SAHDs during lockdown

sweeping generalisation of gender roles (men big important job and women home with children) during the lockdown is sexist

Well, statistically demonstrated as opposed to sweeping generalisation. And as another poster mentioned, even when both partners did equivalent jobs, and worked full time, mothers were often picking up the majority of extra home work.

In terms of ethnicity, some minority ethnicities have been majorly impacted by Covid-19, again because of how they are positioned in the social structure. So more likely to be in care jobs or lower paying jobs, with some of the latter in occupations that did not lockdown or have adequate PPE. So perfectly valid to note there was an increased impact there even if, in a majority white ethnic population, most people who have died of Covid will be white. It was the disproportionate impact that has been rightly highlighted.

this does impact women more than man. And one example of a household where the male did more won’t cancel out the extrapolated impact at population level.

No one is suggesting otherwise. The issue to me seems to be that are there enough men impacted more than their female partner to make this worthy of recognition? These would be men who are SAHDs that would be similarly affected by the comment the OP saw- mums having it hard right now because the menfolk are off doing their big important jobs and we are left with the rest (childcare and homeschool).

I think the statistics show that yes, men at 20% ARE a significant minority of SAHPs such that sweeping generalisation of gender roles (men big important job and women home with children) during the lockdown is sexist.

After all, my ethnicity is less than 6% of the population and I don’t think anyone would say I can’t talk about my BAME experience because the population as a whole is white and so we can only talk about how lockdown is affecting white people.

My DP is a SAHD and I work FT, currently at home.

The disparity I see is where both parents are wfh during lockdown - often in these cases the mother seems to bear more of the burden of juggling work and childcare

Agree with this. Add in:

Women are more likely to be lone parents so having to manage all childcare
Women are more likely to work part-time making their job the lower paid one in a house - so greater propensity to protect the higher earner (man)
More likely to earn less even in full time work, see above point
More likely to have additional care of an adult (and to start this 10 years earlier in their lives than men - latter usually caring for spouse in older age).

So a number of intersecting societal and structural factors means this does impact women more than man. And one example of a household where the male did more won’t cancel out the extrapolated impact at population level.

Many women will be fine with decisions made in lockdown (they often will not do anything that adversely impacts their kids, so if they had to do less work to support children or took the hit on their job to protect the family income, they will have done that). But all sectors will contract and make redundancies in the next quarter and these ‘decisions’ will probably now have grave consequences. It might be the male partner mentioned above will be vulnerable but it’s that women are more likely to be economically vulnerable.

There was an article in the guardian in which one academic journal a month into lockdown got double its normal submissions from male academics.

The pandemic has increased the amount of SAHDs at least in the short term.

Anecdotal but..
None of the families I know had a "deliberate" SAHD before the pandemic (ie, where this was a decision rather than a short term in between jobs thing).

However I know of at least one family where the father was laid off at the start of lockdown, while the mother is a key worker. So he has been doing all the home school stuff and childcare during the day.
I know of other families where the father has been furloughed while the mother hasn't, and is therefore temporarily in the role of SAHD.
Generally from what I can tell from the outside these men have stepped up to the responsibility. Especially when the mother's job isn't a wfh one.

The disparity I see is where both parents are wfh during lockdown - often in these cases the mother seems to bear more of the burden of juggling work and childcare. Not always of course.

Ok, then, you'll be delighted to know that DH has done about 70% of the childcare during lockdown - my job isn't 'more important' than his but my workload increased massively under lockdown and his decreased. I do also outearn him, and in any case we've never gone in for a gendered split of parenting (he actually always does more than me because he works term-time only and I don't, we did shared parental leave, etc.).

We have both felt massively affected by it, have both really struggled with work and have both felt depressed at points. We've also both re-evaluated things a bit, and from September we'll only be working four days a week each, which we're delighted about.

So that's why I didn't like the comment you seemed so keen to support - in my house we aren't some man with a big job and a woman with a little or no job, the impact has been very much shared (with probably more on DH, though my work has taken a real toll on me). We didn't choose to set up our lives like that and I don't really like the idea that this is some universal norm and inevitability.

