Publication type
Journal Article
Series Number
Authors
Publication date
August 15, 2025
Summary:
Over the past decades, opposite-sex couples have moved away from the traditional ‘male breadwinner model’ towards a more egalitarian division of paid work. However, lockdown measures and the closures of schools and childcare services during the COVID-19 pandemic may have challenged egalitarian divisions of paid work, pushing couples into traditional breadwinning arrangements. This study investigates whether opposite-sex couples experienced short- and medium-term relapses into traditional breadwinning arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic. Logistic regressions models, applied to harmonized data from four country-specific representative longitudinal studies fielded during the pandemic (Varhaiskasvatus (Finland), pairfam (Germany), LISS (the Netherlands), and the UKHLS (the UK)), are used to estimate the probability of shifting into traditional breadwinning arrangements among opposite-sex co-resident partners from different social strata. Results indicate a moderate re-traditionalization of breadwinning arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic that did not appear to deepen pre-existing social inequalities in couples’ division of paid work.
Published in
Work, Employment and Society
Volume and page numbers
Volume: 39 , p.972 -996
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/09500170251322684
ISSN
9500170
Subjects
Notes
© The Author(s) 2025.
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