Examining Trends and Disparities in Time-Based Work-Family Burden and Conflict in the Context of the COVID-19: Evidence from American Time Use Survey(ATUS) Data

Background and Purpose

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected working families due to health risks and care facility closures. Although previous research has examined the pandemic's impact on work-family conflict, some limitations remain. First, studies often limited their sample selection to working families caring for young children, lacking a comprehensive understanding of diverse work-caregiving needs in the U.S. Second, many studies examined gender disparities in work-family conflict but did not systematically investigate other structural disparities(i.e., class and race/ethnicity). Third, many did not clearly conceptualize the work-family problem and often mixed the concepts of work-family 'burden' and work-family 'conflict.'

This study examines the change and disparities in the work-family burden and conflict among American workers with caregiving duties(childcare and elderly care) in the context of COVID-19. We ask the following research questions: (1)How did work-family burden/conflict among workers with family caregiving responsibilities change in COVID-19 compared to pre-COVID-19? (2)How did the change in work-family burden/conflict during COVID-19 vary by class, gender, and race/ethnicity? (3)How did the change in work-family burden/conflict during COVID-19 vary by caregiving needs(sandwich caring for child and elderly vs. childcare vs. elderly care)?

Methods

We use the 2018-2021 American Time Use Survey (ATUS), the U.S. nationally representative continuous time-diary survey. The sample for this study is the employed workers aged 18-64 who had caregiving duties (N=10,746). The work-family burden is measured with total work-caregiving hours, comprising paid work, childcare, and elderly care. The work-family conflict is measured with (1) fragmentation and (2) contamination, employing leisure studies. Specifically, fragmentation is measured with the total number of paid and care work episodes across a diary day to capture the extent to which each activity is interrupted. Contamination is measured with the percentage of time spent in paid work with the presence of children/elderly to capture attention divided between paid work and caregiving. We conduct multivariate regression analysis on work-family burden and conflict with interaction terms between COVID-19 and different groups based on class, gender, race/ethnicity, and caregiving needs.

Results

The overall trend shows increases in work-family burden(+10.8 mins) and contamination(+1.46%p) but a decrease in fragmentation(-0.23 episodes ) during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic. Overall, the upper class experienced no significant difference in total burden but higher fragmentation(+0.61 episodes ) and contamination(+2.44%p) than the lower class. The interaction model results show that the pandemic exacerbated the higher contamination experienced by the upper class. By gender, women experienced lower burden(-15.12mins ) but higher work-family conflict(+0.84 episodes; +1.88%p) than men. By race, Black workers experienced lower fragmentation(-0.41 episodes ) and contamination(-2.61%p) than White workers. There was no significant difference in total burden by caregiving needs, but those with only eldercare duty experienced lower work-family conflict(-0.87 episodes; -4.0%p) than those with childcare or sandwich caregivers.

Conclusions and Implications

Findings demonstrate structural disparities in work-family burden and conflict, highlighting the need for policy interventions to address the nuanced aspects of working families' experiences. Future research should examine the mechanisms through which disparities continue or exacerbate post-pandemic to inform policies that promote equitable work-family balance.