Working from Home and the Division of Childcare and Housework among Dual-Earner Parents during the Pandemic in the UK

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors analyse the impact of telework on the sharing of domestic and care work among dual-earner couples in the UK in the context of the pandemic. The research is highly relevant given that teleworking has increased significantly since the pandemic and we still do not know enough about the consequences of teleworking in terms of gender equality for working couples. The results of this research are in line with previous studies: men who telework seem to be more involved in unpaid work, but women's involvement is much higher than men's, so the gender gap in unpaid work remains. The research is well thought out and well executed overall. The only objections I have are mainly that it is too dispersed and that the data is highly skewed, as the study is based on a non-random online sample with few cases and very low participation by men.

Regarding the first point, the dispersion of the article, perhaps the authors should decide whether they want to analyse the relationship between telework and gender inequality in the household in the context of the pandemic (this is what the article promises) or whether they want to analyse how the involvement in unpaid work has changed before and during the pandemic in teleworking couples (in that case the dependent variable would have to be "how much more time is spent on housework and caregiving during the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic situation). Both dimensions in a single article overstretch the use of statistics and create more confusion. If the focus is on the impact of the pandemic, it should look at changes in unpaid work before and during the pandemic.

Another very important aspect not mentioned in the article is the problem of self-selection. Individuals who telework, especially men, often have prior characteristics that make them more likely to participate in housework, not so much because they telework, but because they have chosen to telework in order to be able to devote more time to the family. This issue deserves more attention in the analysis (see discussion in Lyttelton, T., Zang, E., & Musick, K. 2022).

On the second aspect, sample bias, I don't know if authors could address sample biases in terms of, for example, levels of education, gender and age by some sort of weighting. Another possibility is to check a bit more on the differences between the sample obtained online and the census data (if the teleworker population is recorded).

I also think that given the article's emphasis on flexible working, it could equally well be included in the title and in the hypotheses.

The rationale for the choice of multivariate linear regression and logistic regression models should be better explained.

This sentence is hard to understand: “Similarly, campaigns to promote more flexible working for care purposes among fathers, with role modelling from senior management [78], and clear communications tackling flexibility stigma at the company level can also help.”

You could take these references into account when revising the article:

Lyttelton, T., Zang, E., & Musick, K. (2022). Telecommuting and gender inequalities in parents’ paid and unpaid work before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Marriage and Family, 84(1), 230–249. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12810

Chung, H., & van der Horst, M. (2018). Women’s employment patterns after childbirth and the perceived access to and use of flexitime and teleworking. Human Relations, 71(1), 47–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717713828

Author Response

Response to reviewer for the paper

Working from home and the division of childcare and housework among dual- earner parents during the first lockdown in the UK

For the journal Merits.

We would first like to thank the editors and the two reviewers for their careful reading of our paper, and for their constructive feedback on this paper. We are delighted to hear that the editor and reviewers found the paper potentially suitable for publication with the satisfactory completion of the revisions requested. The comments and suggestions by the reviewers helped us further strengthen our paper/its narrative, ensuring clarity in the data/sample and its results. We hope that the revisions are to the editors and reviewers’ satisfaction.

We would now like to respond to the comments raised by both reviewers one by one below. We have referred to the page numbers in the text to ensure that reviewer can directly find the changes made. Comments/points taken directly from the reviewers are in italic. The text directly taken from the paper are in Palatino Linotype Italic font size11.

Reviewer 1

First of all, we would like to thank the reviewer for the positive feedback on the paper! We really appreciate it.

1. Dependent variable

The reviewer asks that we may want to focus solely on the division of housework in the pandemic context OR the change in the involvement of fathers during the pandemic. The reviewer notes that including “both dimensions in a single article overstretch the use of statistics and create more confusion. If the focus is on the impact of the pandemic, it should look at changes in unpaid work before and during the pandemic.”

