Lockdown and gender roles: differences and conflicts at home during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic situation redefines the rules of social and relational behavior. These changes affect the economic, political, individual and family dimension. In particular, families experience new challenges, related to the new ways of working, reorganizing and sharing living spaces and the need to renegotiate the domestic and care roles previously delegated outside. These new conditions of cohabitation can lead to the emergence of conflicts, with important consequences for the psychological well-being of the subjects. This survey is part of a wider multidisciplinary research and focuses on the redistribution of gender roles in domestic and care activities, on family conflict and on the happiness level of respondents. The quantitative survey involved 550 married/cohabiting subjects (76.0% women). The data underline how despite women continue to devote more time to home and care activities than men, this is not perceived as a conflict. Despite the partners spend more time at home, the difference in gender roles within the family is confirmed. The conflict is perceived especially in couples with children in the age of 7-11 and 12-14. During the lockdown period, men and women perceive a lower condition of happiness, and in relation to the normative value (pre-pandemic period). Furthermore, there is a lower perception of happiness in those who experience conflict situations.