Family, Work, and Health and the COVID-19 Pandemic: What Is the Legacy of the Pandemic and What Have We Learned about the Work–Family Nexus and Health?

Dear Colleagues,

Emerging evidence concerning the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on working families indicates what one would have predicted on its face would be the effect; middle-class parents struggled to balance full-time childcare and homeschooling with working remotely. Essential workers such as hospital staff and workers in retail industries experienced the fear of exposure to the virus while facing overwhelming demands in the workplace, from children at home, and from other care recipients, such as elderly parents. Many commentators in the popular press worried that the lessons learned about the uneven effect of pandemics on families and on men and women were likely to be replicated during the COVID pandemic because public policy was largely focused on gender-neutral measures (Lewis, 2020).

A growing body of literature supports the view that the pandemic increased exposure to work and family stressors and significantly decreased the well-being of Americans and Canadians. For example, Montazer and colleagues (2022) report that, in a longitudinal analysis of heterosexual dual-earner couples, distress only increased during the pandemic among parents and that this increase was the result of higher family-to-work conflict and an increase in reported guilt about the time available to perform paid labor and the availability of time to spend with children and partners. In a study of changes in the perceived commitment of their employers to provide a balanced work–life culture among a sample of Canadian workers, Schieman and colleagues (2023) found that the perceived supportiveness of employers increased during the pandemic, except among mothers and fathers, whose perceptions of the supportiveness of their employer decreased among parents with children under 6 years and remained unchanged among parents with children between the ages of 6 and 12.

On the other hand, Shafer and colleagues (2020) report a narrowing of the gender housework gap, with mothers and fathers agreeing that the gender gap in household chores and childcare had decreased during the first months of the pandemic. Carlson and Petts (2022) also show that the father’s share of childcare and domestic work increased during this period, although the relatively small changes they observed did not endure beyond the pandemic. The authors argue that a shift among Americans toward support for mother-centered childcare and more traditional gender ideologies during the pandemic may be a significant impediment to a more egalitarian division of labor. Thus, one lesson of the pandemic is that fundamental disruptions such as COVID are likely to move the needle toward more egalitarian arrangements as families struggle to cope with disruptions in their regular schedules, but the reaction to such crises may be so negative or so stressful that the long-term effect may be a return to ‘normalcy,’ which provokes an over-correction toward traditional arrangements.

The pandemic also had the effect of demonstrating to many employers that their employees could be at least as productive and perhaps in some cases more productive while working from home (Vyas, 2022). It may have also demonstrated to employers that groups could work just as effectively using video meetings as opposed to meeting in person, which in the past may have involved travel that was not feasible for many mothers. The result has been a much wider availability of opportunities to work from home and to work in flexible arrangements. This significant change in work has implications for individual health and well-being because there is some evidence that flexible work arrangements (FWAs) improve worker health. For example, Shirin and Michel (2022) show, in their meta-analysis of 33 studies of FW and health, that workers with FWAs were in better physical health than other workers, although the size of the effect was modest. In a similar meta-analysis concerning FWAs and mental health, Shiri and colleagues (2022) found FWAs were significantly associated with better mental health, but again, this was a modest effect. Generally speaking, there is a need for additional research to identify moderators of the association between FWAs and health. Because flexible arrangements were so much more common during this period, the pandemic has provided opportunities to potentially develop a better understanding of the types of domestic arrangements and individual characteristics such as gender that moderate the FWA–health relationship.

In summary, we are seeking empirical articles or review articles that address the question of what we have learned from the COVID-19 pandemic about the work–family nexus and physical and/or mental health. Suitable papers will focus on either physical or mental health and may also address other aspects of family well-being not described above, such as effects on health that were directly related to the conditions that prevailed during the pandemic (e.g., did the greater presence in the home of parents with jobs moderate the impact of the pandemic on child well-being?).

References

Carlson, Daniel L., and Richard J. Petts. ‘US Parents’ Domestic Labor during the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.’ Population Research and Policy Review 41, 2393-2418.

Lewis, Helen. 2020. ‘The Coronavirus is a Disaster for Feminism.’ The Atlantic, March 19.

Montazer, Shirin, Krista M. Brumley., Laura Pineault, Katheryn Maguir, and Boris Baltes. ‘COVID-19 Onset, Parental Status, and Psychological Distress among Full-Time Employed Heterosexual Adults in Dual-earning Relationships: The Explanatory Role of Work-family Conflict and Guilt.’ Society and Mental Health 2022, 12, 119-136.

Schieman, S., Badawy, P., & Hill, D. Did perceptions of Supportive Work–Life Culture Change During the COVID-19 Pandemic? Journal of Marriage and Family, 2022, 84, 655–672.

Shiri, Rahman, Jarno Turunen, Johanna Kausto, Päivi Leino-Arjas, Pekka Varje, Ari Väänänen, and Jenni Ervasti. ‘The Effect of Employee-Oriented Flexible Work on Mental Health: A Systematic Review.’  Healthcare 2022, 10, 883-97.

Vyas, Lina. ‘The “New Normal” at Work in a Post-COVID World: Work-Life Balance and Labor Markets.’ Policy and Society 2022, 41, 155-167.

Contributions have to follow one of the three categories of papers (article, conceptual paper or review) of the journal and address the topic of the Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Susan Roxburgh
Guest Editor

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