Gendered division of labor during a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown: Implications for relationship problems and satisfaction. Nina Waddell et al. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, March 2, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407521996476
Abstract: COVID-19 lockdowns have required many working parents to balance domestic and paid labor while confined at home. Are women and men equally sharing the workload? Are inequities in the division of labor compromising relationships? Leveraging a pre-pandemic longitudinal study of couples with young children, we examine gender differences in the division and impact of domestic and paid labor during a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown (N = 157 dyads). Women did more of the parenting and housework, whereas men engaged in more paid work and personal time, during the lockdown. Couple members agreed that women’s share of parenting, housework and personal time was unfair, but this did not protect women from the detrimental relationship outcomes associated with an inequitable share of domestic labor. A greater, and more unfair, share of parenting, housework and personal time predicted residual increases in relationship problems and decreases in relationship satisfaction for women. Exploratory analyses indicated that men who were the primary caregiver or were not working fulltime also experienced negative relationship outcomes when they did more housework and parenting. These results substantiate concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic may undermine advances toward gender equality by reinforcing inequitable divisions of labor, thereby damaging women’s relationship wellbeing.
Keywords: COVID-19 lockdown, division of labor, housework, parenting, relationship problems
The COVID-19 pandemic poses considerable challenges to couples, including lockdowns forcing working parents to coordinate an increase in domestic and paid labor. We leveraged an existing study of mixed-gender couples with young children assessed prior to the pandemic and conducted pre-registered tests of gender differences in the division and impact of domestic and paid labor as families endured a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown. Although lockdowns offer opportunities for couples to more equally share the domestic load, women did more of the parenting and housework, whereas men generally engaged in more paid work and personal time. Couple members agreed that the balance of labor was unfair on women, but this did not protect women from the detrimental outcomes of a greater domestic burden. Women who were unfairly doing a greater share of housework and parenting, and having less personal time, experienced residual increases in relationship problems and residual decreases in satisfaction.
The inequities in domestic labor and detrimental effects on women’s relationship outcomes occurred irrespective of caregiver or employment status. These results substantiate concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic may have greater risks for women, including quarantine efforts reinforcing gender inequality and placing greater strains on women’s health and wellbeing. Interestingly, exploratory analyses provided tentative evidence that men who were the primary caregiver or not working fulltime also experienced poorer relationship outcomes when they did more of the domestic labor. Thus, generating an equitable division of labor is an important target to protect the health and wellbeing of women (and men) who are shouldering more of the home demands exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns.
Couples agree: Women are doing more labor and this division is perceived as unfair
Both women and men reported that women did more housework and parenting, whereas men engaged in more paid work and personal time. The overall pattern of division of housework and parenting is consistent with established gender differences (Bianchi et al., 2000; Kamp Dush et al., 2018; Newkirk et al., 2017) and those reported during the pandemic (Carlson et al., 2020; Craig & Churchill, 2020). Gathering reports from couples, however, clarified that the gender differences typically shown by between-group comparisons of individual reports are evident when comparing women’s and men’s reports within the same relationship. The overall pattern illustrated that, despite home confinement potentially reducing structural barriers to men sharing housework and parenting, both women and men agree that women are shouldering the increased burden of domestic labor arising from COVID-19 lockdowns.
Yet, despite agreeing that gender differences existed, women and men disagreed about the extent of the inequity. Although men reported that women were doing more housework and having less personal time, women reported doing more housework and having less personal time than men’s reports acknowledged. These discrepancies could emerge because housework is less valued than other domains and thus not as visible or fully appreciated. Men may also tend to underestimate the time and energy housework involves due to their lower contribution to this domain, and consequently overestimate the personal time women are afforded or perhaps misinterpret some activities as personal time (e.g., planning, playing with children). It is also possible that women’s greater share of housework and men’s greater share of personal time result in women viewing these inequities as even greater than they are. Importantly, regardless of why disagreement across couples emerged, such disagreement may contribute to the persistence of gender discrepancies in domestic labor. For example, if women’s share of the housework or lack of personal time is not fully appreciated by partners then there is likely less chance that couples will work together to rectify these inequities.
Despite disagreeing about how much more housework and how much less personal time women were engaging compared to men, women and men equally perceived that the relative labor in these domains was unfair. Couples may have more insights into each other’s perceived fairness, perhaps because people are more likely to directly or indirectly communicate their discontent with unfairness. Couples also may consider relative fairness, rather than amount of time and energy spent, when considering each other’s contributions. The prominence of perceived fairness in the evaluation and effects of equity is why perceived fairness tends to have relatively stronger effects on relationship outcomes (Greenstein, 1996). Nonetheless, men’s recognition that the division of domestic labor was more unfair on women did not protect women from the detrimental relationship outcomes associated with a greater domestic burden.
Perceiving inequities as unfair create relationship problems and dissatisfaction for women
Leveraging an existing dyadic study enabled us to uniquely assess how couples’ division of labor predicted residual changes in relationship problems and satisfaction. The pattern of results confirmed that women are more at risk of the negative relationship outcomes associated with perceiving an unfair share of housework, parenting and personal time. With regard to housework, women who reported a more inequitable and unfair division experienced greater problems and lower satisfaction. Applying an equity perspective, tests of the interaction between the relative division and perceived fairness of housework revealed that women who did more housework than their partner and perceived their larger share as unfair experienced the greatest residual increases in relationship problems and reductions in satisfaction.
