Cracking under Pressure? Gender Role Attitudes toward Maternal Employment in Times of a Pandemic

Danzer, Natalia; Huebener, Mathias; Pape, Astrid; Spiess, C. Katharina; Siegel, Nico A.; Wagner, Gert

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3873157

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Cracking under Pressure? Gender Role Attitudes toward Maternal Employment in Times of a Pandemic

DIW Berlin Discussion Paper No. 1951

14 Pages Posted: 28 Jun 2021

See all articles by Natalia Danzer

Natalia Danzer

Free University of Berlin (FUB) - School of Business & Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) - Ifo Institute

Mathias Huebener

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)

C. Katharina Spiess

Federal Institute for Population Research; Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Gert Wagner

Max Planck Society for the Advancement of the Sciences - Max Planck Institute for Human Development

Date Written: June 2021

Abstract

This paper studies the effects of Covid-19 related daycare and school closures on gender role attitudes toward maternal employment in Germany. We compare women and men with dependent children to those without children one year after the outbreak of the pandemic. Using data on gender role attitudes from 2008 through 2021, we find that fathers’ egalitarian attitudes toward maternal employment dropped substantially in 2021. This drop is observed for men in West Germany, who showed a steady progression toward more egalitarian attitudes in the pre-pandemic period. Attitudes by women are not affected. These findings suggest that the pandemic not only affected the short-term allocation of housework and childcare, but also reversed recent trends toward more egalitarian gender roles.

Keywords: Covid-19, gender role attitudes, childcare, difference-in-difference, ALLBUS, COMPASS

JEL Classification: J13,J16,J18,J22

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Danzer, Natalia and Huebener, Mathias and Pape, Astrid and Spiess, C. Katharina and Siegel, Nico A. and Wagner, Gert, Cracking under Pressure? Gender Role Attitudes toward Maternal Employment in Times of a Pandemic (June 2021). DIW Berlin Discussion Paper No. 1951, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3873157 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3873157