Working from home during a pandemic and its effect on gender equality: Work-family conflict and work-family guilt among working parents

Abstract

The current study examines how the first intelligent lockdown during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 affected a sample of 1048 Dutch working adults on the work-family domain. It was expected that women and parents would report a larger increase in time spent on childcare and household tasks and a larger decrease in work hours during the COVID-19 crisis compared to before the COVID-19 crisis than men and nonparents; that parents and mothers would experience higher levels of work-family conflict during the COVID-19 crisis than nonparents and fathers; and that parents would experience higher levels of work-family guilt during the COVID-19 crisis than nonparents, with mothers experiencing more work-to-family guilt than fathers and fathers experiencing more family-to-work guilt than mothers. Results in congruence with the expectations were that parents reported spending relatively more time on tasks, a larger decrease in work hours and higher levels of work-family conflict and work-family guilt during the COVID-19 crisis than nonparents. Women reported spending relatively more time on household chores and teaching at home, and mothers reported higher levels of work-family conflict and work-family guilt than fathers. Contrary to the expectations, men reported spending relatively more time on grocery shopping during the COVID-19 crisis than women, and there were no gender differences in decrease in work hours, type of conflict and type of guilt. The main takeaway of this study is that women and parents experienced the most negative consequences of the intelligent lockdown on the work-family interface, which could indicate a step back in terms of gender equality and emancipation.