Perceived unfairness of parenting was also central to how couples’ division of parenting shaped women’s relationship outcomes. Prior cross-sectional studies indicate that inequity and unfairness in the division of parenting is associated with greater conflict and lower satisfaction (Newkirk et al., 2017; Schieman et al., 2018). In the current study, only perceived unfairness in parenting predicted residual changes in problem and satisfaction. A significant interaction also revealed that women who did more parenting than their partner only experienced greater relationship problems when they perceived their share of parenting to be unfair on them. Compared to the onerous necessity of housework, parenting may often be personally fulfilling (Tully et al., 1999) in ways that compensate for a greater burden of the parenting workload. Any compensation of personal fulfilment, however, may not be enough to counter dissatisfaction and problems in the marital relationship when mothers feel their greater contribution is unfair.
Our investigation also extended insight into the relative impact of an unfair division in both domestic and personal activities. First, the impact of gender inequities in domestic labor were not balanced by counter inequities in other domains. Although men on average did more paid work, neither women or men experienced poorer relationship outcomes as a function of a greater or more unfair share of paid work. Instead, women experienced greater problems when their partner perceived their work was unfair, perhaps due to men’s feelings of unfairness creating more relationship difficulties managing expectations around housework, parenting and personal domains. Second, couples agreed that men (on average) had more personal time than women, and men who had relatively more personal time reported lower problems and greater satisfaction. However, couples agreed that women’s lower share of personal time was unfair, and women (but not men) who had less personal time relative to their partner and perceived the share of personal time to be unfair experienced greater relationship problems and lower satisfaction.
Detrimental effects of inequities in domestic labor occur for women regardless of family role, but men who occupy domestic roles may experience similar outcomes as women
More women (50.3%) than men (16.6%) were the primary caregiver, and more men (64.3%) than women (29.9%) worked fulltime. Nonetheless, the gender differences in the division and perceived fairness of parenting, housework and personal time, and the effects of the relative division and fairness of parenting, housework and personal time on women’s relationship outcomes, did not vary across women and men’s caregiver and employment status. Thus, the gendered pattern of the division of labor, and the detrimental effects of the division and perceived fairness of housework and parenting on women’s relationship outcomes, occurred for women in traditional and non-traditional family roles.
Interestingly, however, additional analyses provided some tentative evidence that men may experience poorer relationship outcomes when their family role or situation forces them to pick up more domestic labor. In general, men did not report greater relationship problems or lower relationship satisfaction when they reported doing more housework or parenting or perceived their contributions in these domains were unfair. However, when exploring the moderating role of caregiver and employment status, a small number of consistent effects emerged. Men who were primary caregivers and reported an inequitable division of parenting, and men who were not working fulltime and reported that the division of housework was inequitable or unfair, experienced greater problems and lower satisfaction. This pattern of results indicates that men who take on more of the domestic work and perceive their contribution as unfair experience the same negative relationship outcomes as women.
These novel findings indicate a promising direction for future research by highlighting that the constraints of social roles, in addition to gender, are important for understanding the division and impact of domestic labor (Eagly & Wood, 2016). In particular, the pattern of expected and unexpected effects indicates that prescriptive pressures regarding women’s and men’s social roles result in women experiencing poor outcomes from carrying the burden of domestic labor across social contexts as well as men experiencing negative outcomes when men occupy women’s traditional social role. However, given these unexpected findings for men involved 4 out of 16 interaction effects tested, and the sample composition (16.6% men primary caregivers, 35.7% men not working fulltime) did not provide optimal conditions for these comparisons, future research is needed to more reliably test this intriguing pattern by gathering samples that more evenly represent different family role configurations. Such efforts may also emphasize the primary findings from the current study. Specifically, although these additional findings indicate that poor outcomes may emerge for both women and men who are shouldering more of the domestic labor, women experience more relationship difficulties arising from an unfair division of labor across contexts regardless of family roles.
Caveats and conclusions
Compared to typical large cross-sectional surveys of individuals, our dyadic and longitudinal design provides stronger evidence that an unequal and unfair division labor is likely to increase relationship problems and reduce relationship satisfaction when couples need to be working together to manage the challenges of COVID-19 lockdowns. Dyadic longitudinal designs, however, necessarily restrict sample size and thus statistical power to test for gender differences and interactions. The majority of the effects shown for women were significantly different from the null effects for men, supporting our general conclusions. We also focused on sets of theoretically relevant interactions, but some interaction patterns for relationship problems were relatively weak, likely because problems involve difficulties arising from both individuals’ and partners’ discontent. Finally, our sample involved relatively satisfied couples who agreed that the division was unfair on women. The detrimental outcomes shown here are likely to be magnified in couples who are facing more challenges, report greater discrepancies in the relative division and perceived fairness of labor, and who enter the pandemic and lockdowns with greater relationship difficulties.
Despite these caveats, the results indicate that key challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic are more likely to have detrimental effects on women. Women were more unfairly burdened with domestic labor, and as a consequence were more likely to experience increased relationship problems and dissatisfaction. Accounting for caregiver and employment status revealed that women experienced these poor outcomes across family roles and contexts. The detrimental impact of these inequities is unlikely to be fleeting and may grow as the pandemic and related economic and family disruptions continue across time. Couples who learn to share the load more equitably, however, may protect women from relationship difficulties at a time when satisfying, supportive relationships are crucial for health and wellbeing.
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