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This should come as no surprise to many mothers: The additional childcare that arises in the crown crisis is primarily provided by women. This is the central result of a study published by the Hans Böckler Foundation Institute for Economic and Social Sciences (WSI) related to the union.
“The pandemic not only exposes problematic inequalities in economic and social opportunities, but often exacerbates them,” said WSI Director Bettina Kohlrausch. The researchers had more than 7,600 employees surveyed online for evaluation in April.
A good mothers room works less
Because nurseries and schools have been closed for weeks and regular operations are still far away, several children have to be cared for and taught at home. According to the study, it is mainly women who reduce their working hours to fulfill this task, that is, 27 percent of the mothers surveyed with children under 14, but only 16 percent of the fathers. For households with small or medium incomes, this effect is the researchers as particularly pronounced.
The authors speculate that low-income families often cannot afford to forgo men’s generally higher wages. “Couples who behave in this way often act rationally in the short term under the pressure of the crisis situation. They currently see no other alternative,” said Kohlrausch.
Researchers fear that the gender pay gap may widen in the long term, if the economic consequences of the crown crisis continue to be felt and women cannot return to their previous work hours.
Less equality in child care
According to the study, Corona has also noticeably suffered from equality in childcare: of couples who had shared care fairly before the crisis, only about 60 percent said they would continue to do so. In contrast, 30 percent more women took care of children and only 10 percent men. Here too, inequality is even more pronounced among households with less than 2,000 euros a month available in net terms.
At least for low-income groups, more financial support is needed, if working hours are to be reduced due to childcare in the crown crisis, the researchers demanded. Otherwise, there would be increasing inequality between women and men.
The Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB) demanded that politicians now urgently need to take countermeasures by extending and increasing aid for parents. Otherwise, the old roll patterns threatened to solidify again.
