Conflicts or Facilitation? Post-Pandemic Reflection on the Work-Family Balance of Family Caregivers Under the COVID-19 Pandemic in China

Abstract

This study investigates the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which profoundly changed workplace norms and care support, on family caregivers’ sense of work-family balance. Existing theoretical frameworks, including the conflict view of work and family, the “Shecession” framework, the role facilitation approach, and the couple equity argument, often depict contradictory mechanisms of the impacts of the pandemic on the sense of work-family balance of family caregivers. This study navigates the different frameworks in the contexts of the zero-COVID policies in China. Based on data from a national online survey of 1,190 Chinese citizens over the age of 18, we find that while crisis family caregivers who had to participate in family care during quarantines tended to employ the conflict view of work and family, the facilitative view better explains the feelings of all-time primary family caregivers. Both types of caregivers, however, report positive impacts of quarantines on family relationships and work-family balance. The findings challenge the prevailing assumption of undermined work-family balance and suffering family caregivers during the pandemic, and advocate for workplace, social, and policy changes in the “normal” time.