• We would like to thank the reviewer for this point. The reason why we felt that it was important to include both variables was because of the following, which mirrors our finding in the data/results: Although the division of housework and childcare may have remained similar in that women are doing more of it; homeworking fathers may have increased their involvement in childcare and housework. This is a pattern observed by many others (ONS, 2020; Petts, Carlson, & Pepin, 2020; Prados & Zamarro, 2020). Without observing both, we felt that it was not possible to explore the full picture of the pandemic and its impact on the association between homeworking and the division of housework and childcare. This is why we also have two sets of hypotheses on the division of housework/childcare and another on the involvement of fathers during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic times. However, we realised that this point has not been clearly noted in the previous version of the paper. Thus, we have now added some texts regarding this point in page 2 (“More specifically, we examine how father’s homeworking relates to the increased involvement in housework and childcare during the pandemic, and how it relates to the division of housework and childcare. We look at both measures as previous studies (Andrew et al., 2020) have shown that even when fathers may have increased their time spent on childcare during the pandemic, this did not necessarily lead to an equal division, as mothers have equally increased their time.”)to ensure that this focus and reasoning is presented from the very beginning of the paper. This point is explored again in pages 4-6 where we derive our hypotheses. Thank you for pointing this out. We hope this is to the reviewer’s satisfaction.

2. Sample bias

The reviewer also notes of the problem of a non-random online sample. They note that the sample has “few cases and very low participation by men and asks if we could potentially address the issue of sample bias through weighting procedures and or “check a bit more on the differences between the sample obtained online and the census data (if the teleworker population is recorded)”

• Thank you very much for these really important points. We fully acknowlege the fact that the mode of sample collection was not ideal, in that it could not guarentee the representativenss of the total population. The reason why we have chosen this mode was due to the speed of data collection that was possible through this mode (compared to others) as well as the costs involved. What is more, traditional large scale secondary data sets (such as the UKHLS) would not have had sufficient case numbers for us to explore when we focus on such a particular group of individuals – in addition to not having the variables we need for the study. This is why online panels such as Prolific Academic is commonly used by many scholars, including those in work-family research (Carlson, Petts, & Pepin, 2020; Petts et al., 2020).

Although we would like to compare this sample to the true population sample, this is not possible as we do not have reliable data specifically pertaining to co-habitating dual earner couples with children under 18 in the UK. What we have done is to compare the homeworking patterns of this population compared to the general population data provided for again not by census but survey by the Office for National Statistics (page 9). We further compared the population with the more general population in terms of education, household income, working hours etc (page 6). We do note that the population is skewed more towards the higher educated, and higher income (but perhaps due to the dual earner sample), and thus higher proportion of those working from home. Although a more representative sample would be ideal,  same sample framing/similar samples using similar methods have been used by other scholars in publications on COVID in prestigious journals (e.g., Petts et al., 2020).

• With regards to the bias in gender, this is why we control for gender in our model and examine the data separately in the case of exploring the DV whether men has increased their involvement. These approaches help us overcome some of these issues. However, we also note in the discussion section of the limitation of having a gender bias in our sample in page 17 “This combined with the fact that we have more women in our sample may mean that there may be an underestimation of not only the share of housework and childcare men took on (division skewed more towards the perception that women are doing more), but also on how much more they did during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic times. In this regard, despite having controlled for gender of the respondent in the analysis, our estimation of men’s shares and amount of domestic work carried out may be underestimated.”

3. Reverse causality

The reviewer also notes of potential reverse causality or self-selection. That men who telework may make take a more active part in housework/childcare as they have chosen to do so for this specific reason.  “Another very important aspect not mentioned in the article is the problem of self-selection. Individuals who telework, especially men, often have prior characteristics that make them more likely to participate in housework, not so much because they telework, but because they have chosen to telework in order to be able to devote more time to the family. This issue deserves more attention in the analysis (see discussion in Lyttelton, T., Zang, E., & Musick, K. 2022)”.

