Parenthood: Motherhood/Fatherhood

February 25, 2025

Why the U.S. Should Have (and Why Men Should Take) Paternity Leave

A briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Richard J. Petts, Professor, Department of Sociology, Ball State University, together with Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan and Reed Donithen, Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University

February 25, 2025

Amidst all the talk of increased political polarization and divisiveness within the United States, it can be easy to lose sight of the ways in which Americans are united. Yet, U.S. adults overwhelmingly believe that spending time with family is very important, with 89% of democrats and 92% of republicans supporting this belief. Americans also appear to be reaching consensus on one key policy that can promote family time: paid parental leave. The vast majority of Americans favor paid parental leave policies, even across political lines and within contentious “battleground” states. This support corresponds to growth in access to paid family leave policies. In the past 5 years, five states have adopted paid family and medical leave policies – bringing the U.S. total to 13 states (plus Washington, DC) with these policies in place. Although this progress pales in comparison to the more robust paid parental leave policies in European and other countries, it demonstrates the growing awareness of the need for paid leave policies for families.

Scholars and policymakers have learned a lot about what makes a good parental leave policy. In particular, paid parental leave policies should provide an adequate period of time off work (at least 18 weeks), should be well-paid, should provide job protection, and should be available to fathers. In many ways, U.S. state paid family leave policies are “good” policies as they are often well-paid (particularly for low-income workers), provide job protection, and are equally available to mothers and fathers (although they do not adhere to International Labour Organization guidelines recommending 18 weeks of leave).

However, the reliance on state- and company-level policies in the U.S. (as opposed to federal policies) results in just over ¼ of American workers having access to paid parental leave. Furthermore, while Americans are generally supportive of paid parental leave policies, there are clear concerns that taking parental leave is harmful for one’s career even if one’s job is protected. Whereas taking leave is seen as necessary for mothers to recover physically and emotionally from childbirth, some remain skeptical about paternity leave – viewing this leave as unnecessary and believing that fathers instead should focus on work.

The view that parental leave should primarily be used by mothers and that fathers instead should prioritize work fuels gender inequality in both paid work and home life. As fatherhood scholars, we have engaged in extensive research demonstrating the general benefits of father involvement in childcare and domestic work, as well as the specific benefits of paternity leave for families.

Paternity Leave Promotes Father Involvement

Fathers cite lack of time as a primary barrier preventing them from being as involved in their children’s lives as they desire. The first benefit of paternity leave is providing fathers with dedicated time to bond with their new child and to learn how to care for their child, which sets them up to be more involved with their children in the long term. Indeed, U.S. fathers who take longer paternity leave remain more involved fathers throughout the first few years of their child’s life. In addition, when fathers take at least two weeks of paternity leave, children later report that their fathers are more involved in their lives, they feel closer to their fathers, and they communicate better with their fathers compared to children whose fathers did not take leave. In short, paternity leave sets the stage for fathers to be highly involved throughout their child’s life, which benefits children, families, and fathers themselves.

Paternity Leave Promotes Stronger Relationships between Parents

In addition to providing time for fathers to bond with their child and gain parenting confidence, paternity leave also provides dedicated time for parents to figure out how to parent together. This increases the likelihood that parents can support one another and reduces the likelihood that one parent (often the mother) becomes the ‘parenting expert’ and shoulders the burden of parenting. In fact, a new study shows that mothers are less likely to discourage fathers from participating in childcare when fathers take longer paternity leave, which allows fathers to more effectively act as parents on their own terms. Other studies further show that paternity leave-taking can help to strengthen parental relationships. For example, mothers report higher relationship satisfaction and greater parenting support from fathers for years following the birth of a child when fathers take longer paternity leave. Paternity leave is even linked to a lower likelihood of divorce.

How Can We Promote Greater Access To, and Use of, Paternity Leave?

The evidence is clear that paternity leave is good for families, and it has the potential to benefit American society by promoting more egalitarian parenting arrangements and greater gender equality in the paid labor force. But to fully realize these benefits, access to paid paternity leave needs to increase. Recent policy developments in Europe show that when paid parental leave policies are expanded and targeted toward fathers, fathers are much more likely to use these policies. However, policy reform alone is not enough to change deep-seated cultural beliefs about gender, work, and family. We also need to become more accepting and supportive of men taking longer periods of leave, as fathers are more likely to use the parental leave they are entitled to if they believe their workplaces are supportive and do not fear negative consequences as a result of leave-taking. Public support for paid parental leave is building, and the benefits for all workers – including fathers – to have access to, and take, paid parental leave is clear. Evidence suggests the time is now! In fact, one recent national survey found that U.S. adults believe employed fathers should receive 10.5 weeks of paid parental leave (and mothers should receive 16 weeks) – over twice as much as was reported in 2017. It is time for policies and workplace culture to catch up to the cultural wave of support for paid parental leave in the U.S.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the staff at CCF for their assistance with the production of this article and Stephanie Coontz for her helpful comments in drafting this brief.

