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Objective This study uses time diaries to examine how parents' work arrangements shaped their time use at home and work during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Background The pandemic transformed home and work life for parents, disrupting employment and childcare. The shift to work from home offered more flexibility to manage increased care burdens, but the lack of separation between work and family also likely contributed to more challenging work environments, especially among mothers. Method This study relies on the 2017–2020 American Time Use Survey and matching to estimate changes in time use among parents working from home and on site in the pandemic relative to comparable parents prior to the pandemic. Results Data showed no overall increases in primary childcare time among working parents. Parents working from home during the pandemic, however, spent more time in the presence of children and supervising children, much in combination with paid work. Mothers working from home increased their supervisory parenting while working for pay more than fathers, and they more often changed their paid work schedules. The study's main findings were robust to gendered unemployment and labor force exits. Conclusion Parents, especially mothers, working from home responded to childcare demands through multitasking and schedule changes with potential negative effects on work quality and stress. Parents working on site during the pandemic experienced smaller changes in time use. Implications The pandemic has generated new inequalities between those with and without the flexibility to work from home, and exacerbated gender inequalities among those working from home.

Objective This article extends pre‐pandemic theories, empirically testing the salience of pandemic‐based absolute and relative resources and time availability mechanisms for understanding gendered divisions of childcare across the COVID‐19 pandemic. Background Multiple cross‐sectional studies have examined gender differences in pandemic divisions of childcare, yet few longitudinal studies exist, particularly using pandemic‐specific theoretical mechanisms. Method The authors used five waves (six data points, April 2020–November 2021) of probability‐based longitudinal data from the Netherlands to estimate fixed‐effects regression models (person‐wave data; 2165 mothers and 1839 fathers) to analyze the division of childcare. Results Essential occupation was associated with a relative decrease in childcare tasks for mothers but not fathers. Mothers whose partner worked in an essential occupation experienced a relative increase in childcare tasks. Time availability also mattered; primarily for fathers. Working from home was associated with a relative increase in father's involvement in childcare, whereas an increase in work hours was associated with a decrease. Unemployment affected mothers only and was associated with an increase in relative childcare. Conclusion Having an essential occupation potentially functioned as a new resource for some mothers to bargain for more gender‐egalitarian divisions of care but also reaffirmed the relative importance of men's paid employment over that of women's in shaping divisions of care. Time availability played a role in divisions of care during the pandemic, but mostly for fathers. Implications The findings extend traditional resources and time availability theories to explain pandemic‐based gender differences in the division of care across the pandemic.

COVID-19 not only threatens people’s physical health, but also creates disruption in work and social relationships. Parents may even experience additional strain resulting from childcare responsibilities. A total of 129 parents participated in this study. Parents of children with developmental disorders showed higher levels of parenting stress, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms than did parents of children with typical development. Parenting stress and health worries were positively related to mental health symptoms. The association between having a child with developmental disorders and mental health symptoms was mediated by parenting stress. This study provides a timely investigation into the stress and mental health of parents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Implications on web-based parenting skills interventions, online psychological support services, and family-friendly policy initiatives are discussed.

\"In most families today, childcare remains divided unequally between fathers and mothers. Scholars argue that persistence of the gendered division of childcare is due to multiple causes, including values about gender and family, disparities in paid work, class, and social context. It is likely that all of these factors interact, but to date researchers have not explored such interactions. To address this gap, we analyze nationally representative time-use data from Australia, Denmark, France, and Italy. These countries have different employment patterns, social and family policies, and cultural attitudes toward parenting and gender equality. Using data from matched married couples, we conduct a cross-national study of mothers' and fathers' relative time in childcare, divided along dimensions of task (i.e., routine versus non-routine activities) and co-presence (i.e., caring for children together as a couple versus caring solo). Results show that mothers' and fathers' work arrangements and education relate modestly to shares of childcare, and this relationship differs across countries. We find cross-national variation in whether more equal shares result from the behavior of mothers, fathers, or both spouses. Results illustrate the relevance of social context in accentuating or minimizing the impact of individual- and household-level characteristics.\" (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku). Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: empirisch; Querschnitt. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1999 bis 2008.

The authors analyze American Time Use Survey data to examine patterns in domestic work among at-home and breadwinner parents to gauge how time availability, relative earnings, and gender shape time use in couples with extreme differences in earnings and work hours. They find that involvement in female-typed housework is an important driver of overall housework time. It is counternormative housework behavior by at-home fathers that shapes conclusions about how time availability, relative resources, and gender influence parents' housework. Although time availability appears to shape child care in comparable ways across parents, mothers are more engaged in child care than similarly situated fathers. Overall, comparisons point to the importance of distinguishing among gender-normative housework tasks and accounting for differences in engagement on work and nonwork days. The results provide a basis for assessing the social significance of growing numbers of parents in work–family roles that are not gender normative.

