Gender differences in the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on unpaid care work and psychological distress in the UK

[EmbarrassingAdmissions]

Sadly, unsurprising to many of us. The attention to the impact on mental health is good although it is concerning for the future need for mental health resources in the UK when MH resources were already patchy and scant before the pandemic.

Title: Gender differences in the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on unpaid care work and psychological distress in the UK.

School and nursery closures and homeworking during the Covid-19 crisis have resulted in an immediate increase in unpaid care work, particularly for parents. Amongst contemporary couples in the UK, women spent more time than men doing housework, childcare and caring for adults prior to the crisis; thus, lockdown draws new attention to gender…

osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/wzu4t/

This is contradictory, surely gender demands more women to do housework than men and take on a larger proportion of childcare? That is what gender is and why we reject it.

I quoted a very small part of the paper (free to read and download) - the remainder of it discusses how the already existing differences have been amplified by lockdown - plus the impact on mental health.

Sorry I was being facetious but you can’t complain about gender differences being a bad thing whilst instead of referring to sex you refer to gender. That is what gender is, if you support gender then why get upset with gender roles?

It does confirm what I’ve observed in family and friends. It really is very troubling the impact that this will have on hard won battles to create more equitable household setups- it feels like whatever precarious progress we made in the last decades has been rolled right back.