The gender division of unpaid care work throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany
- The COVID-19 pandemic and related closures of day care centres and schools significantly increased the amount of care work done by parents. There has been much speculation over whether the pandemic increased or decreased gender equality in parental care work. Based on representative data for Germany from spring 2020 and winter 2021 we present an empirical analysis that shows that although gender inequality in the division of care work increased to some extent in the beginning of the pandemic, it returned to the pre-pandemic level in the second lockdown almost nine months later. These results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic neither aggravated nor lessened inequality in the division of unpaid care work among mothers and fathers in any persistent way in Germany.
| Author details: | Jonas JessenORCiDGND, C. Katharina SpiessGND, Sevrin WaightsORCiDGND, Katharina WrohlichORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1515/ger-2022-0003 |
| ISSN: | 1465-6485 |
| ISSN: | 1468-0475 |
| Title of parent work (English): | German economic review |
| Publisher: | De Gruyter |
| Place of publishing: | Berlin |
| Publication type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Date of first publication: | 2023/07/28 |
| Publication year: | 2023 |
| Release date: | 2024/01/24 |
| Tag: | COVID-19; child care; day care; domestic work; gender care gap; gender division |
| Volume: | 23 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Number of pages: | 27 |
| First page: | 641 |
| Last Page: | 667 |
| Organizational units: | Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Wirtschaftswissenschaften / Fachgruppe Volkswirtschaftslehre |
| DDC classification: | 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft |
| Peer review: | Referiert |