Balancing work and caregiving demands is a critical challenge for working parents with young children. Workplace flexibility can serve to promote parent-child interactions by enhancing the coordination of work and family responsibilities. Using longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), the study examined three potential sources of workplace flexibility—access to flexible schedules, working from home, and part-time employment—and their associations with the frequency of parent–child interactions (i.e., enrichment activities and daily routines) among parents with young children, with a particular focus on gender, household structures, and income. The results indicated that working from home and part-time employment were associated with more frequent enrichment parent–child interactions for mothers, while flexible schedules were associated with greater daily routine interactions for fathers. The positive associations between working from home and parent–child interactions were more pronounced among low-income mothers than mid- and high-income mothers. Fathers working parttime in dual-earner households more frequently interacted with their children than those in single-earner households. These findings suggest that distinctive types of workplace flexibility may work differently across gender, household structure, and household income.

Objective This study examined associations between parental precarious work schedules and child behavior problems among a sample of families with low incomes receiving child‐care subsidies and tested three hypothesized mediators of these associations: work–family conflict, economic insecurity, and child‐care instability. Background As “just‐in‐time,” or on‐call, scheduling practices become more prevalent among low‐paid workers, working parents must balance family demands with precarious work schedules characterized by instability, unpredictability, and lack of control. Precarious work schedules may threaten child well‐being by increasing parents' work–family conflict and stress, economic insecurity, and child‐care instability. Yet, few studies have been able to empirically test these relationships. Method This study uses data from a survey of child‐care subsidy recipients to test the associations between five dimensions of parental precarious work schedules—variable work hours and shifts, limited advance notice, unexpected schedule changes, and lack of schedule control—and child externalizing behavior problems via work–care conflict, economic insecurity, and child‐care instability. Analyses use Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression and decomposition methods and control for a host of child, parental, and household characteristics. Results Variable shifts were indirectly associated with more parent‐reported child behavior problems via work–care conflict, whereas unexpected schedule changes were indirectly associated with more behavior problems via both work–care conflict and material hardship. Conclusion These findings add to a growing evidence‐base on the incongruence between precarious employer‐driven scheduling practices and the needs of families with young children.

Objective This article investigates whether weekend work is associated with higher levels of work–family conflict (WFC) among parents, and whether resources like schedule control or presence of a partner mitigate this effect. Background The 24/7 economy requires many workers to work on weekends. Nevertheless, research on the impact of weekend work on families, and on WFC in particular, is underdeveloped, with previous studies relying on cross‐sectional data and small samples. Method Associations between regular weekend work and a measure of WFC are examined using data from 14 waves of The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The sample is restricted to workers aged 18–64 years with parenting responsibilities for children aged 17 or less (7747 individuals, 40,192 observations). Both pooled ordinary least squares and fixed‐effects regression models are estimated. Results Among both genders, weekend workers have significantly higher levels of WFC than those who only work weekdays. WFC is particularly high for those who work weekends and simultaneously have little control over their schedule. Furthermore, weekend work affects WFC similarly for couple and single parents and, within dual‐earner families, independently of the partner's working schedule. Conclusion Weekend work generally has a detrimental effect on workers' ability to combine employment with parenting commitments. However, work–domain resources like schedule control can buffer the impact of weekend work.

Past research that asserts a fatherhood wage premium often ignores the heterogeneity of fathering contexts. I expect fatherhood to produce wage gains for men if it prompts them to alter their behavior in ways that increase labor-market productivity. Identity theory predicts a larger productivity-based fatherhood premium when ties of biology, coresidence with the child, and marriage to the child's mother reinforce one another, making fatherhood, and the role of financial provider in particular, salient, high in commitment, and clear. Employer discrimination against fathers in less normative family structures may also contribute to variation in the fatherhood premium. Using fixed-effects models and data from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), I find that married, residential, biological fatherhood is associated with wage gains of about 4 percent, but unmarried residential fathers, nonresidential fathers, and stepfathers do not receive a fatherhood premium. Married residential fathers also receive no statistically significant wage premium when their wives work full-time. About 15 percent of the wage premium for married residential fathers can be explained by changes in human capital and job traits.

Scholarship on work and family topics expanded in scope and coverage during the 2000-2010 decade, spurred by an increased diversity of workplaces and of families, by methodological innovations, and by the growth of communities of scholars focused on the work-family nexus. We discuss these developments as the backdrop for emergent work-family research on six central topics: (a) gender, time, and the division of labor in the home; (b) paid work: too much or too little; (c) maternal employment and child outcomes; (d) work-family conflict; (e) work, family, stress, and health; and (f) work-family policy. We conclude with a discussion of trends important for research and suggestions about future directions in the work-family arena.