Realising Change: Care, Gender and COVID-19

Research undertaken on the domestic divisions of labour (DDOL) during the COVID-19 pandemic shows that women continued to disproportionately shoulder unpaid care responsibilities, negatively affecting their financial autonomy, wellbeing, and employment opportunities. However, many of these studies are quantitative and rely on women’s perspectives to report on both men’s and women’s intrahousehold arrangements, leaving gaps in understanding lived experiences. This thesis addresses these gaps through a qualitative study of 15 heterosexual couples and one individual (31 participants) in Scotland. Methodologically and empirically, it contributes to the wider literature by using individual and couple interviews to capture rich data that includes men’s perspectives, complementing and developing the mostly quantitative-based research. The study set out to explore how the pandemic influenced couples’ paid employment and unpaid care arrangements, including broader care provided to relatives and community members, gauging the potential long-term implications for gender equality in these spheres. Adopting a multilevel framework, drawing on the doing gender, time availability, and resource bargaining theories, the analysis reveals that while each theory offers explanatory value, none fully captures the complexities observed. This study’s findings show the evolving and complex nature of the DDOL during and after the pandemic. While no significant transformations in care and work arrangements were revealed, small shifts toward equality emerged in some households. This was particularly found among male participants in their increased involvement in childcare. These ‘small shifts’ were driven by various micro and macro-level factors. For example, the increased normalisation of homeworking – driven by mandates from both the United Kingdom’s (UK) and the Scottish Government to work from home where possible to slow the spread of the virus, and other flexible working arrangements (FWAs), progressive attitudes toward care, and access to formal and informal support. The nuanced and complex findings of this study support and extend the core theories adopted and make an important theoretical contribution to the DDOL literature. This study emphasises the need to engage with broader scholarly concepts, such as Usdansky’s (2011) ‘lived and spoken’ gender egalitarianism and the ‘mental load’ (Daminger, 2019), for example, to capture the multifaceted and dynamic realities of intrahousehold arrangements. A multifactored level framework developed from the rich empirical data illustrates how micro and macro-level factors, alongside COVID-19-specific influences, shape families’ likelihood to arrange unpaid care and paid work in line with more egalitarian or traditional patterns. This framework offers practical and deeper insights for understanding DDOL and informs policy recommendations to promote greater gender equality. Overall, the findings reveal widespread attitudinal support for gender equality, with small yet meaningful shifts occurring. While this suggests that arrangements are not fixed, they are nevertheless shaped by socio-cultural norms and external institutional factors, outside the disruptive effect of COVID-19. This study argues that sustainable transformation requires continued societal and policy efforts to challenge traditional caregiving roles and create environments that support equitable participation in unpaid care and paid work.