For More Information, Please Contact:

Richard J. Petts
Associate Dean of the College of Sciences and Humanities and Professor, Department of Sociology
Ball State University
rjpetts@bsu.edu

ABOUT CCF

The Council on Contemporary Families, based at the University of Texas-Austin, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of family researchers and practitioners that seeks to further a national understanding of how America’s families are changing and what is known about the strengths and weaknesses of different family forms and various family interventions.

The Council helps keep journalists informed of new and forthcoming research on gender and family-related issues via the CCF Network. To locate researchers or request copies of previous research briefs, please contact Stephanie Coontz, Director of Research and Public Education, at coontzs@msn.com, cell 360-556-9223.

Read our blog CCF @ The Society Pages – https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/

September 19, 2024

U.S. parents financially support their adult children. But in immigrant families, it’s the reverse.

A briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Vanessa Delgado, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Washington State University

Today, the majority of American parents financially support their adult children. Estimates suggest that only a quarter of young adults are financially independent and rely on their parents for financial support well into their 30s. Parents and their adult children are more financially interconnected than ever before.

However, in immigrant families, financial support is reversed.

Studies suggest that young adults with immigrant parents are more likely to “give back” financially when compared to young adults with native-born parents, that is, parents who are born in the U.S. Adult children of immigrants feel a greater sense of obligation to support their parents and actively contribute to medical bills, rent or mortgage, household expenses, and even work-related costs. Notably, adult children of immigrants even “give back” when they no longer live in the parental home.

Existing research assumes children of immigrants’ financial contributions are uniform. But I find they’re not.

In a study published in Social Problems, I argue that parental immigration status shapes adult children of immigrants’ decisions to “give back” in immigrant families. I find that young adults with undocumented parents are more likely to give back financially than young adults with documented parents. I also find that the adult children of undocumented immigrants are more likely to give direct cash transfers, pay household bills, develop financial plans for homeownership and retirement, open credit cards on behalf of parents, take on debt, and worry about their parents’ financial futures.

There are several reasons why the adult children of undocumented immigrants feel more obligated to “give back.” First, undocumented immigrants are more likely to take on precarious jobs that pay very little and do not provide important benefits like healthcare, overtime, and sick leave. Second, undocumented immigrants are prohibited from accessing federal social services such as the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (i.e., Social Security) Program, Medicaid or Medicare, and Food Supplementary Programs (i.e., food stamps). Third, many banks and retirement insurance policies require a social security number to open an account. Fourth, undocumented immigrants are subject to deportation, which financially devastates families. The adult children of undocumented immigrants feel compelled to take on a greater financial role in the family because their undocumented parents experience significant barriers to economic security.

Overall, this study demonstrates that immigration status is a powerful axis of stratification among immigrant families. An undocumented immigration status transforms the needs of immigrant families, as it blocks pathways to upward mobility and positions adult children of immigrants to take on greater financial responsibilities. The imprint of parental undocumented status is likely to follow young adults throughout the life course as the absence of amnesty relief reaches almost four decades and their undocumented parents grow older without access to public safety nets.

For More Information, Please Contact:

Vanessa Delgado, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Washington State University
Email: vanessa.delgado@wsu.edu
Twitter: @VanessaD015

Links

Brief report: https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2024/09/19/immigrant-families-financial-support-brief-report/

About CCF

The Council on Contemporary Families, based at the University of Texas-Austin, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of family researchers and practitioners that seeks to further a national understanding of how America’s families are changing and what is known about the strengths and weaknesses of different family forms and various family interventions For more information, contact Stephanie Coontz, Director of Research and Public Education, coontzs@msn.com.

September 19th, 2024

November 14, 2023

Executive Summary: The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Gender Equality

Prepared by Daniel L. Carlson, University of Utah, and Richard J. Petts, Ball State University, for the Council on Contemporary Families symposium The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Gender Equality (PDF).

