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Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the gender dimension of its more visible socio-economic impacts has been the topic of study by several researchers. The current paper takes this further by focusing on the invisible chores done in the families at home. This paper studies how people's behavior towards housework changed during and after the confinement period in Spain. We analyze whether people did more housework during the lockdown period than before it, the way this housework was distributed between women and men, and whether this has changed since the end of lockdown. The empirical analyses point to a new trend in the housework gender gap: differences between men and women have narrowed since the lockdown, although women continue to bear most of the responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media and research reports have highlighted the disproportionate burden of home and family responsibilities shouldered by women and mothers due to COVID-19-related school/childcare shutdowns. This cross-sectional study extends this line of inquiry to emerging adults. Our study of 329 diverse emerging adults suggests that young women took on more home/family responsibilities than young men amidst the pandemic, and that these duties were associated with symptoms of depression. However, results also indicate that emerging adults who reported greater home/family responsibilities amidst the pandemic also experienced more quality family time, suggesting that pandemic-related challenges may have also been accompanied by opportunities for family connection. Contrary to previous research that has shown home/family responsibilities to be concentrated by SES and race/ ethnicity, we found that participants uniformly endorsed COVID-19-related impacts on home/family responsibilities across these demographic distinctions. This could reflect the ubiquity of COVID-19's impact; across race/ethnicity and class--but differentially by gender--young adults faced significant challenges in taking on new home/family roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using three-annual-wave, dyadic data from different-gender, dual-earner couples in the United States (N = 904 couples), we delineated associations between work-family conflict and housework division for husbands and wives across COVID-19 and tested the moderating role of each spouse's traditional gender attitudes in these associations. We used the conservation of resource theory and family systems theory as guiding frameworks. Couples were from a nationally representative sample of married couples recruited using a two-stage cluster stratification strategy. Using a random-intercept, actor-partner interdependence, cross-lagged panel model, we found bidirectional, longitudinal associations among changes in work-family conflicts and perceived fairness of housework division across the transition caused by COVID-19. Specifically, increased work-family conflicts predicted the perception of increased unfairness in housework division and vice versa, and changes experienced by husbands were predictive for both spouses. We also found husbands' (not wives') more traditional gender attitudes exaggerated the associations between increased work-family conflicts and the perception of more unfairness. We advocate for efforts to facilitate work-family balance and to promote more egalitarian gender attitudes, which is especially crucial because the COVID-19 pandemic and other social changes have reshaped work and family lives and gender role attitudes around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media and research reports have highlighted the disproportionate burden of home and family responsibilities shouldered by women and mothers due to COVID-19-related school/childcare shutdowns. This cross-sectional study extends this line of inquiry to emerging adults. Our study of 329 diverse emerging adults suggests that young women took on more home/family responsibilities than young men amidst the pandemic, and that these duties were associated with symptoms of depression. However, results also indicate that emerging adults who reported greater home/family responsibilities amidst the pandemic also experienced more quality family time, suggesting that pandemic-related challenges may have also been accompanied by opportunities for family connection. Contrary to previous research that has shown home/family responsibilities to be concentrated by SES and race/ethnicity, we found that participants uniformly endorsed COVID-19-related impacts on home/family responsibilities across these demographic distinctions. This could reflect the ubiquity of COVID-19’s impact; across race/ethnicity and class—but differentially by gender—young adults faced significant challenges in taking on new home/family roles.

The COVID-19 health crisis brought with it an increase in the workload on family members due to the restriction of services and the suspension of formal and informal care networks. Numerous studies have analyzed how home confinement have affected different gender gaps, including the gender gap related to chores within the home. This research aims to contribute to the existing literature from the perspective of gender geography by introducing the variable municipality size in the analyses. Our research in the case of Spain shows the COVID-19 health crisis to have had a significant impact on gender gaps, albeit to varying degrees. Women, especially those living in small municipalities, experienced a widening of the gap related to care and domestic workload during confinement. The study of the distribution of the more burdensome chores between genders shows an even more imbalanced scenario to the detriment of women. However, following the end of confinement, the situation improved. Although the imbalance against women remains, the gap with respect to the pre-pandemic situation has been reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]