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The pandemic everyday life with job and children is probably as idyllic as in this symbolic picture in very few families
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Catherine Falls Commercial/Getty Images
The pandemic is leading to a re-traditionalization of gender relations.
When daycare centers or schools close because of Corona or an authority sends the children into quarantine, it is mostly mothers who stay at home to look after the children and reduce their working hours professionally.
This has changed little in the second year with the virus, as can be seen from current data from the Economic and Social Science Institute (WSI) of the Hans Böckler Foundation, which is close to the trade union.
According to the sixth representative survey of the labor force, the opposite trend can even be seen among mothers: they are currently reducing their working hours almost as often in favor of the family as at the beginning of the pandemic - mind you: although schools and childcare facilities were at least officially open at most times during the corona crisis .
A different picture emerges for men: In the spring of 2020, they also decreased their hours on the job, albeit at a lower level.
In the winter of 2022, however, almost nothing of this can be seen.
Specifically, according to the WSI, 19 percent of
women
with children in need of care stated in January that they had reduced their working hours because of childcare.
In the first shutdown in April 2020 it was 24 percent, but in the meantime the value had fallen back to well below 15 percent.
According to the information, more than 15 percent of
the
men with children in need of care took a shorter career break for the family at the beginning of the crisis.
For about a year, however, the value has been little more than five percent.
The numbers document a relapse into traditional patterns of living together.
The survey makes no statements about the exact motives.
However, according to the WSI researchers Bettina Kohlrausch and Andreas Hövermann, it is clear that mothers feel particularly stressed.
"Apparently, the fact that schools and day-care centers are basically open, the need for care due to frequent infections or quarantine of children is still very high and can hardly be planned in advance," says a statement from the WSI.
Only a third are satisfied with the government's crisis management
There are now feelings of stress, especially among parents and especially mothers, who have noticeably increased concerns about social cohesion and criticism of how politicians are dealing with the crisis in recent weeks.
“Parents, especially mothers, feel left alone and increasingly drained.
That leads to a massive loss of trust,” says Kohlrausch.
She is therefore calling for increased family and educational policy efforts: “The corona-related backlogs and gaps that have arisen among many schoolchildren, for example, will not disappear by themselves when the acute pandemic ends.
Doing something about it will remain a task for years to come.«
According to the survey, only 31 percent of those in employment and job seekers in Germany are satisfied with the federal government's crisis management - after 40 percent in July 2021 and up to 67 percent shortly after the outbreak of the pandemic.
However, since Germany has so far been relatively successful in securing gainful employment through short-time work and the like, its own financial burden remains moderate.
But there are exceptions here too: According to the survey, people on low incomes are suffering more than at any time since the beginning of the pandemic.
For the Hans Böckler Foundation’s employed person survey, 6,419 employed persons and jobseekers were interviewed online by Kantar Germany from the beginning to the middle of January about their living situation during the pandemic.
The same people had already been interviewed in April, June and November 2020 as well as in January and July 2021, but sometimes not with the complete questionnaire.
The respondents are representative of the labor force in Germany in terms of gender, age, education and federal state.
The panel structure makes it possible to work out changes over time.
Apr