Care Tasks and New Routines for Italian Families during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspectives from Women

Abstract

The lockdown management during the COVID-19 pandemic has been very complex for families. The present study is part of a broader interdisciplinary research and follows the gender perspective, which has made it possible to bring a focus on the pandemic starting with women who, within family dynamics, have suffered most from the effects of the lockdown, having to manage multiple roles simultaneously and in the same place. The data were collected through an on-line survey. The aim is to understand how family routines were structured during the lockdown and how women’s emotional regulation developed during this period. Moreover, a further area of investigation focused on the distribution of domestic work and childcare among partners and on the relationships between smart working and the family dimension. The participants are 300 women living in different Italian region. The data highlights how during lockdown women with children have more regulatory and relational routines than women without children and that during this period both regulatory and relational routines become less consistent. It also emerges that women perceive that they dedicate more time to domestic activities and childcare than their partners do and that the time dedicated to childcare is greater in the 0-6 year range. Moreover, it emerges clearly how reconciling the smart working with the family dimension is not always easy.