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“The workload is staggering”: Changing working conditions of stay‐at‐home mothers under COVID‐19 lockdowns

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  • Awish Aslam
  • Tracey L. Adams

Abstract

The COVID‐19 pandemic has drawn attention to the home as a work environment, but the focus has centered on the experiences of paid workers. Stay‐at‐home mothers (SAHMs), for whom the home was already a workplace, have received little attention. This article explores how pandemic‐induced lockdowns impacted SAHMs' working conditions and their experiences of childrearing. Combining a Marxist‐feminist conceptualization of domestic labor with a labor process framework, we performed a qualitative content analysis of vignettes SAHMs shared about their day‐to‐day domestic labor in an online mothering community. Our findings show that, under lockdown conditions, the primacy given to partners' paid work combined with children's increased demands for care and attention reduced SAHMs work autonomy and exacerbated gender inequalities in the home. Combining labor process theory with literature on motherwork illuminates the home as a gendered work environment and enhances understanding of how changing conditions of domestic labor can intensify gender inequalities (and workers' awareness of them) that typically remain “hidden in the household.”

Suggested Citation

  • Awish Aslam & Tracey L. Adams, 2022. "“The workload is staggering”: Changing working conditions of stay‐at‐home mothers under COVID‐19 lockdowns," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 1764-1778, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:29:y:2022:i:6:p:1764-1778
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12870
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Leah Ruppanner & Xiao Tan & Andrea Carson & Shaun Ratcliff, 2021. "Emotional and financial health during COVID‐19: The role of housework, employment and childcare in Australia and the United States," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 1937-1955, September.
    2. Alison Edgley, 2021. "Maternal presenteeism: Theorizing the importance for working mothers of “being there” for their children beyond infancy," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 1023-1039, May.
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