3.2.3. Flexitime and Working Hours

Although it is not the focus of this paper, we also explored how flexitime influenced parental division of housework and childcare during the lockdown, as well as how much (more) housework and childcare men carried out during the lockdown period compared to pre-pandemic times. Firstly, 51% of fathers used flexitime during the lockdown, which is a slight increase from 45% before. 59% of mothers used flexitime during the lockdown—an increase from 45% before the lockdown. When fathers used flexitime during the lockdown, couples were more likely to have shared the household/childcare tasks equally (Table 1). Similar to what was found for working from home, the association was statistically significant for cooking (b = −0.243, *p* < 0.01), routine (b = −0.150, *p* < 0.05) and non-routine childcare (b = −0.188, *p* < 0.01). Some effect was found for home-schooling although not meeting the traditional significance level cut-off (b = −0.143, *p* < 0.1).

What is more, fathers working flexitime were about three times more likely to say that they have spent more time carrying out non-routine housework (odds ratio = 2.738, *p* < 0.05) compared to before the lockdown (Table 2). Although not significant at the 0.05 level, we find some evidence of this for time spent on cooking (odds ratio = 2.434, *p* < 0.10). Interestingly, when mothers were working flexitime, fathers were more likely to say that fathers spent more time doing routine (odds ratio = 3.453, *p* < 0.05) and non-routine childcare (odds ratio = 3.018, *p* < 0.05), and home-schooling children (odds ratio = 3.721, *p* < 0.05) compared to before the lockdown (Table 2). Previous literature has shown that flexitime, unlike working from home, may enable a more egalitarian division of labour [12,18,80] by enabling parents to expand parenting-time whilst maintaining maximum amount of household working hours and household income [81]. The evidence we see here also suggests that mothers' flexitime use may have enabled parents to adapt to the demands of the lockdown by using shift schedules to better divide parenting tasks.

Finally, we explore the impact parental working hours have on the division of housework and childcare (Table 1). As we expected, based on the time availability thesis, when men worked longer hours, they were less likely to equally share housework and childcare tasks with their female partners. When women worked longer hours, couples were more likely to share household and childcare tasks equally. Working hours of partners did not matter when it came to cooking and non-routine housework. What is more, the female partners' working hours mattered less compared to the male partner's working hours. This indicates that above and beyond hours of work, women do a certain share/level of housework and childcare largely conforming to gender norms, which confirms other previous studies [40]. We also examine how working hours influenced the likelihood of fathers doing a larger share during the lockdown compared to before. We find that when mothers were working longer hours, men were likely to say they did more routine housework—namely cooking, cleaning and laundry—compared to pre-pandemic time. However, this association was only significant at the 0.10 level.

#### **4. Discussion and Conclusions**

Previous studies have argued that homeworking can exacerbate rather than alleviate the existing gender inequality structures in the division of labour among heterosexual couples, and consequently increase the gender inequality patterns in the labour market [9]. It is because while women do more housework and childcare when working from home, men do not, and rather increase their working hours [11,14,18]. Using data gathered during the first lockdown in the UK, this study examined whether the changed context of homeworking during the pandemic altered these associations. More specifically, we wanted to see whether or not fathers' homeworking resulted in more engagement of fathers in domestic tasks and a more equitable division of housework and childcare during the first lockdown period. We expected such changes as homeworking was enforced by the government, widespread, and stigmatised views against homeworking were significantly reduced during this period. We expected that this may have enabled fathers to use homeworking practices for care purposes without fearing the stigmatised views from managers and co-workers, and without worrying about any potential negative career consequences.

We found evidence to show that when fathers worked from home during the lockdown, couples were more likely to divide housework and childcare more equally, similar to what was found in other studies across the world [4–6,55]. For example, homeworking fathers, compared to fathers going into the office/workplace, were more likely to have increased their time in, and more likely to be equally sharing routine childcare (that is generally looking after children), and cleaning/laundry. This was mirrored by the responses from the mothers in our survey, who noted that homeworking fathers were

doing more routine childcare during the lockdown. These domestic tasks are those that have increased significantly during the lockdown periods due to school and childcare facilities closures [32,42]. What is more, these activities were those that fathers generally did not take part in pre-pandemic times [40,41], yet are crucial in ensuring women's labour market participation [36,38]. Thus, the result of the study provides us with the evidence of how the normalisation and potentially stronger state regulation of homeworking can potentially result in a more egalitarian gender role division in the future post-pandemic labour markets, by enabling fathers' greater engagement in housework and childcare, which then enables better labour market participation for mothers.

However, we also found that homeworking mothers were more likely to have spent more time on housework and childcare during the lockdown periods, and consequently were also more likely to have carried out a larger share of domestic work. Thus, when both parents worked from home, which many dual-earner couples did (about 35% of our sample), although fathers took on more than before the pandemic, there was not a significant shift in the division of domestic tasks. The exception to this was homeschooling. Only when both parents worked from home, were fathers more likely to equally share home-schooling of children. Thus, even during the lockdown, we cannot completely rule out the argument that homeworking can lead to, or in this case maintain, the traditional division of labour among heterosexual couples [9,11–13]. Having said that, homeworking allowed parents to address the increased childcare demands during the lockdown period enabling both parents to be involved. This was preferable to the scenario where the whole load landed solely on mothers, which could have had, and in many cases had, severe consequences for their mental and physical well-being [82] and career/labour market outcomes [83,84].

