Yamamura Eiji, Tsustsui Yoshiro
Department of Economics, Seinan Gakuin University, 6-2-92 Nishijin, Sawara-ku, Fukuoka, 814-8511 Japan.
Department of Sociology, Kyoto Bunkyo University, Kyoto, Japan.
Rev Econ Househ. 2021;19(1):41-60. doi: 10.1007/s11150-020-09536-5. Epub 2021 Jan 11.
COVID-19 has led to the closure of various schools in Japan to cope with the pandemic. This study explores how school closure influences parents' work style based on short panel data for the period of school closure from mid-March to mid-April 2020. Specifically, we analyze how the presence of their children influences parents' work at home and examine how the effect differs by the parent's gender. After controlling for various factors, we find that in cases where parents are full-time employees and the children are: (1) in primary school, mothers are more likely to work remotely, while fathers are less likely to do so and (2) in junior high school, the parents' work styles are hardly affected. This shows that mothers shoulder the burden of working remotely and caring for small children at home, while fathers tend to work in the office and spend less time with their childcare at home. Inevitably, COVID-19 has increased the inequality in the burden of child care.
为应对新冠疫情，日本多所学校停课。本研究基于2020年3月中旬至4月中旬学校停课期间的短期面板数据，探讨学校停课如何影响家长的工作方式。具体而言，我们分析孩子的存在如何影响家长在家工作，并研究这种影响因家长性别而异的情况。在控制了各种因素后，我们发现，对于全职员工家长而言，当孩子处于以下情况时：（1）小学阶段，母亲更有可能远程工作，而父亲则不太可能；（2）初中阶段，家长的工作方式几乎不受影响。这表明母亲承担着在家远程工作和照顾小孩的重担，而父亲则倾向于在办公室工作，在家照顾孩子的时间较少。不可避免地，新冠疫情加剧了育儿负担的不平等。