The COVID-19 pandemic upended the lives of families around the world. Aside from its obvious and substantial costs to life and health, the pandemic created crises at both home and work – the consequences of which varied by gender. A new online symposium presented by the Council on Contemporary Families highlights what emerging research tells us about changes to family and work life during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, what these changes meant for gender inequalities during the pandemic, and what they mean for the future of gender equality in the US.

In the first briefing paper of this symposium, Liana Christin Landivar and Pilar Gonalons-Pons detail the depths and duration of pandemic closures to schools and daycares in the United States and the consequences these closures had for parents, care workers, and social inequalities. Their research shows that mothers left work at higher rates than fathers to attend to children’s care and educational demands, and this was especially acute for Black mothers and non-college educated mothers who faced prolonged school closures and/or lack of access to remote work. They note that childcare availability in the US has declined substantially since the pandemic (even before the recent end to federal subsidies) while costs have risen substantially, outstripping inflation. In addition to parents being negatively affected by the closure of schools and paid childcare, so teachers and childcare providers– most of whom are women of color – were also adversely affected. Childcare workers had twice the likelihood of losing their jobs as other workers during the pandemic and experienced a 50% decline in earnings. Moreover, poor pay and stressful working conditions led many teachers and care providers to leave their jobs permanently, producing substantial staffing shortages. Landivar and Gonalons-Pons conclude their brief by remarking that the pandemic damaged an already fragile care infrastructure in the US, increasing inequality moving forward by putting quality affordable care even further out of reach for poor families and increasing burdens on mothers.

Pandemic lockdowns portended an increase in domestic labor for families, which has the potential for increasing burdens on women who are conventionally responsible for this work. Using time-diary data, Liana Sayer and Joanna Pepin examine gender differences in parents’ time in housework and childcare during the pandemic with surprising results. They find that parents’ overall time in primary childcare, and the gender gap in primary childcare, remained unchanged during the pandemic. Though mothers increased their time in developmental childcare (e.g., education) early in the pandemic, they spent less time in physical care. By 2021, mothers had reverted to pre-pandemic childcare patterns. Gender gaps in childcare were substantially smaller when mothers were employed and fathers worked from home, suggesting that work-family polices like paid childcare leave that keep women attached to the labor force and job flexibility which provides fathers more time at home are likely to enhance equality in domestic labor. Though the gender gap in childcare remained virtually unchanged, the gender gap in housework and time with children narrowed slightly early in the pandemic as fathers did more housework and spent more time with kids. Nevertheless, change was fleeting as fathers’ time in housework and with children reverted back toward pre-pandemic levels by 2021, though time with kids continues to remain elevated.

In the third brief of our symposium, Jill Yavorsky, Yue Qian, and Liana Christin Landivar detail the costs of domestic labor demands on women’s paid work, earnings, and careers. They note that although official statistics suggest that women’s labor force participation has finally rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, this masks both the costs of the pandemic for women’s careers as well as educational gradients in these costs. Specifically, they highlight that labor force participation rates of non-college educated mothers have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. Moreover, the motherhood wage penalty substantially increased for college educated mothers during the pandemic, reversing twenty years of progress. Using evidence from survey experiments with managers, they note that the motherhood wage penalty may stem from discrimination related to mothers’ childcare issues.

The ability of college-educated mothers to remain attached to the labor force during the pandemic and for fathers to increase their time in childcare stems in part from remote work. In the next brief of this symposium, Wen Fan and Richard Petts show us that although remote work can reduce gender inequalities in some domains, it can exacerbate inequalities in others. Remote work allowed mothers to remain in their paid positions and helped to facilitate fathers’ involvement in domestic labor, but it was also associated with decreases in work hours for mothers (but not fathers). Moreover, they report that although disadvantaged women may prefer remote work, likely because of their limited access to affordable childcare, they accrue fewer benefits using it relative to fathers. The tendency of women to use job flexibility to dedicate more time to unpaid labor at the expense of their paid work, suggests that how remote work is used and by whom matters greatly for the future of gender equality.

