Dads took on more childcare during COVID-19. Will a vaccine end that?
“So if we think about the pandemic in the same way...that because of the crisis they’ve
had to take on more, it’s likely their contributions will remain higher than what
they were before the pandemic,'' Carlson says. Still, the lion's share of household
tasks and child care fell on working mothers, according to a study by Lean In, which found that mothers were more than three times as likely as dads to take on most
of those responsibilities. The report also found that 25% of women were thinking about leaving their jobs or
making other professional changes because of those challenges.
"More women were not only deciding to leave their jobs because of these responsibilities, but there was an increase in the fact they’d be fired or laid off if they had these responsibilities,'' Carlson says, referring to the separate findings in his own research. "That schooling responsibility is driving a lot of the labor market inequalities that we’re seeing.''