The world changed in 2020, when a deadly COVID virus swept across the globe, disrupting the daily routines of people from all walks of life. With mass job losses, restrictions on socializing and international travel, families have never had as much time or as many opportunities to be together and create memories.
The struggle is real
A recent study from the Pew Research Center found that around 25% of adults in the US have had trouble paying their bills, since the COVID Coronavirus lockdown began. This same percentage of American adults also reported that they or someone within their household has lost their job in the last year and around half of these people were still unemployed, six months into the pandemic.
As well as monumental numbers of unemployment, there has also been a huge surge in workers having to take pay cuts with 21% of adults in the US reporting that this has happened to them.
These financial difficulties have hit minority groups and those on lower incomes particularly hard, resulting in increased poverty across the US.
Keeping it in the family
But despite these times of incredible hardship and instability, families all over the world have found the time to come together and household duties appear to have had some slight gender shifts. In June 2020, The Institute of Labor Economics assembled an international team of researchers to conduct a study on family life during lockdown beginning in April 2020 that involved 3155 adults and 237 children across the US, UK and Italy. These three countries were chosen, as they were the worst affected nations both economically and in terms of COVID deaths per capita.
The study found that shared childcare has increased dramatically across all three nations and interestingly, duties done outside of the house such as grocery shopping is now predominantly done by men. Perhaps this is a hark back to the evolutionary days of hunter-gatherers!
Daddy’s home!
This same study found that 42% of fathers said they have done more housework and 45% say they have spent more time taking care of their kids. The numbers don’t quite add up when their partners were asked though! Only 25% of mothers said that their partners have done more housework than usual and just 34% of mothers feel that their partners have taken care of the kids more often. However, whoever is right, that’s still a significant increase in shared parental duties than there was before the pandemic.
All of this points towards a potentially better-balanced, harmonious family life. Although money is tight, the pressure to complete a lengthy household to-do list alone is taken off of wives and mothers who have always typically been the ones to stay at home. Kids grow up with memories of their parents helping them with their homework or spending time playing with them. Fathers who would have previously been tied to a desk, spending hours every week away from their families are being treated to the magic of watching their kids grow up.
Conclusion
It goes without saying that family life has changed, perhaps permanently, all over the world since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. We certainly mourn for the loved ones we lost during the pandemic and doing our absolute best to adapt to this new life dynamic and parental duties change.