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a policy response on multiple levels, not least of which was helping families navigate illness, job furloughs, and the loss of care supports. Jeff Hayes and Elizabeth Peters provide an overview of leave policy in the United States and its benefits to individuals and families. They detail the aims and scope of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) — not only how it fell short of providing the care supports that families in the US needed during the pandemic but also how access to leave continued to be unequally distributed. They conclude with the observation that the COVID-19 pandemic shows us that unexpected events happen and a lack of comprehensive public policy exacerbates the negative effects of these events.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic created conditions that could feasibly reduce gender inequalities at home, and thus help mothers maintain their paid jobs, it appears that inequalities were instead exacerbated. Arielle Kuperberg, Sarah Thébaud, Kathleen Gerson, and Brad Harrington ask: why aren’t more fathers stepping up to shoulder a larger share of childcare and housework in families? Findings from their collective research suggest that entrenched cultural norms regarding masculinity, fatherhood, and breadwinning may be a root cause. Though Americans increasingly embrace men as caregivers, they value their breadwinning role even more. While men themselves desire to be more engaged husbands and fathers, they are skeptical about their abilities to achieve this in the face of workplace cultures that stigmatize and punish “leaning-out.” The power of these norms that encourage male breadwinning and discourage male caregiving are demonstrated both before and during the pandemic in the way out-of-work fathers (ages 30-50) living with their children categorize themselves as “retired” rather than “stay-at-home dads.”

The looming threat of COVID, in addition to substantial disruptions to work and family life, made the pandemic an incredibly stressful time. In the final briefing paper of the symposium, Daniel Carlson and Melissa Milkie discuss why gender disparities in mental health grew during the pandemic. Though mental health declined broadly for both men and women, it declined more precipitously among parents, mothers especially. Importantly, three years later, mental health has yet to improve in the US. Reviewing the literature and findings from their own research, Carlson and Milkie note that major stressors such as job loss, feelings of isolation, worry about COVID, and work-family conflicts were all more likely to be experienced by mothers. They argue that although the ability to be home with one’s family was likely a boon to well-being, it was outweighed in countries like the United States by work-family stress emanating from a distinct lack of policy support. In addition to policy, the authors also point out that gender disparities in mental health during the pandemic also likely stem from pervasive cultural norms for intensive mothers and ideal workers. As family managers, mothers likely bore the brunt of pandemic stress regarding family health and children’s learning. Yet, while mothers may have felt compelled to attend to these responsibilities, they nevertheless felt extreme guilt about the way family issues interfered with their jobs.

The briefing papers in this symposium demonstrate that gender inequalities grew across numerous domains during the COVID-19 pandemic, with potentially long-term consequences. They emphasize that the pandemic created conditions – such as school and daycare closures –in combination with the absence of supportive family care policies and the presence of workplace and gender norms that push care on women and paid work on men, that exacerbated pre-existing inequalities in the United States. At the same time, the authors point out that the pandemic revealed several avenues for how to reduce gender inequalities (e.g., fathers’ remote work; investment in care infrastructure; paid parental leave) and each paper provides clear prescriptions for how we can mitigate the damage inflicted by the pandemic. Such recommendations are vital if we truly hope to reduce gender inequalities in work and family life moving forward.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Daniel L. Carlson is Associate Professor of Family and Consumer Studies at the University of Utah and Treasurer of the Council on Contemporary Families. He can be reached at daniel.carlson@fcs.utah.edu. You can follow him on Twitter at @DanielCarlson_1.

Richard J. Petts is a Professor of Sociology at Ball State University. His research focuses on the intersection of family, work, gender, and policy, and he serves on the Board of Directors of the Council on Contemporary Families. You can learn more about his research by visiting his website (www.richardpetts.com), following him on X (@pettsric), or via email (rjpetts@bsu.edu).

LINKS

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Gender Equality Symposium
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium/

Symposium Video Series
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl5RHw2Sw9zVuayJzF5fT6BUKAPy-wtsP

Executive Summary
Daniel Carlson and Richard Petts
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-executive-summary/

Childcare Challenges During the Pandemic and Their Impact on Parents and Care Providers
Liana Christin Landivar and Pilar Gonalons-Pons
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-childcare/

Pandemic Influences on Gender Inequality in Unpaid Work
Liana Sayer and Joanna Pepin
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-unpaid-work/

Mothers Continue to Experience Career Consequences Three Years into the Pandemic
Jill Yavorsky, Yue Qian, and Liana Christin Landivar
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-paid-labor/

Can Remote Work Fuel Gender Equality? Evidence Shows Cause for Optimism but Challenges Remain
Wen Fan and Richard Petts
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-remote-work/

Leave Laws Support Equity
Jeff Hayes and Elizabeth Peters
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-paid-leave/

Dads Home with Kids Peaked During The COVID-19 Pandemic – But Not for The Reason You Think
Arielle Kuperberg, Sarah Thébaud, Kathleen Gerson, and Brad Harrington
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-gender-norms/

Work-Family Stressors, Gender, and Mental Health during COVID-19 and Beyond
Daniel Carlson and Melissa Milkie
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-mental-health/

ABOUT CCF

The Council on Contemporary Families is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best-practice findings about American families. Our members include demographers, economists, family therapists, historians, political scientists, psychologists, social workers, sociologists, communication scholars, and other family social scientists and practitioners.

