SAHDs during lockdown

[peekaboob]

Where can I quickly find figures that would point to how many men are SAHD and have had to deal with homeschool etc during lockdown?
We have a dad, who for background works pt opposite his pt wife and so shares the homeschool, has cleaners and gardeners, no money worries - in our class chat. Someone was struggling with wfh and doing homeschooling and how lockdown has made them feel inadequate. Another mum posted a message of support straight away saying that mums do have it hard right now as the menfolk are off doing their big important jobs and we are left to do the rest as well as homeschool. Dad came back with: and Dads. Whilst I do acknowledge that there are some dads out there doing this, he's not one of them BUT where can I find figures that would let me know how many? I'm guessing maybe 1/100 households may have the dad as the non-breadwinner/homeschooler?

@Hardbackwriter where have I said I want to prove him wrong? I haven't. This is for my own use. In fact I'd like to hope that there are more fathers out there struggling like most of the mothers I know are right now, including myself. My ex-h told me at the beginning of lockdown that this was the perfect opportunity for me to enhance the children's education. I asked him if he could do it on the two days I work and he told me no because then he couldn't work and, in his words, his job is more important than mine. Guess who is struggling to work and who isn't? Guess who is turning into someone she doesn't recognise (like most mums in our class chat)? It isn't any of the men i know that's for sure but I would love to know they're are men out there whose lives have been affected by this too.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.