Pandemic school closures as bad as divorce for effect on mothers’ mental health

New study uses Understanding Society data to unpick what happened to families during the lockdown that closed Britain’s schools

Teaching children

The closure of schools during the COVID-19 lockdowns caused significant damage to maternal mental health, according to a new study led by Professor Birgitta Rabe at the University of Essex. 

The study, used Understanding Society data from the pre-pandemic years, alongside additional data collected by the Understanding Society team during the lockdown periods of 2020, and looked at how parents and children were affected by the school closures, comparing how they were before, during and after the first lockdown. 

They found mothers suffered a significant decrease in mental wellbeing  – equivalent to the run-up to divorce or partner job loss. Fathers’ wellbeing, however, was not affected by whether or not their children returned to school. 

The study tracked the impact of schools closing and re-opening, examining the differences to parents of children in Reception, year one and year six who were prioritised for return in the summer of 2022, against those whose young children were still at home.  

Professor Rabe said; “Though the circumstances of the pandemic were unique, our findings indicate that childcare may also have a role in supporting mothers’ basic mental health. This should be factored into future cost-benefit analyses considering expansions or contractions of childcare availability or changes in price. It is also a relevant consideration when planning school opening times and in making the case for improving childcare provision during school holidays.

“Our results contribute to a growing body of evidence about the strongly gendered effects of the pandemic and the roles played by mothers and fathers in unpaid household work more generally. Consideration should be given to the types of policy interventions that could be effective in encouraging a more even split of responsibilities between mothers and fathers, so that mothers are less likely to bear the full impact of breaks in childcare, or other shocks to the family. 

“Such policies could include equal parenting leave entitlements for fathers and mothers, including non-transferable parental leave for fathers, as well as promoting flexible working and family-friendly working cultures.” 

Key findings

  1. Mothers and fathers with children aged 4-12(in year groups Reception to  Year 7) reported worse mental health during the pandemic than a comparable sample of parents interviewed in the same months before the pandemic. Differences were larger for mothers than fathers 
  2. Compared to April/May2020, when schools were closed for most children, average mental health was better in June 2020 for mothers whose children in year groups R-7 were all prioritised to return to school compared to mothers with at least one child in this age range who was not prioritised to return, whose mental health remained at a similar level to April/May 2020. For fathers it made no difference to their mental health whether or not their children were prioritised to return to school. 
  3. School closures had a significant detrimental effect on mothers’ mental health, similar in size to the deterioration in mental health experienced in the run-up to a divorce or following a partner’s job loss. 
  4. The average number of hours worked per week fell by around 20-25% for both mothers and fathers between February 2020 and April 2020. This improved in June 2020, when schools reopened, but did so similarly for mothers with more or fewer whose children in R-7 were all able to return to school compared to those with at least one child who could not, suggesting that school closures were not primarily responsible for these patterns. This could suggest that one of the reasons why mental health remained low for mothers whose children were less likely to be able to return to school during this period is because they had to fit in something close to their usual working hours on top of the additional childcare and home-schooling responsibilities that arose while schools were closed, which other evidence suggests they bore the brunt. Loneliness also decreased relatively more for mothers whose children were all able to return to school in June 2020, suggesting that schools reopening may have helped to alleviate social isolation. 
  5. We estimate the effect of being in a year group prioritised to return to school, but we know from our analysis of availability and attendance that not all children in these year groups were offered a place, and not all of those who were offered a place took it up. This means that the impact on parents’ mental health of children actually returning to school is likely to be larger than we estimate. 
  6. There do not appear to be any lasting implications of school closures for mothers’ mental health: in July 2020, at the beginning of the school summer holiday, the effect is only about half as large as in June 2020 and in September and November 2020 – when all year groups were able to attend school, it is no longer apparent at all. 

The study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, looked at the school closures impact on children’s mental health and outcomes as well as their parents’ ability to work and their mental health.  The report, School availability and family wellbeing, by Jo Blanden, Claire Crawford, Laura Fumagalli and Birgitta Rabe is published by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex

Read more about this research project

Read coverage in Nursery World of the recent policy discussion of this research at an event organised by the Nuffield Foundation 

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