Has the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovenia affected gender gap in paid and unpaid work?

Abstract

Among other things, the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected the use of time of individuals. The burdens seem to have been unequally distributed between men and women. This paper analyses gender differences in Slovenia in time spent on paid and unpaid work before and during the lockdown. The design of our study enables us to examine the change in time spent on 14 different activities in an average workday before and during the pandemic. We find that during the pandemic, the gender gap in paid work widened, meaning that men spent even more time on paid work compared to women. Men also began to cook, devoted more time to cleaning and spent significantly more time caring for children. Therefore, the gender gap in childcare, which was marginally significant before the pandemic, became insignificant. During the pandemic, women spent relatively more time on home maintenance, which in turn led to a narrowing of the gender gap in this activity.