Has the COVID-19 pandemic widened the gender gap in paid work hours in Spain?

This paper analyzes the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the within-household gender gap in relation to paid work hours in full-time employed heterosexual couples in Spain, one of the European countries hardest hit by the pandemic. Using the Spanish Labor Force Survey (2019-2020) and a Difference-in-Differences method, we analyze three stages of the pandemic; strict lockdown, de-escalation, and partial closures to study the short-term effects and potential medium-term effects on gender inequality in terms of paid work hours. Our results suggest that during the strict lockdown period there was a tendency to fall back on traditional family gendered patterns to manage the work-life balance, especially when young children are present in male-headed households. However, this phenomenon seems to be a short-term consequence of the pandemic. The sector of activity (essential or non-essential) has also played a key role given that during the period of partial recovery amid partial closures, the gender gap increased in maleheaded households with female partners employed in non-essential sectors.