Founded in 1996 and based at the University of Texas at Austin, the Council’s mission is to enhance the national understanding of how and why contemporary families are changing, what needs and challenges they face, and how these needs can best be met. To fulfill that mission, the Council issues periodic briefing papers and fact sheets, which journalists can sign up to receive by writing to Stephanie Coontz, Director of Research and Public Education, at coontzs@msn.com.

Read our blog CCF @ The Society Pages – https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/

November 14, 2023

November 14, 2023

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Gender Equality Symposium

Executive Summary
Daniel L. Carlson and Richard J. Petts

Childcare Challenges During the Pandemic and Their Impact on Parents and Care Providers
Liana Christin Landivar and Pilar Gonalons-Pons

Pandemic Influences on Gender Inequality in Unpaid Work
Liana Sayer and Joanna Pepin

Mothers Continue to Experience Career Consequences Three Years into the Pandemic
Jill Yavorsky, Yue Qian, and Liana Christin Landivar

Can Remote Work Fuel Gender Equality? Evidence Shows Cause for Optimism, But Challenges Remain
Wen Fan and Richard J. Petts

Leave Laws Support Equity
Jeff Hayes and Elizabeth Peters

Dads Home with Kids Peaked During The COVID-19 Pandemic – But Not For The Reason You Think
Arielle Kuperberg, Sarah Thébaud, Kathleen Gerson, and Brad Harrington

Work-Family Stressors, Gender, and Mental Health during COVID-19 and Beyond
Daniel L. Carlson and Melissa Milkie

November 14, 2023

Childcare Challenges During the Pandemic and Their Impact on Parents and Care Providers

A briefing paper prepared by Liana Christin Landivar, Women’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, and Pilar Gonalons-Pons, University of Pennsylvania for the Council on Contemporary Families online symposium The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Gender Equality (PDF).

*Views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S. Department of Labor.

In March 2020, as part of states’ initial pandemic response, most childcare centers and virtually all schools closed to in-person operations, impacting a large share of the country’s children and their caregivers. About one-third of childcare centers remained closed a year later. Additionally, over 60 percent of elementary students attended public school districts that only offered fully or partially remote instruction in the Fall of 2020 with reduced in-person operations continuing for up to a year and a half in parts of the country. Unlike other high-income countries, the weak support for care infrastructure in the U.S. left parents and essential care providers in childcare centers and homes, preschools, and schools unprepared to address the multifaceted challenges posed by the pandemic. This resulted in significant consequences for both parents and providers, and ultimately, for social inequality.

How the lack of care infrastructure impacted parents

Employment swiftly declined among mothers in the first year of the pandemic. Mothers were more likely to leave their jobs and delay re-employment than fathers because they picked up significant and prolonged increases in carework at home, lacking alternative care arrangements for their children. As schools and childcare centers closed, care from friends and family also became more limited because of pandemic-related risks. Employment reductions were particularly large among mothers working in low-wage jobs without workplace flexibilities such as paid leave or telework that could have helped accommodate work and care obligations at home.

The pandemic left a long-lasting imprint on mothers lacking care arrangements during the first year of the pandemic. Mothers who lived in areas with remote public school instruction had prolonged reduced employment, particularly mothers without a college degree. Even three years later, the employment rates of Black mothers and mothers without a college degree had still not returned to pre-pandemic employment levels. Among college graduates, many of whom were able to keep working, the gender wage gap expanded.

Today, parents are still dealing with childcare disruptions, resulting in an increase in work disruptions. A new report shows that in 2022, 3.3% of mothers and 1.5% of fathers reported being absent from work in the past week due to childcare problems. An additional 4.1% of mothers and 3.2% of fathers who regularly work full-time had worked part-time in the past week due to childcare problems. These numbers are higher than prior to the pandemic, with mothers continuing to report more work disruptions due to childcare lapses than fathers.

