Study: Men Do More Childcare & Housework Now, than Pre-COVID

A new study shows something amazing happened, during the height of Coronavirus stay-at-home orders:  Men started doing more childcare and housework than before COVID-19 hit.

1,600 parents were studied during mid-April and the results of the study show men doing more around the household, making the share of household chores more equal between men and women.

Before the pandemic, only 27-percent of couples said they shared the housework and child-rearing.

Afterward, the percentage went up to 47-percent.  Childcare went from 45-percent to 56-percent in mid-April.

Daniel L. Carlson, an associate professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Studies at the University of Utah – and one of the study’s researchers – says the uptick is out of necessity; because couples find themselves working from home.  And the need for couples to share household responsibilities is greater, so that one parent can work, while the other minds the home – and vice versa.

Incidentally:  Only 13% of working parents want to go back, fully, to the “old normal” whenever the pandemic is over.  The rest really like remote work and more family time.