A qualitative life course perspective on covid-lockdowns and couples' division of unpaid labour

Abstract

Covid-19 lockdowns in many countries were characterised by increases in unpaid labour (e.g. home-schooling), as well as changing working conditions (e.g. remote work). Consequently, a large body of research assesses changes in dual earner couples' gender division of unpaid labour. However, despite the increasingly detailed picture of households' division of labour before and after the onset of the pandemic, it remains unclear how dual earner parents themselves perceive their decision-making regarding labour divisions during lockdowns. Consequently, using data from 31 individual in-depth interviews in Belgium, this study adopts a biographical-interpretative method to assess variation in narratives regarding the household division of labour before and during lockdown. Results indicate five ideal type narratives which vary in the extent to which lockdown divisions of unpaid labour exhibit path-dependency or constitute new gender dynamics, but also regarding the balance between individual agency and societal factors as determinants of labour divisions. Taken together, narratives discussing new gender dynamics during lockdowns put forward sector-specific changes in working hours and remote work as external and exogenous determinants. However, most importantly, findings indicate that household decision-making regarding unpaid labour during lockdowns is mostly perceived as path-dependent on pre-covid decision-making (e.g. gender specialisation) in the context of structural (e.g. gendered leave schemes) and normative boundaries (e.g. gendered parenting norms). Such path-dependencies in the decision-making underlying quantitatively identifiable divisions of unpaid labour during lockdowns are likely to be neglected in the absence of a qualitative life course perspective.

Keywords: Belgium; Biographical interviews; COVID-19; Household gender equality; Life course cube; Unpaid labour.