Increasing childcare prices are also putting pressure on parents, many of whom rely on paid childcare to be able to work. Since the start of the pandemic, childcare prices have risen to cover temporary reduced capacity limits, safety equipment needs, significant worker turnover, and rapidly rising inflation. New data from the Women’s Bureau shows that families were paying between $4,810 per year for school-age children in before/aftercare to $17,171 per year for infants (in 2022 dollars), absorbing between 8 percent and 19 percent of family income per child in paid care. In the past year, childcare prices have risen an additional 7% from a year earlier – outpacing inflation (Figure 1) and putting childcare farther out of reach for lower- and middle-income families.

Figure 1. Consumer Price Index for All Items and Day Care and Preschool: 12 Month Percent Change

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index. Authors’ calculations.

How the pandemic impacted care workers and providers

Care workers and providers were profoundly impacted by the pandemic.

Nearly 16,000 childcare centers went out of business in the first year of the pandemic, representing about 9 percent of childcare centers nationwide. Among providers remaining open, new capacity limits drastically reduced the number of children that could be served. Closures and capacity reductions were especially concentrated among providers serving Asian, Black, and Latino children.

Childcare workers were more than twice as likely to experience job loss and employment reductions than workers in other industries (Figure 2) and saw their earnings decline 50% more than other workers. Childcare employment has lagged behind other sectors in its recovery, with the number of employees per childcare establishment remaining below pre-pandemic levels as of 2023. Though public school teachers earn more than childcare workers, and were largely protected from job loss during the pandemic, they left their jobs for retirement at double the rate of other workers. Even as most schools reopened to in-person instruction in Spring 2021, teachers are continuing to deal with increased mental health and well-being concerns among students, difficulty securing resources and equipment, and lost instructional time as a result of the pandemic, increasing the demands in their jobs.

Figure 2. Percentage Change in Number of Employed Individuals in the US Economy and in Select Childcare-Related Jobs: 2018-2022

Note: The sample includes all working age adults (16-65) and uses sample weights. Percentage change calculated in reference to March 2020. Teachers’ employment levels decline during summer months due to seasonality of employment.
Source: Current Population Survey 2018-2022. Authors’ calculations.

Some of the challenges in rebuilding the educational and childcare sector stem from poor compensation of care workers, and inadequate government funding of care providers resulting in what the U.S. Treasury calls a broken market. Childcare workers are paid among the lowest wages of all occupations in the United States: $13.71 an hour in 2022. As prices and inflation surged in 2021 and wages increased for lower-paid workers, childcare worker compensation became even more inadequate, resulting in greater difficulties attracting a sufficient number of workers to the sector to develop adequate supply. Similarly, the education sector has experienced staffing shortages and teachers are underpaid for their qualifications. Taken together, these factors have led to a slower recovery among care workers and providers than the rest of the economy.

The US Care Infrastructure and the Future of Gender Equality

The COVID-19 pandemic drew unprecedented attention to the fragility of the care infrastructure in this country. Longstanding hesitation to government investment in care infrastructure has resulted in a “system” of disconnected and largely privatized care providers, particularly when it comes to the care for younger children, and unaffordable prices for families. In all, by radically disrupting an already fragile care infrastructure, the pandemic has exacerbated economic inequalities by gender as well as by class and race. Gaps in employment and wages between mothers and fathers grew and the slow recovery of the care sector is disproportionately hurting working class women of color. Care infrastructure is the backbone of the economy. Adequate public investment is necessary to increase stability in employment, reduce disparities in labor supply and childcare access, and achieve a more equitable recovery.

About the Authors

Liana Christin Landivar is a senior researcher at the Women’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor and faculty affiliate at the Maryland Population Research Center. She can be reached at liana.c.landivar@gmail.com.

Pilar Gonalons-Pons is the Alber-Klingelhofer Presidential Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. She can be reached at pgonalon@sas.upenn.edu. You can follow her on Twitter at @pilargonalons.

November 14, 2023

Pandemic Influences on Gender Inequality in Unpaid Work

A briefing paper prepared by Liana C. Sayer, University of Maryland and Joanna R. Pepin, University of Toronto for the Council on Contemporary Families online symposium The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Gender Equality (PDF).

