Locking Down Gender Roles? A Time-Use Perspective on Gender Division of Household Labour during the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown in Belgium

Theun Pieter van Tienoven; Joeri Minnen; Anaïs Glorieux; Ilse Laurijssen; Petrus Te Braak; Ignace Glorieux

doi:10.1177/0192513X211054463

Locking Down Gender Roles? A Time-Use Perspective on Gender Division of Household Labour during the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown in Belgium

J Fam Issues. 2023 Mar;44(3):654-680. doi: 10.1177/0192513X211054463. Epub 2021 Nov 1.

Authors

Theun Pieter van Tienoven¹, Joeri Minnen¹, Anaïs Glorieux¹, Ilse Laurijssen¹, Petrus Te Braak¹, Ignace Glorieux¹

Affiliation

¹ Research Group TOR, Sociology Department, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.

Abstract

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the division of household labour could continue to lock down or start to break gender roles. Using time-use data of n = 473 individuals collected during the lockdown restrictions in Belgium from March to May 2020, we analyse the gendered division of routine and non-routine household labour in absolute time use and relative shares. We compare against the Belgian time-use data of 2013 for the same time period (n = 678 individuals). A time-demanding work and living situation associate with an increase in men's time spent on household labour during the lockdown but not with a change in women's time use. The gender gap closes in absolute time but not in relative shares of routine and non-routine household labour. The limited impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gender division of household labour indicates a temporal rather than a substantial change in gender roles.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; gender equality; household labour; routine domestic work; time-use data.