Social Lives
Authors: Katriona O’Sullivan, Serena Clark and Amy McGrane
ALL Institute, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University
When the schools closed in April of 2020, I found myself in the most stressful parenting situation of my entire parenting life. I was left to manage the education needs of my 3 sons; all of whom were at very different stages of their education journey. My studious, stressed-out 15-year-old was about to sit his Junior Cert, while the 11-year-old was in 5th class and the carefree 16-year-old in 5th year. As the ‘educated’ parent in our house and the mother, I was suddenly expected to manage much more than I normally would have. I am already in charge of most of the shopping, cleaning etc. and now the home-schooling too. I remember looking at my husband from across the top of my son’s laptop, after several failed attempts to log-in to Aladdin, thinking – we are not going to make it through this unless something changes. I also remember celebrating the night they announced that the Junior Cert was cancelled AND the constant guilty feeling I had because I let them all sleep late so I could get my own work done. As an academic working in education, and researching technology, I really had no idea how much stress education can bring to a family. Likewise about how hard I would find it adding home-schooling onto the other burdens I carry as a women and mother. I know I am not alone. My friends, colleagues and family feel the same. I have chosen to share some of my personal and research observations from the last few months to highlight some of the gender disparities that are being exacerbated by the pandemic in many homes across the island of Ireland. (Dr Katriona O’Sullivan)
COVID-19 and Crisis
Since its onset in March 2020, COVID-19 has bought instability in all aspects of society. People are losing their jobs, their homes, their health, and there is a level of uncertainty which is palpable. We do not know when or where this will all end. While the pandemic has hit everyone hard, women have been affected in new and unexpected ways. The pandemic has thrown light on issues within family-life that are not always talked about, and some are calling it the fourth wave of gender inequality. We are seeing women being required to carry more of the domestic load; they are being asked to bear the brunt of their family’s health, their care and now, in time of crisis, their children’s education. From May to September of 2020, we have conducted research through an SFI funded research project that looked at the impact of COVID-19 on family learning and well-being. We have spent over 500 hours interviewing Irish families (mainly mothers and their children) to understand their experiences during the pandemic. The results have been startling. We have seen repeatedly the negative impact that this crisis has had on Irish families, how women are struggling to manage the many changes and challenges that COVID-19 has bought into their family lives.
She-Cession
One of the many challenges facing Irish families has been the changing nature of work-life. While a recession is emerging, we are seeing women being the most affected. Women are either being let go, going part-time or trying their best to manage both family and a heavier workload. The U.S., Australia, the U.K., and Ireland, have seen the emergence of a ‘she-cession’ or the ‘pink recession’. Women are losing their jobs at twice the rate of men. This is an unusual trend in times of recession. However, the industries with a higher female workforce have been most effected (retail and care), and therefore women are losing their jobs. The pandemic has also enlarged existing inequalities that women experience. Women are being forced to move out of work, or even to part-time roles, in order to maintain their family life and ensure that their husbands, children, and families are cared for in the time of crisis. One woman describes the impact this is having on herself and her friends.
“The whole thing is very challenging because there’s so many women I know just dropping out of work and just kind of throwing in the towel… I know a lot of women on antidepressants…and I think it’s terrible that as a society we are pushed to that. But Ireland is not good. I think we talk a good talk, but there still isn’t an expectation of man doing more of the home-work role than the woman” (Mother to 3 children)
This is not a new phenomenon. Traditionally women have borne the brunt of domestic life; usually being the one responsible for cooking, laundry, cleaning, and shopping. Women are also often the principal care provider as well. They look after their children during childhood and adolescence, they also care for family members who might be ill, elderly, or living with disabilities. It is estimated that all these tasks lead to women doing three times as much unpaid work in the home as men. We saw this throughout the interviews. The women talked about their life before the pandemic and afterwards, with the care and cleanliness issues increasing AND falling primarily to them. However, the crisis has added further stresses to women, many of whom describe COVID-19 as an aggravator of existing challenges “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. The shutdown of schools in April left nearly one million children at home, leaving families to manage their schooling with little or no experience. With an education infrastructure that is limited in terms of its technical capacity to support home-schooling, families were expected to step up. We all know this caused mayhem. The Leaving Certificate was cancelled, there were issues with Junior Certificate exams too. There was chaos in education terms. The families we interviewed were no stranger to this mess. Mothers were the most challenged, they felt isolated, unprepared, and guilty as well as scared for the health and well-being of their family. One woman talked about the impact that COVID-19 has had on her marriage, and how she really witnessed the disparity in care between her and her husband.
” Like it completely fell to the women in the house and everyone I spoke to, all my friends were the same. My husband worked from home a lot before. So, for him it wasn’t as big of a transition and he was just basically like, well, I work from home and I’m working from home and he wouldn’t have been as concerned about keeping a structure for the kids like he would have just walked into the room, getting coffee, getting whatever and he wouldn’t have ever been like what are you meant to be doing. You know? Do you have schoolwork to do? Are you supposed to be submitting anything like nothing like it’s just (left to me) and I have to say that was across the board? All of my friends were in the same boat” (Mother of 2 children)
Women in the workforce who are mothers experience additional disadvantages compared to their male counterparts and women with no children. The ‘motherhood gap’ accounts for inequalities in pay and promotion opportunities. Research shows a correlation between the number of children a woman has and the significance of the gap. In European countries, having one child has only a slight impact, but having two, and particularly three children causes substantial wage penalties. This phenomenon is occurring more frequently in developing countries. Though there are supports for working mothers to help with work-life balance, including flexible hours and remote working opportunities, there may be unintended consequences. Some of these include a lack of presence in the workplace, leading to disrupted social capital development and the perception of being less committed than their colleagues. As a result, there is an expectation for contemporary women to strive for personal, career and family success, often without the adequate tools and supports to do so. With so many of the women interviewed reporting increases in stress, feelings of isolation and overload, we really need to ask ourselves: how do we ensure that working mothers can stay in the workforce AND that these womens families are being supported enough to stay intact? We need to examine how we can support women not just to keep working, but to keep excelling in work and to stop carrying the load of the family-especially in times of stress. Our research shows that all the mothers in our study have experienced the pressures of having to manage their children’s health, hopes and education. This is unfair, and as a collective, we need to consider the longer-term impact of this pandemic on mothers across the country.
*This research is being funded by the Science Foundation Ireland COVID-119 Rapid Response grant 20/COV/0151