Housework and psychological distress during the COVID-19 crisis: A gender- and context-sensitive relationship?

During the first stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, many couples experienced major shifts in their division of housework. Previous research suggests these have been consequential for well-being, but less is known about changes in later stages of the pandemic and their consequences for psychological distress, including gender-specific patterns therein. This article addresses three research questions: (1) How are changes in couples’ division of housework related to psychological distress at a later stage of the pandemic? (2) Are there differences between short- and longer-term changes in housework? (3) Are there gender-specific patterns? We harmonize longitudinal data from Finland, Germany, and the UK, for which information on three stages of the COVID-19 pandemic is available (pre-pandemic, during-lockdown, post-lockdown). Multivariate results show that both increase and decrease in the relative share in housework are associated with higher levels of distress at a later stage of the pandemic (winter 2020/2021). Finnish women report higher levels of distress if their relative share decreased in the longer term, whereas men in the UK report higher levels of distress upon longer-term increases. No statistically significant associations were found for Germany. We furthermore found no evidence for longer-term increase in psychological distress upon short-term changes in housework.