Parenthood, Housework, Class, and Gender: How Do Different Families Cope With Domestic Responsibilities at Times of Crisis? A Case Study of Spain in The Covid-19 Context

María José González , Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Marta Seiz , Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia

Most measures designed to facilitate work-life balance of employed parents in Spain are used by middle-class families and employees with stable working conditions. Nevertheless, research has not proven that these families have achieved more egalitarian divisions of labour than working class families. This “social class paradox” – which has much to do with the expectation of very long working hours faced by top professionals and the lack of affordable work-family reconciliation options for working-class families – has been detected in liberal welfare states (UK and the US), yet it is unknown whether it also applies to other regimes. This paper examines whether it is also present in Spanish society, placing focus on the Covid-19 pandemic context, which has exacerbated socioeconomic inequalities and work-family related dilemmas. To this end, we explore how belonging to different socioeconomic groups impacts relative dedication to housework and childcare (and related changes following the pandemic’s onset) in interaction with work-family measures. We perform descriptive and logistic regression analyses on data from a nationally representative survey specifically launched in July 2020. We expect to find relevant variations in the gender division of labour across socioeconomic groups and some evidence in line with the above-mentioned paradox, given a context that is likely to have amplified socioeconomic differentials.

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 Presented in Session 28. Flash Session: Covid and the Family