There are some limitations to this study. Firstly, due to our sampling procedures, we cannot guarantee that the data represents all dual-earning couples in the UK, with somewhat overrepresentation of white-collar workers. However, given that we do account for many controls in our model (e.g., education), our analysis does provide us with a good indication of the impact homeworking had on dual-earning heterosexual coupled families in the UK. What is more, we were unable to survey both couples and match the data to gain insights into the true dynamics within the household. It is known that there are discrepancies between heterosexual couples' perception of the amount of domestic work each partner carries out but how it is distributed [39,74]. This combined with the fact that we have more women in our sample may mean that there may be an underestimation of not only the share of housework and childcare men took on (division skewed more towards the perception that women are doing more), but also on how much more they did during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic times. In this regard, despite having controlled for gender of the respondent in the analysis, our estimation of men's share, and amount of domestic work carried out may be underestimated. Related to this, our findings on homeworking fathers doing more and a larger share may also be influenced by the fact that homeworking father's engagement in domestic work was more visible to mothers, especially for mothers who were also working from home. However, as we have shown, the influence of homeworking fathers doing more and a larger share was not limited to those where both couples were working from home, indicating that there is an association above and beyond this. There is also an issue of self-selection, of where fathers who wanted to be more involved in childcare were the ones who intentionally chose to work from home, see also [55]. However, as our data was collected during a period where workers had limited choice in whether or not to work from home, this is less likely to be the case. Finally, our survey asked individuals to provide retrospective data of their situation (3 months) prior to the lockdown, which may not be entirely accurate. However, the survey was designed to ask respondents broad measures of the division and levels of housework and childcare during the lockdown compared to before, with a specified time frame. Studies have shown that in such cases, response bias issues may be minimal [85]. To overcome these limitations, a survey capturing the perceptions of both parents separately exploring their working patterns and the division of housework across time longitudinally would be useful.

Regardless of these limitations, this paper has provided some key contributions for policy and theory, especially with regard to looking forward at the prospects of gender equality post-pandemic. Theoretically, this study provides us with the evidence of the importance of examining the normalisation of, potential regulation of flexible working [27,86], and (the removal of) flexibility stigma [21] when examining homeworking and other flexible working arrangements in how they relate to worker's work-family integration, gender equality, and well-being. In more practical terms, the study shows us that the normalisation (and state regulation) of homeworking—and with it the removal of stigma—helped fathers to use homeworking practices to engage more in housework and childcare, see also [55,58]. This was especially visible for routine housework and childcare, which are crucial in supporting women's (increased) participation in the labour market. However, the paper also shows that the normalisation of homeworking alone may not be enough to encourage a more equal division of housework and childcare, evidencing again how the use and outcomes of homeworking and other flexible working arrangements are bounded by social norms and structures—e.g., work and gender norms [17]. Largely due to the gender norms that assume that domestic work is a woman's responsibility, homeworking mothers also spent more time on housework and childcare and did a larger share of these tasks compared to those who went into work. In policy terms, this result, on one hand, shows the importance of ensuring that both parents can work from home post-pandemic if we are to aim to achieve gender parity in the labour markets. If only mothers were to use homeworking, especially for care purposes, the gender gap in the division of domestic work is likely to widen with mothers carrying out more housework and childcare than before. What is more, if homeworking was largely attributed as arrangements for mothers (or other workers with care demands), stigmatised views around homeworking is likely to increase and accordingly homeworkers are likely to experience negative career outcomes and pay penalties [22–24,87]. This will result in increasing rather than decreasing the gender inequality patterns within the labour market. If the expansion of homeworking is to result in a more equitable division of domestic work, and subsequently reduce the gender inequality patterns at work, we need to further encourage the disruption of gender norms around whose role it is to care. Policies such as ear-marked well-paid paternity leaves, where fathers are encouraged to take leave without mothers, can help to change these views [88]. Making fathers the main carer of children in the early days of a child life can shift the ideas around whose role it is to care, not only in the first years of a child's life but also in the later years [89,90]. Similarly, campaigns to promote fathers' homeworking for care purposes, especially with role models from senior management, can help remove flexibility stigma and help both men and women to use homeworking to better engage in domestic work [23,91]. Campaigns to spread the productivity outcomes of homeworking patterns can also help to shift ideas around flexibility stigma, as will ensuring stronger rights against discrimination against flexible workers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about many changes in the world of work, including changing the context of home working, normalising it with large scale home and hybrid-working likely to continue into the future [92]. Increased use of homeworking can help tackle gender inequality at work, by enabling women, especially mothers, better access to work [54,55]. However, as this paper shows, the expansion of homeworking can also result in exacerbating gender inequality in the post-pandemic world of work, without a serious reflection and changes to our work cultures and gender norms [17]. The pandemic has provided us with a great opportunity to address gender inequality patterns both at home and in the labour market. This paper provides us with the evidence of how best to ensure that this opportunity is not lost.

**Author Contributions:** H.C., H.B. and S.F. contributed to the concept of the project. H.C. and H.B. obtaining the funding for the study. The design and collection of the survey was led by H.C. along with H.B. and S.F. Data cleaning and analysis were performed by H.S. and H.C. The first draft of the full manuscript was written by H.C. First draft of the tables and Online Appendix was written by H.S. H.C. and H.S. were involved in the revisions of this manuscript. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This project was made possible by the Impact Acceleration Fund by the University of Kent and the University of Birmingham.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The ethical approval for the data collected for this project was obtained from the SRC Ethics Panel of the University of Kent.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data used for this paper is not currently available to the public. However, after an embargo period of when the main results of the papers have been published, it will be made available freely to download via the UK Data Service. https://ukdataservice.ac.uk/.

**Acknowledgments:** We would also like to thank the organisations who have help gather data for this project, as well as numerous participants who took part in completing the survey, without whom this project would not have been made possible. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback on this paper.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.
