Chore-sharing and Family Life during the First COVID Pandemic in 2020

Abstract

This paper presents the results of our online questionnaire survey conducted in Hungary during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020. Forced confinement led to a reordering of the lives of many individuals and families. People living alone reported more leisure time, but those raising children reported more responsibilities. The primary aim of the research was to explore whether the division of labour within families with children has been transformed as a result of quarantine. Our study suggests that the traditional role perception became more prevalent during the pandemic. More than two thirds of Hungarians still expect men to earn money and women to keep the home warm. During the period under review, women were in most cases immediately responsible for looking after children, even if they continued to work in a home office. In some traditional men’s jobs, such as housework, building and gardening, and carrying the load, there was a surprising shift in the workload, with women’s burdens increasing. For men, the time spent earning money from home increased, and their responses indicated that being close to family and children was a burden. An important lesson from our questionnaire is that satisfaction with the division of labour seemed to be proportional to the harmony of the couple relationship. How increased workloads were coped with depended primarily on how the couples’ division of labour and relationship was before the quarantine. Although the long-term consequences of the closure due to COVID-19 on family life cannot be assessed at this stage, our research questions provide a good basis for returning to them to find out.