Gender and the pandemic: Associations between caregiving, working from home, personal and career outcomes for women and men

Stefanova, Vasilena, Farrell, Lynn and Latu, Ioana (2021) Gender and the pandemic: Associations between caregiving, working from home, personal and career outcomes for women and men. Current Psychology. pp. 1-17. ISSN 1936-4733 (In Press)

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic lockdowns have led to an increase of caregiving and household responsibilities for many employees while working from home. We aimed to investigate whether there was a gender imbalance in the division of household labour within families during the pandemic, and whether this imbalance was associated with gender differences in personal outcomes (work-family conflict, burnout) as well as career-related outcomes (career self-efficacy and aspirations). Participants were 240 heterosexual individuals with or without caregiving responsibilities who lived with a partner and worked from home during the pandemic. They completed self-report questionnaires and indicated the division of domestic tasks within their household, the extent to which they experienced burnout and work-family conflict, and their career aspirations and career self-efficacy. The findings showed a significant gender imbalance, such that female caregivers spent significantly less time on work compared to the other groups and significantly more time on caregiving compared to male caregivers during the lockdown. There was a significant direct effect of caregiving on career outcomes for women, such that the more caregiving women performed during the lockdown relative to other tasks, the more negative their self-reported career outcomes were. Among men, caregiving did not predict career outcomes. Overall, our study showed that the gender imbalance in distributions of caregiving duties during the pandemic is associated with negative personal and professional outcomes for women who are caregivers. Practical implications are discussed accounting for this gender imbalance in the context of the pandemic and its influence on wellbeing and career outcomes, particularly for heterosexual women.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management > Human Resource Management > Careers H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > Issues of Labour and Work > Quality of Work Life / Job Satisfaction B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > Psychology > Stress (Psychology) H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > Issues of Labour and Work > Classes of Labour > Women and Work
Divisions:	School of Business > Staff Research and Publications
Depositing User:	Clara Chan
Date Deposited:	02 Feb 2022 14:53
Last Modified:	02 Feb 2022 14:53
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/5379

Actions (login required)

View Item