The pandemic may have shifted some views on families back to more traditional gender roles. The view of what a “family” looks like has been changing rapidly over the years. There are more working mothers, and stay-at-home dads than there have ever been, and the idea of what a “traditional” family looks like was changing. Then a global pandemic happened, and we are still learning about all the unanticipated impacts this pandemic has had on almost every aspect of life. This includes how people view what a family should look like.
According to PsyPost, the COVID-19 pandemic has instigated a shift towards more traditional beliefs about what is the role of a mother and father. This information was based on a study that was published in Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, and it can be read in full here.
The researchers found that when Americans were surveyed after the pandemic, they were more likely to believe that a father should go to work, and a mother should remain at home. This may be due to the fact that it was mothers who took on a lot of the childcare “burden” during the pandemic, and they were the ones leaving the workforce to care for their children.
The researchers also stated that there was a shift happening, and working mothers were getting more support from the public, but the pandemic has seemed to push this back just a bit. To complete the study, the researchers conducted two surveys. One was done in March of 2019 and another in August of 2020. They then broke down the parenting attitudes between the two surveys to see what the view was on parenting and how it had shifted throughout the pandemic.
The team was able to see that as the pandemic went on, views of parenting had changed by the public and there was more support for fathers who went to work and mothers who stayed home with their children. Americans felt that mothers are happier at home and that they should not be working if they have young children. This seems like a huge setback for working mothers everywhere, who had fought for support to do what works for their family, and time may be the only way to tell if these views are going to shift back to show gender equality and support for working mothers. It is something to pay attention to when mom is raising her children and making sure they know that families are all different, and they are all wonderful.
Sources: PsyPost, SAGE Journals