Reported time allocation and emotional exhaustion during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Slovenia

Abstract

The absence of institutionalised childcare and education during the lockdowns, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, put parents who worked from home in a stressful situation in which they had to combine the roles of teacher, parent and employee. This study aims to analyse how the closure of kindergartens and schools during the March–May 2020 lockdown in Slovenia changed the reported allocation of time, and perceived emotional exhaustion of parents working from home, compared to nonparents. We also focus on the differences in the impacts of lockdown between genders, status of family-provision and employment sectors of parents. Using data from a survey carried out on cohabiting and married individuals in Slovenia and applying a difference-in-difference estimator, we find that parents incurred a significant increase in their unpaid work burden, reductions in time devoted to paid work and leisure and suffered an increase in emotional exhaustion. Namely, Slovenian parents reported roughly 2 h less of paid and 4 h more of unpaid work per day during the lockdown in comparison to nonparents. The analysis also demonstrates that females performed more unpaid work and enjoyed less leisure before the lockdown, but the lockdown adjustment did not further increase gender inequality. JEL Codes: J22, D13