In the past, widespread economic impacts have affected gender dynamics in paid and unpaid work. For example, the concentration of job loss among men during the 2008 recession was associated with increases in married fathers’ household and care work. The COVID-19 pandemic produced an unprecedented economic crisis and it too brought about changes in parents’ employment. Job loss and reduced work hours were initially concentrated among women, particularly racial and ethnic minority women, and disproportionately affected mothers.

These employment changes alongside stay-at-home guidelines, restrictions on eating at restaurants, altered grocery shopping and cooking patterns, and public health guidance to sanitize living quarters led many scholars and pundits to speculate families were spending more of their time cooking and cleaning. Childcare closures and the shift to remote learning for schoolchildren upended parents’ expectations of the time necessary for supervising their children. Did these sharp disruptions to everyday family life affect gender inequality in unpaid work? And how are these changes associated with paid work during COVID?

On the one hand, gender inequality in unpaid work may have worsened during the pandemic. The lack of formal childcare and increased needs for cooking and cleaning were likely to affect mothers more than fathers due to expectations of intensive mothering and notions that women are primarily responsible for the household. On the other hand, greater access to remote work, especially among employed fathers, and a redistribution of daily activities (e.g., less time transporting children to extracurricular activities) may have facilitated more equality in sharing housework and childcare.

Same song, new verse?

Similar to what happened during the 2008 recession, initial research showed some signs that, in the early days of the pandemic, the parental gender gap in unpaid work narrowed. One study showed an 18% decrease in the number of minutes per day mothers and fathers spent with their children. In the Fall of 2019, the gender gap was about 175 minutes – nearly 3 hours – per day. By the Fall of 2020, the daily gap in time spent with children had declined to 144 minutes per day (about 2 hours 25 minutes). Another study, based on a non-probability sample of 1,025 US parents in different-gender partnerships, showed similar patterns. Although mothers continued to do more housework and childcare than fathers about one month into the pandemic, notably, fathers increased their contribution to the household labor. It was fathers’ greater time spent in unpaid labor that narrowed the gender gap.

However, as the pandemic carried on, evidence of lasting change didn’t materialize. A follow-up study showed that the shift toward more equal sharing of housework returned to pre-pandemic levels by November 2020. As childcare facilities remained closed and schools shifted to remote learning, mothers more than fathers rearranged their daily lives to provide more supervision for children’s school-related activities and to physically care for children at home. The return to mothers doing more of this work than fathers was rationalized by parents who pointed to structural constraints – such as the motherhood earnings penalty and fatherhood premium – and cultural prescriptions about appropriate behaviors for men and women.

The premier source of daily activity data, the American Time Use Survey, is now available for the years prior to the pandemic (2019), early in the pandemic (2020), and late in the pandemic (2021). A new study¹ uses this data to show how the pandemic affected gender inequality in unpaid work among parents with children ages 12 and younger. The analysis focuses on changes from 2019 to 2021 in mothers’ and fathers’ time spent on housework and three types of childcare: 1) parental childcare (time when childcare is the primary task and only focus of attention); 2) secondary childcare (time when parents are monitoring children but not directly engaged in childcare or other activities with children); and 3) total time spent with children present (e.g., watching TV with children). The findings confirm the pandemic affected gender inequality in unpaid work and reveal that it did so unevenly across types of unpaid work.

The most striking finding is the lack of change in the gender gap in parental childcare time. There were no statistically significant changes in either mothers’ or fathers’ time providing childcare between 2019 and 2021, meaning mothers continued to do about 40 minutes more childcare per day than fathers. Time parents are actively providing care consists of both physical childcare (e.g., hands-on care and supervision) and developmental childcare (e.g., education, playing, talking). Between 2019 and 2020, mothers’ physical childcare decreased slightly, but this was counterbalanced by a modest increase in time spent on developmental childcare, and levels in 2021 were similar to 2019. This lack of change in primary childcare suggests that in 2020 parents redistributed time across specific types of childcare activities (such as away from driving children to organized activities to managing and supervising children’s remote education and play) rather than making larger investments of time in childcare.

Still, the time parents are actively providing care does not reflect the whole spectrum of parental time investments in children. Some childcare is multitasked with other activities. For example, parents fortunate to work remotely may have experienced more flexibility in integrating childcare and housework into their lives by multitasking. But research on the early days of the pandemic suggests that fathers who work remotely safeguard their work time and space (and leisure) from care of and time with children. Although the ATUS data (like most international time use data) does not collect data on multitasking, it does collect data on secondary childcare – time parents are monitoring children’s activities and whereabouts while doing something else. Mothers’ secondary childcare initially increased 47 minutes/day in 2020 but then decreased 22 minutes from 2020-2021. Fathers followed a similar pattern, leading the gender gap in secondary childcare to remain constant during the early pandemic years.

