IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ausecr/v56y2023i4p502-515.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender Gaps in Unpaid Domestic and Care Work: Putting The Pandemic in (a Life Course) Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Janeen Baxter
  • Alice Campbell
  • Rennie Lee

Abstract

Our paper examines trends in gender inequalities in unpaid domestic and care work over the short‐ and long‐term in Australia, including assessing the impact of the COVID‐19 lockdowns. We use the concept of time—historical, biographical and transitional—as a framework for our analyses. Drawing on data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, we find wide and continuing gender gaps in unpaid work over the past two decades. We demonstrate that parenthood is a far greater producer and exacerbator of gender inequalities in unpaid domestic and care work than COVID‐19 lockdowns.

Suggested Citation

  • Janeen Baxter & Alice Campbell & Rennie Lee, 2023. "Gender Gaps in Unpaid Domestic and Care Work: Putting The Pandemic in (a Life Course) Perspective," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 56(4), pages 502-515, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:56:y:2023:i:4:p:502-515
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8462.12538
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.12538
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-8462.12538?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abi Adams-Prassl & Teodora Boneva & Marta Golin & Christopher Rauh, 2022. "The impact of the coronavirus lockdown on mental health: evidence from the United States," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 37(109), pages 139-155.
    2. Judith Derndorfer & Franziska Disslbacher & Vanessa Lechinger & Katharina Mader & Eva Six, 2021. "Home, sweet home? The impact of working from home on the division of unpaid work during the COVID-19 lockdown," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(11), pages 1-26, November.
    3. Janeen Baxter & Deborah Cobb‐Clark & Alexander Cornish & Tiffany Ho & Guyonne Kalb & Lorraine Mazerolle & Cameron Parsell & Hal Pawson & Karen Thorpe & Lihini De Silva & Stephen R. Zubrick, 2021. "Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste: Opportunities to Reduce Social Disadvantage from COVID‐19," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 54(3), pages 343-358, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Oyenubi, Adeola & Kollamparambil, Umakrishnan, 2023. "Does noncompliance with COVID-19 regulations impact the depressive symptoms of others?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    2. Charlene Marie Kalenkoski & Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia, 2025. "Teen social interactions and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 357-404, March.
    3. Jeong, Soyun & Fox, Ashley M., 2023. "Enhanced unemployment benefits, mental health, and substance use among low-income households during the COVID-19 pandemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 328(C).
    4. Bahal, Girish & Iyer, Sriya & Shastry, Kishen & Shrivastava, Anand, 2023. "Religion, Covid-19 and mental health," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    5. repec:hal:wpaper:hal-03740701 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Kristina Czura & Florian Englmaier & Hoa Ho & Lisa Spantig, 2023. "Employee Performance and Mental Well-Being: The Mitigating Effects of Transformational Leadership during Crisis," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 412, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    7. Molina, Teresa & Cho, Yoon Y., 2024. "The Importance of Existing Social Protection Programs for Mental Health in Pandemic Times," IZA Discussion Papers 16737, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Dunfrey Pires Aragão & Andouglas Gonçalves da Silva Junior & Adriano Mondini & Cosimo Distante & Luiz Marcos Garcia Gonçalves, 2023. "COVID-19 Patterns in Araraquara, Brazil: A Multimodal Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(6), pages 1-21, March.
    9. Francesco Bogliacino & Cristiano Codagnone & Frans Folkvord & Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva, 2023. "The impact of labour market shocks on mental health: evidence from the Covid-19 first wave," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 40(3), pages 899-930, October.
    10. Anna Kurowska & Anna Matysiak & Beata Osiewalska, 2023. "Working from Home During Covid-19 Pandemic and Changes to Fertility Intentions Among Parents," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 39(1), pages 1-31, December.
    11. Boll, Christina & Müller, Dana & Schüller, Simone, 2023. "Neither backlash nor convergence: dynamics of intra-couple childcare division during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 57, pages 1-27.
    12. Jaesang Sung & Will Davis & Qihua Qiu, 2024. "The effects of COVID‐19 lockdown on the body weight and lifestyle behaviors of U.S. adults," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 90(4), pages 900-948, April.
    13. Manuel Denzer & Philipp Grunau, 2024. "The impacts of working from home on individual health and well-being," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 25(5), pages 743-762, July.
    14. Fatemeh Hamedanian, 2022. "Access to the European Labor Market for Immigrant Women in the Wake of the COVID Pandemic," World, MDPI, vol. 3(4), pages 1-22, November.
    15. Mariana Loezar-Hernández & Erica Briones-Vozmediano & Elena Ronda-Pérez & Laura Otero-García, 2023. "Juggling during Lockdown: Balancing Telework and Family Life in Pandemic Times and Its Perceived Consequences for the Health and Wellbeing of Working Women," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(6), pages 1-17, March.
    16. Mejía-Guevara, Iván & Fuentes, María Estela Rivero, 2024. "Intergenerational paid and unpaid labor production and consumption inequality by gender in Mexico," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    17. Anna Kurowska & Agnieszka Kasperska, 2024. "Work from Home and Perceptions of Career Prospects of Employees with Children," Working Papers 2024-08, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    18. Stefanie Gerold & Johannes Buhl & Sonja M. Geiger, 2024. "How to Enhance Time Wealth? Insights from Changes in Time Use and Working Conditions During the COVID-19 Lockdown in Germany," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 349-371, January.
    19. Andrea Bonfatti & Greta Pesaresi & Guglielmo Weber & Nancy Zambon, 2023. "The economic impact of the first wave of the pandemic on 50+ Europeans," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(2), pages 607-659, August.
    20. Jeehoon Han & Caspar Kaiser, 2024. "Time use and happiness: US evidence across three decades," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(1), pages 1-25, March.
    21. Cho,Yoonyoung & Molina,Teresa Sacro, 2024. "The Importance of Existing Social Protection Programs for Mental Health in Pandemic Times," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10669, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:56:y:2023:i:4:p:502-515. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mimelau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.