Who suffered most? Parental stress and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany

Abstract

Objective: This study examines gender and socioeconomic inequalities in parental psychological wellbeing (parenting stress and psychological distress) during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.
 Background: The dramatic shift of childcare and schooling responsibility from formal institutions to private households during the pandemic has put families under enormous stress and raised concerns about caregivers' health and wellbeing. Despite the overwhelming media attention to families’ wellbeing, to date limited research has examined parenting stress and parental psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in Germany.
 Method: We analyzed four waves of panel data (N= 1,771) from an opt-in online survey, which was conducted between March 2020 and April 2021. Multivariable OLS regressions were used to estimate variations in the pandemic's effects on parenting stress and psychological distress by various demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.
 Results: Overall, levels of parenting stress and psychological distress increased during the pandemic. During the first and third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, mothers, parents with children younger than 11 years, parents with two or more children, parents working from home as well as parents with financial insecurity experienced higher parenting stress than other sociodemographic groups. Moreover, women, respondents with lower incomes, single parents, and parents with younger children experienced higher levels of psychological distress than other groups.
 Conclusion: Gender and socioeconomic inequalities in parents' psychological wellbeing increased among the study participants during the pandemic.

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

“…The majority of existing studies on the links between parental mental health during the pandemic and gender inequalities used online non-probability samples to examine these associations (Huebener et al, 2021;Li et al, 2022;Pierce et al, 2020). It has been demonstrated that non-probability samples are less accurate than probability samples across various topics, including health behavior (Cornesse et al, 2020).…”

Work-to-family conflict and parenting practices: Examining the role of working from home among lone and partnered working mothers

“…At the same time, working from home is gaining in importance. This is not just due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Arntz et al, 2020), although it certainly has triggered new research on the increase in working from home and its links to parental wellbeing during the pandemic (Huebener et al, 2021;Li et al, 2020). Yet the implications of this flexible work arrangement for parenting practices have still received little attention in family research.…”

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

“…The various pandemic-related changes in work and family life are likely to accumulate and reinforce each other, thus negatively affecting well-being, particularly for mothers (Etheridge & Spantig 2020;Li et al 2021;Nieuwenhuis & Yerkes 2021). Altered working conditions, for example, did not only affect mothers directly in terms of income decline or loss of productivity.…”

“…Parents had to reorganise their children's care and schooling on short notice while simultaneously facing tremendous changes at their workplace, such as job loss, remote work or longer working hours in occupations with increased demand. Moreover, with enforced distancing rules, parents had to balance the increased challenges of combining work and family roles without the support of public childcare or their social networks, such as grandparents, relatives, and friends (Alon et al 2020;Collins et al 2020;Li et al 2021;Zhou et al 2020;Zoch et al 2021a). Drawing on Pearlin's stress process model (1989), the measures to contain the virus, altered working conditions, time constraints, role conflicts and the necessarily renegotiated division of paid and family work within couples can be interpreted as new stressors and ceased or modified resources in daily life routinesfactors that are supposed to reduce mental health and well-being (Li et al 2021).…”

“…Moreover, with enforced distancing rules, parents had to balance the increased challenges of combining work and family roles without the support of public childcare or their social networks, such as grandparents, relatives, and friends (Alon et al 2020;Collins et al 2020;Li et al 2021;Zhou et al 2020;Zoch et al 2021a). Drawing on Pearlin's stress process model (1989), the measures to contain the virus, altered working conditions, time constraints, role conflicts and the necessarily renegotiated division of paid and family work within couples can be interpreted as new stressors and ceased or modified resources in daily life routinesfactors that are supposed to reduce mental health and well-being (Li et al 2021). Indeed, recent research provides evidence for decreased well-being across different social groups (Nieuwenhuis & Yerkes 2021;Zhou et al 2020) and contexts (e.g., Banks et al 2021;Giurge et al 2020;UN Women 2020).…”