Parents also do some daily activities with children present, such as taking a walk or watching TV while children are present. Mothers’ time with children did not change between 2019 and 2021 – around 6 hours and 40 minutes each day. In contrast, fathers’ time with children increased 30 minutes in 2020 and 13 minutes more by 2021. As a result, the gender gap in time with children narrowed from 2019-2021. The slight decrease in fathers’ time with children in 2021 may result from easing restrictions on public activities and social interactions, with children returning to school and childcare centers and older children spending more time outside their homes with friends.

The ATUS data also suggests the pandemic impacted unpaid work differently depending on parents’ employment circumstances¹. Among employed mothers and fathers who worked only at home on the ATUS diary day, mothers spend about 30 minutes more per day than fathers providing physical care – but there is no significant gender gap in developmental care. This holds in 2019, 2020, and 2021 – suggesting the pandemic didn’t disrupt or exacerbate the gender gap in parental childcare. Additionally, fathers who worked at home on ATUS diary day reported more childcare time compared with those who worked outside the home (about 38 minutes more in 2021), and just about as much as non-employed fathers. College educated fathers are more likely to hold jobs that allow remote work and those fathers may have engaged in status safeguarding parenting behaviors during the pandemic.

Turning to housework, fathers’ time in housework increased about 10 minutes/day between 2019 and 2020 before a return to 2019 levels by 2021. Mothers continue to do about an hour more housework per day than fathers. Hence, the pandemic appears not to have led to greater gender equality in housework. Interestingly, though, housework did not increase during the pandemic even among mothers who worked remotely.

What do these findings mean for gender inequality in unpaid work in the future?

There are two possible ways to narrow the gender gap in housework and childcare: 1) decrease women’s time spent in unpaid labor or 2) increase men’s time spent in unpaid labor. Longitudinal data suggest childcare time increased among some parents, such as those who reduced paid work hours or left jobs altogether. About half of mothers’ increased childcare time during the initial phase of the pandemic can be attributed to mothers’ decline in paid work and leaving the labor market altogether. This is not surprising given that the United States only temporarily expanded the family safety net. Pundits and scholars alike believe the possibility of addressing the critical need for federal policies subsidizing childcare facilities and securing a robust care infrastructure is slim in the current political and social conflict. Still, 13 U.S. states and D.C. have passed legislation requiring paid family or parental leave, and 14 U.S. States and D.C. require employers to provide paid sick days. These workplace policies are likely to support mothers’ labor force participation, tamping down increases in mothers time spent providing childcare. Additionally, the absence of paid parental leave in the U.S. and U.K. negatively affected mothers’ mental health during COVID, in contrast to those in countries like Canada and Australia that offered paid leave during COVID.

College educated workers are demanding continued options to work at home and some workplaces have relented to these demands. Some pre-pandemic research suggests that men who work from home share more equally in domestic labor, particularly when their partners are employed fulltime. If greater access to remote work persists, some [privileged] fathers may be more able to achieve their growing desire to spend more time with their children. Still, pre-pandemic research shows that fathers’ paid labor time tends to be protected from routine childcare duties, potentially mitigating substantial changes. And, many workers – particularly low-income and racial/ethnic minority workers, continue to lack access to flexible work policies.

The long historical arc of work on gender inequality in unpaid work offers only one vision for greater gender equality: it requires fathers’ daily time use to become more like mothers, particularly through the investment of fathers in housework and in childcare. Intentional efforts to bring this about at both an individual and societal level are necessary to bring about more lasting shifts toward greater equality in unpaid labor.

¹Sayer, Liana C., Kelsey Drotning, and Sarah Flood. “Gender Racial, and Class Disparities in COVID-19 Impacts on Parent’s Work & Family Time.” Paper presented at the June 2022 Work and Family Research Network conference, New York, NY

About the Authors

Liana C. Sayer is Professor of Sociology and Director, Maryland Time Use Lab and Editor, Journal of Marriage and Family. She can be reached at lsayer@umd.edu. You can follow her on Mastodon sciences.social at @lsayer.

Joanna Pepin is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. You can follow her on Mastodon at https://sciences.social/@CoffeeBaseball.