Gender Gaps in Unpaid Domestic and Care Work: Putting The Pandemic in (a Life Course) Perspective

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• Author: Janeen Baxter,Alice Campbell,Rennie Lee
• Date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.12538

The Australian Economic Review, vol. 56, no. 4, pp. 502–515 DOI: 10.1111/1467-8462.12538

Gender Gaps in Unpaid Domestic and Care Work: Putting The

Pandemic in (a Life Course) Perspective

Janeen Baxter, Alice Campbell and Rennie Lee*

Abstract

Our paper examines trends in gender

inequalities in unpaid domestic and care

work over the short‐and long‐term in

Australia, including assessing the impact

of the COVID‐19 lockdowns. We use the

concept of time—historical, biographical and

transitional—as a framework for our ana-

lyses. Drawing on data from the Household,

Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia

(HILDA) Survey, we find wide and continuing

gender gaps in unpaid work over the past two

decades. We demonstrate that parenthood is a

far greater producer and exacerbator of

gender inequalities in unpaid domestic and

care work than COVID‐19 lockdowns.

1. Introduction

Considerable attention has been placed on the

impact of COVID‐19 lockdowns on gender

inequalities, especially on paid and unpaid

work. Globally, and within Australia, there is

evidence that COVID‐19 exacerbated gender

inequality as women left paid employment to

take care of family members (Wood, Griffiths

and Foley 2021). Within households, evidence

suggests that women shouldered the bulk of

additional work associated with school lock-

downs, the provision of support for children's

school work, and caring for sick family

members and relatives (Baxter 2021; Collins

et al. 2021; Derndorfer et al. 2021). The aim

of our paper is to quantify and interrogate

these impacts in Australia and put them in

perspective by assessing the extent to which

COVID‐19 exacerbated or created gender

inequalities, how observed changes in gender

gaps varied across different types of unpaid

work, and how the impacts of COVID‐19

compare to other life course events.

2. Gender Inequality in Unpaid Work

The gender division of labour in unpaid care

and housework tasks continues with women

undertaking most of this work (Baxter, Hewitt

& Haynes 2008; Derndorfer et al. 2021). The

most recent data for Australia based on time

use diaries indicates that women spend 4.13

hours per day on unpaid domestic and care

work compared to men's 2.14 hours

(Australian Bureau of Statistics 2022). In

*Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for

Children and Families over the Life Course, Institute for

Social Science Research, The University of Queensland,

80 Meiers Road, Indooroopilly, Queensland 4068,

Australia; email <j.baxter@uq.edu.au>. This paper uses

data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics

in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The HILDA Project was

initiated and is funded by the Commonwealth Department

of Families, Housing, Community Services and

Indigenous Affairs and is managed by the Melbourne

Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research. This

research was supported by the Australian Government

through the Australian Research Council's Centre of

Excellence for Children and Families over the Life

Course (Project ID CE200100025). The authors would

like to thanks Mark Wooden, Stefanie Schurer, Lyn

Craig, Barbara Broadway and participants at the HILDA

Conference, Melbourne, 2023 for feedback on an earlier

version.

© 2023 The Authors. The Australian Economic Review publishedby John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of The University of

Melbourne, MelbourneInstitute: Applied Economic & Social Research, Faculty of Businessand Economics.

This is an open access article underthe terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distributionand

reproduction in any medium,provided the original work is properly cited.