What happened to parents’ work-family conflict from before to during COVID-19? Findings from a longitudinal Australian study

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically disrupted the lives of working parents, yet there are limited longitudinal data examining the impact on parents’ work-family conflict. This study aimed to (i) describe parents’ work-to-family conflict (WtFC) and family-to-work conflict (FtWC) before and during the pandemic, including change and stability over time, and (ii) identify which parents were at risk of adverse conflict transitions. Survey data were collected from a national cohort of Australian parents in 2016 and 2020 (n = 1196). WtFC and FtWC levels were examined at both timepoints, and conflict transitions between timepoints were classified as never, conscript, escape and chronic. Findings show that WtFC and FtWC levels eased overall, yet there was significant individual variation in parents’ conflict transitions with some conscripting into high WtFC (12%) or FtWC (12%) and many reporting chronically high WtFC (45%) or FtWC (29%). Logistic regressions examined the predictors of conscript and chronic transitions, with gender (women), socio-economic (financial difficulties), care (single parent, younger children) and job (self-employment, long work hours, working from home) inequalities continuing to shape poorer experiences at the work-family interface during COVID-19. This study contributes evidence on how work-family conflict changed for Australian parents from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic.