Importantly, descriptive findings indicate substantial heterogeneity in the dynamics of working parents' life satisfaction: Whereas a majority of respondents exhibited a decline, substantial proportions of mothers (∼25%) and fathers (∼40%) reported no change-or even minor improvements (∼10%)-in their subjective well-being (Vicari et al, 2022: Figure 1; also see Schmid et al, 2021).…”

“…(2022), who—for the same period of time but using a different data source—further suggest that working and childcare conditions as well as personal worries contributed to the observed decline in working parents' subjective well‐being (also see Hiekel & Kühn, 2021). Importantly, descriptive findings indicate substantial heterogeneity in the dynamics of working parents' life satisfaction: Whereas a majority of respondents exhibited a decline, substantial proportions of mothers (∼25%) and fathers (∼40%) reported no change—or even minor improvements (∼10%)—in their subjective well‐being (Vicari et al., 2022: Figure 1; also see Schmid et al., 2021). Finally, Li et al.…”

Gender inequality in childcare and parental mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany. Do gender role attitudes matter?

“…Scholars have found that the mental health gap that emerged between people in different types of household structures in Germany early in the pandemic was particularly large among coparents of minor children who were living together (Hiekel & Kühn, 2022). Studies investigating individual mental health and how it changed consistently found that mental health declines were steeper for mothers than for fathers, and were greater the younger the children were (Etheridge & Spantig, 2022;Hipp & Bünning, 2021;Huebener et al, 2021;Pierce et al, 2020;Vicari, Zoch, & Bächmann, 2022;Zamarro & Prados, 2021). The question arises as to why mothers experienced larger mental health declines than fathers when guiding their families through the pandemic.…”

“…In addition, as they were unable to account for self-reported mental health prior to the pandemic, the ability of these studies to assess changes in parents' mental health in response to the pandemic is limited. Other studies that addressed the potential role of gender inequalities in care arrangements in the unequal mental health trajectories of mothers and fathers were unable to account for pre-pandemic care arrangements within couples, and thus ran the risk of reporting biased estimates due to unobserved heterogeneity (Hipp & Bünning, 2021;Li et al, 2022;Vicari, Zoch, & Bächmann, 2022).…”

Examining the Health Experiences of Women Working in Flexible Production During the Pandemic Process: A Qualitative Study

“…In a study conducted in Italy, it was emphasized that women spend more time on housework and childcare than their spouses during the pandemic period, their spouses spend more time at home, and there is no redistribution in housework (Boca et al, 2021). In a study conducted in Germany, it was reported that changing working conditions and increasing housework during the pandemic period reduced the welfare level of women and men, but there was no more significant decrease in women (Vicari et al, 2022). The high level of stress and fatigue among working women is related to the clear distinction of gender typing of work roles of men and women as gender roles in Turkish family culture.…”