• Thank you so much for this paper and this point. The reviewer is right in that there can be a selection effect in that telecommuting dads have done so due to their preference in trying to be more involved in childcare and housework. Although we do not see such patterns prior to the pandemic in the UK based on existing literature. What is more as working from home was mandated by the government, rather than chosen by workers themselves, it is unlikely that fathers chose to work from home specifically to carry out more childcare. We have now included this point in the text in page 17 “There is also an issue of self-selection, of where fathers who want to be more involved in childcare were the ones who intentionally chose to work from home. However, as our data was collected during a period where workers did not have a choice to work from home, but rather was enforced to do so by the government, this is less likely to be the case” .

4. Title

The reviewer notes “I also think that given the article's emphasis on flexible working, it could equally well be included in the title and in the hypotheses.”

• Although we do explore the role of flexitime in the paper, our main focus lies in homeworking (as explained in page 1 of our paper) to ensure a better focus and clearer narrative of the paper (as the reviewer notes the results are many!). Thus, we have left the hypothesis and title of the paper to focus only on homeworking. We have, however, made changes throughout the manuscript where it was not clear that our focus is mainly on homeworking rather than flexible working more generally (changes include for example, p. 3-4 section “Homeworking and the division of housework and childcare”). We apologies for this confusion in the previous version of the manuscript. We hope that the reviewer finds this change acceptable.

5. Methods

The reviewer asks that there be a better explanation of the rationale for the choice of multivariate linear regression and logistic regression models.

• Thank you for the very constructive comment. We fully agree with the reviewer that the rationale behind the choice of methodologies needed to be elaborated. This is now included in greater detail in the text in page 8.

6. Revise sentence.

The reviewer asked us to revise the sentence in page 18.

• Thank you for pointing this out. This sentence is now changed.

7. New reference

The reviewer suggests adding the following references:

Lyttelton, T., Zang, E., & Musick, K. (2022). Telecommuting and gender inequalities in parents’ paid and unpaid work before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Marriage and Family, 84(1), 230–249. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12810

Chung, H., & van der Horst, M. (2018). Women’s employment patterns after childbirth and the perceived access to and use of flexitime and teleworking. Human Relations, 71(1), 47–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717713828

• Thank you for these references. They were useful and are now added to the paper

Reviewer 2

First of all, we would also like to thank reviewer 2 for all the positive feedback on the paper! We are happy to receive such positive reading of the paper.

1. Framework

The reviewer has asked to draw the research framework with the proposed hypotheses

• Thank you for the very helpful comment. We agree with the reviewer that the research framework can be further elaborated, and the consistency of the paper strengthened through linking it with he proposed hypotheses. This is now included on page 8 of the main text. We hope this is what the reviewer was referring to and if not, we are more than happy to revisit this point.

2. Questionnaire/questions

The reviewer asks to “attach the employed scale in the end of the paper(questionnaire)”

• Thank you for the comment. The questionnaire was originally not attached due to its long length, but it is certainly possible to attach it as part of the supplementary file and we have done so now.

3. Method

The reviewer asks that we elaborate and discuss the employed data analysis techniques

• Thank you for the constructive comment. As mentioned above, we fully agree with the reviewer on the importance of elaborating on the rationale behind the choice of analysis techniques used in this paper. This is now done in page 8

4. Significance level

The reviewer asks about the inconsistency of the use of significance level cut off lines “In Table 1, did you consider 0.092 as a significant p value ( please give reference) as regularly the significant value should be below 0.05”

• In the paper we have noted the word “partially” to indicate that this variable did not meet the traditional significance level of p<0.05. To ensure that this is more clearly presented, we have now made it very clear in cases where the p value was not below 0.05 yet we mention the result in the text (for example p. 11 “Although not at the traditional significance level, we see some signs of this, for home-schooling (b= -0.148, p= 0.093”). We have not removed the texts discussing some results where p<0.10 as for many the coefficient sizes were large, and the small case numbers may have resulted in a low p value. This is now all noted in the results section.

