Dealing with a crisis: Does Covid-19 promote traditional gender roles?

Abstract

The Covid-19 crisis has many characteristics susceptible to emphasize gendered prescriptions. In the present research, we argue that the Covid-19 crisis should promote citizenship behaviors (CB) consistent with gender stereotypes. Two preregistered experiments were conducted during lockdown in France (Study 1) and United Kingdom (Study 2). We manipulated the salience of the Covid-19 crisis using a fake newspaper article and showed that women were more likely than men to engage in CB of altruism and sacrifice. Meta-analysis results of the two studies confirmed that these gender differences were larger when the Covid-19 crisis was highly salient (vs. control condition). For women, more than for men, engaging in altruistic behaviors and making sacrifice for the greater good are perceived as the behaviors to endorse to cope with the Covid-19 crisis.