Childcare, Work, and Household Labor During a Pandemic: Evidence on Parents’ Preferences in the United States

IF 3.2 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Journal of Experimental Political Science Pub Date : 2022-10-14 DOI:10.1017/XPS.2022.24

Annabelle Hutchinson, Sarah Khan, Hilary Matfess

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

By exacerbating a pre-existing crisis of childcare in the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many parents to renegotiate household arrangements. What shapes parents’ preferences over different arrangements? In an online conjoint experiment, we assess how childcare availability, work status and earnings, and the intra-household division of labor shape heterosexual American parents’ preferences over different situations. We find that while mothers and fathers equally value outside options for childcare, the lack of such options – a significant feature of the pandemic – does not significantly change their evaluations of other features of household arrangements. Parents’ preferences over employment, earnings, and how to divide up household labor exhibit gendered patterns, which persist regardless of childcare availability. By illustrating the micro-foundations of household decision-making under constraints, our findings help to make sense of women’s retrenchment from the labor market during the pandemic: a pattern which may have long-term economic and political consequences.

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流行病期间的育儿、工作和家务劳动：美国父母偏好的证据

COVID-19大流行加剧了美国已有的儿童保育危机，迫使许多父母重新协商家庭安排。是什么影响了父母对不同安排的偏好?在一项在线联合实验中，我们评估了托儿服务的可获得性、工作状态和收入以及家庭内部劳动分工如何影响异性恋美国父母在不同情况下的偏好。我们发现，虽然母亲和父亲同样重视照料儿童的外部选择，但缺乏这种选择——这是大流行病的一个重要特征——并没有显著改变他们对家庭安排其他特征的评价。父母对就业、收入和如何分配家务劳动的偏好表现出性别模式，无论是否有儿童保育，这种模式都会持续存在。通过说明制约下家庭决策的微观基础，我们的研究结果有助于理解大流行期间妇女退出劳动力市场的情况:这种模式可能会产生长期的经济和政治后果。

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来源期刊

Journal of Experimental Political Science Social Sciences-Sociology and Political Science

CiteScore

5.10

自引率

8.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of Experimental Political Science (JEPS) features cutting-edge research that utilizes experimental methods or experimental reasoning based on naturally occurring data. We define experimental methods broadly: research featuring random (or quasi-random) assignment of subjects to different treatments in an effort to isolate causal relationships in the sphere of politics. JEPS embraces all of the different types of experiments carried out as part of political science research, including survey experiments, laboratory experiments, field experiments, lab experiments in the field, natural and neurological experiments. We invite authors to submit concise articles (around 4000 words or fewer) that immediately address the subject of the research. We do not require lengthy explanations regarding and justifications of the experimental method. Nor do we expect extensive literature reviews of pros and cons of the methodological approaches involved in the experiment unless the goal of the article is to explore these methodological issues. We expect readers to be familiar with experimental methods and therefore to not need pages of literature reviews to be convinced that experimental methods are a legitimate methodological approach. We will consider longer articles in rare, but appropriate cases, as in the following examples: when a new experimental method or approach is being introduced and discussed or when novel theoretical results are being evaluated through experimentation. Finally, we strongly encourage authors to submit manuscripts that showcase informative null findings or inconsistent results from well-designed, executed, and analyzed experiments.