5. More information on tables

The reviewer asks for more information of the content of Tables 1&2 “I need more explanation for its content: what is the effect size, the t-value, and the significant level. There are a lot of overlapping in this table”

• Thank you for the comment. The Tables 1 and 2 currently do not include the exact t-values and the p-values, for the simplicity of the result presentations. We have decided to present the results rather simply, to make sure that it is more comprehensive to the readers given the complexity of the multivariate analysis. However, we believe that we have included the key values that are widely accepted as sufficient in the literature for example, the effect size is presented as odds ratio, the p values through conventional signs indicating significance levels (***, **, *, +) next to the coefficients, and we present the standard errors for each variable. T-values can be calculated through the odds ratio and standard errors. We are not so clear as to what the reviewer means in terms of “overlapping in the tables”, as the variables and results do not overlap, so we ask for the reviewer’s kind clarification on this matter. We are happy to revisit this to ensure the reviewer and editor’s satisfaction.

6. Practical and theoretical implication of the study

The reviewer asks that we highlight the practical and theoretical implications of the study.

• The theoretical and practical/policy implications of the study is in p.17-18 – last two paragraphs of the paper. Having re-read the text, the reviewer is right in that these points were not very clear in the previous version of the paper. Thus, we have now rewritten this section to clarify and highlight the main theoretical and policy contributions of this paper. We hope that this revision is to the reviewer’s satisfaction.

We would like to thank the reviewers and editors again for this chance to revise this paper. The comments and suggestions made by the reviewers helped us strengthen our paper. We hope that the reviewers agree with the changes made and now the manuscript is to their satisfaction, ready for publication in Merits. If there are any points we have misunderstood, the reviewers felt like it was not sufficiently addressed, or if there are any new issues that the editors and/or reviewers would like us to address, please let us know.

Many thanks for helping us write a significant and rigorous piece of work.

Yours sincerely,

Authors

References used in this response.

Andrew, A., Cattan, S., Dias, M. C., Farquharson, C., Kraftman, L., Krutikova, S., . . . Sevilla, A. (2020). How are mothers and fathers balancing work and family under lockdown?”. Institute for Fiscal studies. doi:10.1920/BN.IFS.2020.BN0290

Carlson, D. L., Petts, R. J., & Pepin, J. R. (2020). Changes in Parents’ Domestic Labor During the COVID-19 Pandemic. SocArXiv https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/jy8fn

ONS. (2020). Coronavirus and how people spent their time under lockdown: 28 March to 26 April 2020. Retrieved from London:

Petts, R. J., Carlson, D. L., & Pepin, J. R. (2020). A Gendered Pandemic: Childcare, Homeschooling, and Parents’ Employment During COVID‐19. Gender, Work & Organization.

Prados, M., & Zamarro, G. (2020). Gender Differences in Couples’ Division of Childcare, Work and Mental Health During COVID-19. CESR-Schaeffer Working Paper(003).

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for giving me such opportunity to review a paper entitled " Working from home and the division of childcare and housework among dual-earner parents during the pandemic in the UK,

The study examines whether the expansion of homeworking led to a more equal division of domestic work during the pandemic.

The topic of this paper is relevant, but from my point of view, the paper has some points, which should be improved. In my view, the revised version should undergo a new assessment process.

1-    Please draw your research framework with the proposed hypotheses

2-    Please attach the employed scale in the end of the paper(questionnaire)

3-    Please elaborate and discuss the employed data analysis techniques

4-    In Table 1, did you consider 0.092 as a significant p value ( please give reference) as regularly the significant value should be below 0.05

5-    In Table 1, I need more explanation for its content: what is the effect size, the t-value, and the significant level. There are a lot of overlapping in this table.

6-      In Table 2, I need more explanation for its content: what is the effect size, the t-value, and the significant level. There are a lot of overlapping in this table.

7-    Please highlight the practical and theoretical implication of your study

Author Response

Please find the attached document for a detailed response to the reviewers.

Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Can accept manuscript in its current form

Best regards 

Author Response

Thank you for accepting the newly revised manuscript.

We really appreciate it.

Best

Authors.