I just don't get why you want to prove this man 'wrong'? If DH was having a moan about the fact he's taken on the bulk of childcare and housework during lockdown (which he has) and someone started quoting statistics about how many more women than men have done that at him I'd think they were a bit of a twat. You're going to make yourself look a complete idiot in your WhatsApp group if you reply to his pretty innocent comment with your dossier of research in response.

I found this on ONS
“In April to June 2019, 3 in 4 mothers with dependent children (75.1%) were in work in the UK. This compared with 92.6% of fathers with dependent children.”
Assuming that number of mothers/fathers who are just temporarily unemployed are about the same, we can think the proportions would hold true for those who are choosing not to work to be SAHPs.

So, rounding, this means 3.89 SAHMs for every 1 SAHD. Rounded it’s 4 to 1 ratio. So the U.K. is around same 20% of SAHPs are SAHDs.

You've got two different things going on. DH is juggling work and homeschooling, as am I, but neither of us is a SAHP. It presumably depends more on the mix of jobs, you could have men with big high powered jobs but if they're married to an ICU nurse presumably they've got to be doing something in the 12 hours she's at work?

@Hardbackwriter
Agree with you on your point that just because men are a minority of stay at home parents, it doesn’t mean they can’t speak out. That little job comment also made me a bit upset. The comment the OP shared was 100% sexist stereotyping.

There was a link to this in the guardian article that Gwynfluff shared:

IFS: How are mothers and fathers balancing work and family under lockdown?

I'd share that with the group if I were you, but I'm like that

In my friend circle (mostly Pakistani and Bangladeshi though I am Indian) it is the dad’s usually who do the formal homeschooling as well as beint the breadwinner, as they are often married to women who aren’t as educated as them, or as confident in English. The mums do all the Islamic / Urdu / Arabic homeschooling and running around to and from mosque etc.

At our school pick up it's about 30% dads on average (though it varies as many couples seem to do different days). That's more than it was pre-lockdown. I think as some Dads have been furloughed they have picked up the slack for still working mums.

The percentage of SAHDs is pretty tiny, but you seem to be equating any household where there isn't a SAHD with one where the woman does everything, which is quite a dubious assumption. In most two-parent households both work, if not necessarily the same number of hours - having a SAHM is also a minority (and a much nicer and easier position to be in for the last few months than a household where both parents work and had to juggle childcare or homeschool around that). There's no doubt that the domestic burden under lockdown (and always) has fallen disproportionately on women but only counting male domestic work if they're SAHDs is quite a disingenuous way to discuss that.

You seem to think that this man can't include himself as a parent who has struggled during lockdown because he's in a minority, and because you seem to dislike him for irrelevant reasons, such as them having a gardener. That's unfair and pretty unpleasant. Tbh what the first woman said about men with big jobs and women doing everything else would have pissed me right off too, because it doesn't describe my house at all and it's also patronising in its assumption that women have the 'little jobs'.

I don’t know the numbers, but my DH was furloughed from 23rd March to 1st June. I was working part time, DH was home keeping a 3 and 5 year old occupied and homeschooling the 5 year old.

V unlikely to be 20% of fathers being SAHDs, anywhere in UK. Will be less than 5%

It will be a tiny proportion of fathers.

My DH is not a sahd but has picked up my slack so that I can get a balance for my mental health.
He's made sure everyone eats, so I can slip out for some headspace and exercise. I've actually had more freedom with my day than I normally would as a home educator.
I've done the bulk of the home educating as usual. Hats off to anyone who has fit schoolwork around their work.

In a feminism group it's more likely that male partners will muck in?

We have a SAHD, he would have done the home-schooling but our son stayed at school throughout due to his disabilities.

He's got a few SAHD mates although most work part time too. I would say maybe 20% feels about right for the people we know locally.

Dh was one. Ive been working at home 9-5 and he's done all the homeschooling.

He's been a SAHD for 5 years though so it's our normal.

There aren’t any stats I could find for U.K.
For US, it’s 20% of SAHPs are dads, 80% are mums.
So it’s 1 in 5, not 1 in 1000.