New practices during the pandemic? A qualitative study of parents’ work, care and housework during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article we explore how parents (re)negotiate care and housework during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on qualitative interviews with Swedish parents of school-age children, the article contributes new knowledge about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the everyday lives of families and their care and household practices. Previous research indicates that life changing events influence how couples divide and perhaps renegotiate the division of care and housework. Similarly, the pandemic and its accompanying restrictions and recommendations, such as working from home, might trigger the need to renegotiate care and housework. The results of the study suggest that while most of the interviewed parents have been affected in some way by the pandemic, especially with regard to a change of workplace and the restrictions on social interactions, only some argue that this has led them to explicit renegotiate and modify the division of housework and care.