Patriarchy and the Pandemic: Housework Allocation Among Dual-Earner Urban Couples in India
研究了新冠封锁期间印度城市双职工家庭中家务分工的变化，发现女性承担更多固定性家务，男性贡献增加但有限，父权制水平影响分担公平性。
Unpaid housework done by men and women in dual-earner households goes to the heart of gender inequality. This article explores this issue for urban India during the COVID-19 lockdown when work from home spiked and housework increased. The study examines the extent to which women’s responsibility for housework and help given by partners changed during lockdown and any systematic differences in chores done by men and women. The study conceptualizes and empirically measures base household-level patriarchy. This helps distill “real” shifts in the gendered division of housework during the lockdown. Gender norms, access to domestic help, and women’s income mattered for partners’ willingness to take on additional chores. Although housework increased for both partners, women did more time-invariant tasks and men more time-variant tasks. This suggests women had to juggle paid work around domestic responsibilities while men experienced fewer impinging effects of increases in housework.HIGHLIGHTS COVID-19 lockdown increased housework burdens for urban Indian dual-earner women.Loss of domestic help and entrenched norms reinforced women’s “double burden.”Men’s contribution rose, but women still did more time-invariant, inflexible tasks.Households with lower patriarchy showed more equitable housework sharing during the crisis.