The Impact of COVID-19 on Married Mothers’ and Fathers’ Paid Work Hours by Children’s Age

• In Event: Lightning Session: Health Policy

Abstract

Objective:
Grounded in doing gender theory, which emphasizes that traditional gender norms play a significant role in shaping the gendered division of unpaid and paid labor, this study examines the impact of COVID-19 on the paid work hours of married mothers and fathers in South Korea, focusing on how the impact varies by children’s age.

Theory & Hypothesis:
Doing gender theory posits that traditional gender norms define unpaid labor as women’s work and paid labor as men’s work, thereby allocating a greater share of unpaid labor to women and a greater share of paid labor to men. A key proposition of this theory is that these norms position women as primary caregivers and men as breadwinners. Although the socialization of care may weaken these gender norms, mothers would be more likely to experience a greater reduction in paid work hours than fathers when COVID-19 disrupted public child care provision. Furthermore, given that younger children require more intensive unpaid labor, it is expected that the gap in paid work hours between mothers and fathers would be greater among parents of younger children than among those of older children in the wake of COVID-19. Accordingly, this study hypothesizes that, following the onset of COVID-19, parents with preschool-aged children would experience a greater reduction in paid work hours than parents with school-aged children, and that this reduction would be greater for women than for men.

Dataset & Sample:
This study draws on household- and individual-level data from the Korea Welfare Panel Study (KoWePS), covering the 12th to 16th waves (2016–2020). The analytic sample comprises married couples aged 25 to 54 (1,478 couples; 4,834 observations).

Methods:
This study employs a difference-in-differences-in-differences design. The dependent variable is average weekly paid work hours. The treatment group consists of married women living with at least one child aged 18 or younger, whereas the comparison group consists of married men living with at least one child aged 18 or younger. The moderating variable is defined as the presence of at least one child aged 6 or younger. The time indicator distinguishes the pre- and post-COVID-19 periods. Control variables include age, age squared, educational level, large-firm status, disposable income, occupation, and region. In addition, a Granger causality test is conducted to assess whether the parallel trends assumption holds during the pre-pandemic period.

Results:
Following the onset of COVID-19, relative to parents with school-aged children, parents with preschool-aged children experienced a reduction in paid work hours that was approximately 6.7 hours greater for women than for men (95% confidence interval: [−13.032, −0.418]).

Implications:
The findings suggest that, following the onset of COVID-19, social policy responses, including public child care operations, were primarily directed toward containing infection, with insufficient consideration given to their potential to widen the gap in paid labor supply between mothers and fathers, particularly among parents with younger children. Broadly, Korea failed to sustain the socialization of care during the COVID-19 period; this may be understood as a retreat in de-familialization.

Authors

• Jun Kim, Department of Social Welfare, Ewha Womans University
  Presenting Author

• Keon Kim, Seoul National University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Youngmin Cho, Ewha Womans University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author