Children and COVID-19 Research Library

This study aimed to assess the associations between parents’ working conditions during the lockdown period (March-May 2020) and children’s health-related quality of life (HRQOL) over the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Zurich, Switzerland. It included 2211 children (6–16 years) and their parents from the prospective study Ciao Corona. Parents reported their employment status and working conditions during the lockdown. Children’s HRQOL was assessed in June-July 2020, January and March 2021 using the parents-report of the KINDL.

During the first COVID-19-related lockdown in the spring of 2020, working parents of young children were in difficult situation when having to manage the multiple burdens. In the studied societies, unpaid household tasks are considered to be primarily female responsibilities, intensive mothering ideals are widespread, and the access to flexible-work arrangements is marginal. In present study, we demonstrate how the above characteristics, created a context, in which – despite the difficulties – participants could evaluate this period overall positively during the first lockdown. Fifty-two interviews were conducted with partnered Hungarian mothers living in Hungary and in Transylvania (Romania), in May–June 2020. Since the home-sphere became the main scene of life during the lockdown, women’s caregiving role has increased in worth. Performing it well provided them an increased wellbeing benefit, and it helped them to evaluate the lockdown period positively. They appreciated having the longed-for opportunity to telework, which enabled enacting intensive mothering in a better accordance with social expectations than before the pandemic.

In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak and governmental lockdowns changed the everyday lives of families with children worldwide. Due to remote work recommendations and the closing of school premises and childcare centers, work–family boundaries became blurred in many families. This study examines the possibly gendered boundary work practices among Finnish parents during the COVID-19 lockdown in spring 2020 by asking, how do parents perceive the blurring of work–family boundaries? What kind of boundary work practices did families develop to manage their work and family roles, and were these practices gendered and how? Boundary practices are analyzed by combining theories of doing boundaries and gender theories in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and applying them to survey data.