Did Descriptive and Prescriptive Norms About Gender Equality at Home Change During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Cross-National Investigation

Saxler FM 1 , Dorrough AR 2 , Froehlich L 3 , Block K 4 , Croft A 5 , Meeussen L 6 Show all authors , Olsson MIT 7 , Schmader T 8 , Schuster C 9 , van Grootel S 6 , Van Laar C 6 , Atkinson C 5 , Benson-Greenwald T 10 , Birneanu A 11 , Cavojova V 12 , Cheryan S 13 , Lee Kai Chung A 14 , Danyliuk I 15 , Dar-Nimrod I 16 , de Lemus S 17 , Diekman A 10 , Eisner L 18 , Estevan-Reina L 17 , Fedáková D 12 , Gavreliuc A 11 , Gavreliuc D 11 , Germano AL 18 , Hässler T 18 , Henningsen L 18 , Ishii K 19 , Kundtová Klocová E 20 , Kozytska I 15 , Kulich C 21 , Lapytskaia Aidy C 22 , López López W 23 , Morandini J 16 , Ramis T 24 , Scheifele C 6 , Steele J 22 , Steffens MC 25 , Velásquez Díaz LM 23 , Venegas M 17 , Martiny SE 26

Affiliations 

  • 1 University of Bern, Switzerland
  • 2 University of Cologne, Germany
  • 3 FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany
  • 4 University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 5 The University of Arizona, Tucson, USA
  • 6 University of Leuven, Belgium
  • 7 Inland Norway University of Applied Science, Innlandet, Norway
  • 8 The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
  • 9 Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany
  • 10 Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA
  • 11 West University of Timisoara, Romania
  • 12 Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences SAS, Bratislava, Slovakia
  • 13 University of Washington, Seattle, USA
  • 14 Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • 15 Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine
  • 16 The University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  • 17 University of Granada, Spain
  • 18 University of Zurich, Switzerland
  • 19 Nagoya University, Japan
  • 20 Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
  • 21 University of Geneva, Switzerland
  • 22 York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • 23 Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia
  • 24 Sunway University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia
  • 25 University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, Landau, Germany
  • 26 UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
Pers Soc Psychol Bull, 2024 Jan 29.
PMID: 38284645 DOI: 10.1177/01461672231219719

Abstract

Using data from 15 countries, this article investigates whether descriptive and prescriptive gender norms concerning housework and child care (domestic work) changed after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results of a total of 8,343 participants (M = 19.95, SD = 1.68) from two comparable student samples suggest that descriptive norms about unpaid domestic work have been affected by the pandemic, with individuals seeing mothers' relative to fathers' share of housework and child care as even larger. Moderation analyses revealed that the effect of the pandemic on descriptive norms about child care decreased with countries' increasing levels of gender equality; countries with stronger gender inequality showed a larger difference between pre- and post-pandemic. This study documents a shift in descriptive norms and discusses implications for gender equality-emphasizing the importance of addressing the additional challenges that mothers face during health-related crises.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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