scholarly journals Gender role attitudes cannot explain how British couples responded to increased housework demands during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ansgar Hudde ◽  
Karsten Hank ◽  
Marita Jacob

Previous research has shown that gender role attitudes can predict changes in couples’ housework division over critical life events, but these studies might have suffered from endogeneity because the occurrence of such life events is anticipated and may be affected by gender role attitudes. In contrast, the COVID-19 pandemic was a truly exogenous shock that hit couples unexpectedly. This study examines the role of gender ideologies in how couples adjusted their division of housework during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 compared to a pre-pandemic baseline observation. The data cover 3,219 couples from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, with a baseline wave and four COVID-19 panel waves between April and September 2020. We found no evidence that individuals’ or couples’ pre-crisis gender role attitudes affected changes in men's and women's absolute or relative contributions to housework at any time during the lockdown. However, both partners spent substantially more time on housework throughout the COVID-19 crisis than before, especially in the early stages, and in relative terms, the pandemic seems to have contributed to at least a temporary, modest increase in gender equality in housework. We discuss our results against the background of previous research whose results may have suffered from endogeneity problems and argue that the COVID-19 ‘shock’ was likely perceived as a merely temporary disruption of couples' established housework arrangements.

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110643
Author(s):  
Ansgar Hudde ◽  
Karsten Hank ◽  
Marita Jacob

Previous research has shown that gender role attitudes can predict changes in couples’ housework division over critical life events, but these studies might have suffered from endogeneity because such life events are anticipated and may be affected by gender role attitudes. In contrast, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was a truly exogenous shock that hit couples unexpectedly. Estimating fixed-effects regression models, the authors examine the role of gender ideologies in how couples adjusted their division of housework during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 compared with a prepandemic baseline observation. The data cover 3,219 couples from the UK Household Longitudinal Study. Both partners spent substantially more time on housework throughout the COVID-19 crisis than before, especially in the early stages. However, we found no evidence that individuals’ or couples’ precrisis gender role attitudes affected changes in men’s and women’s absolute or relative contributions to housework at any time during the lockdown.


2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 1121-1147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Senhu Wang ◽  
Rory Coulter

Divergent gender role attitudes among ethnic groups in Britain are thought to contribute to ethnic disparities in many socio-economic domains. Using nationally representative data (2010–2011), we investigate how ethnic minority gender role attitudes vary across generations and with neighborhood ethnic composition. The results show that while Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indians, and Black Africans have more traditional attitudes than Black Caribbeans, the attitudes of the former groups are more traditional in the first than in the second generation. We also find that the gender role attitudes of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Indians become more traditional as the local share of co-ethnic neighbors increases or the share of White British residents decreases. Importantly, these patterns are more pronounced for second-generation Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, whose gender role attitudes are more sensitive to variations in neighborhood ethnic composition than are those of the first generation. Taken together, these findings indicate that migration researchers must conceptualize and study how immigrants’ cultural values are heterogeneous, fluid, and dynamic characteristics that can vary spatially across host societies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim Lambrechts ◽  
Marjolein C. J. Caniëls ◽  
Ingrid Molderez ◽  
Ronald Venn ◽  
Reinke Oorbeek

BMJ Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. e024563
Author(s):  
Lauren Schofield ◽  
David Walsh ◽  
Zhiqiang Feng ◽  
Duncan Buchanan ◽  
Chris Dibben ◽  
...  

ObjectivesIt has been proposed that part of the explanation for higher mortality in Scotland compared with England and Wales, and Glasgow compared with other UK cities, relates to greater ethnic diversity in England and Wales. We sought to assess the extent to which this excess was attenuated by adjusting for ethnicity. We additionally explored the role of country of birth in any observed differences.SettingScotland and England and Wales; Glasgow and Manchester.ParticipantsWe used the Scottish Longitudinal Study and the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study of England and Wales (2001–2010). Participants (362 491 in total) were aged 35–74 years at baseline.Primary outcome measuresRisk of all-cause mortality between 35 and 74 years old in Scotland and England and Wales, and in Glasgow and Manchester, adjusting for age, gender, socioeconomic position (SEP), ethnicity and country of birth.Results18% of the Manchester sample was non-White compared with 3% in Glasgow (England and Wales: 10.4%; Scotland: 1.2%). The mortality incidence rate ratio was 1.33 (95% CI 1.13 to 1.56) in Glasgow compared with Manchester. This reduced to 1.25 (1.07 to 1.47) adjusting for SEP, and to 1.20 (1.02 to 1.42) adjusting for ethnicity and country of birth. For Scotland versus England and Wales, the corresponding figures were 18% higher mortality, reducing to 10%, and then 7%. Non-Whites born outside the UK had lower mortality. In the Scottish samples only, non-Whites born in the UK had significantly higher mortality than Whites born in the UK.ConclusionsThe research supports the hypothesis that ethnic diversity and migration from outside UK play a role in explaining Scottish excess mortality. In Glasgow especially, however, a large excess remains: thus, previously articulated policy implications (addressing poverty, vulnerability and inequality) still apply.


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