Housework and Parenting during the Lockdowns in France: How Have Socio-Economic and Gender Inequalities Changed?

The lockdowns imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic had an unprecedented impact on people's time use. This article analyses the changes in time spent on household tasks and parenting by men and women during the lockdowns of the spring and autumn of 2020 in France, by social category, education, working arrangements and family configurations, using data from the major longitudinal EpiCov survey. The time spent on housework was high in the spring of 2020 and caring for children was particularly time consuming. This additional domestic and parental burden affected both women and men, but women continued to perform the majority of the housework, in spite of the similar working conditions between the sexes during this period. During the first lockdown, women at the top of the social hierarchy, who generally perform fewer household chores, spent far more time than usual on these tasks, thereby temporarily reducing social differences. © 2022, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques. All rights reserved.

Children's well-being and intra-household family relationships during the first COVID-19 lockdown in France

Objective: This article explores the consequences of the first COVID-19 lockdown in the spring of 2020 in France on intra-family relationships and 9-year-old children's socioemotional well-being. Background: On 17th March 2020, France began a strict lockdown to contain the COVID19 pandemic, with school closures and limited outings permitted until early June. All family routines and work-life arrangements were impacted. A major concern relates to how these measures impacted family and child well-being. Method: We use data from the Elfe Sapris survey, administered during the first lockdown to about 5,000 families participating to the Etude longitudinale francaise depuis l'enfance (Elfe), a nationally representative birth cohort of children born in 2011. We analysed correlations between parents' socioeconomic and living conditions on four relational indicators: the experience of lockdown, the quality of relationships between parents and children, and between siblings, and an indicator of children's socio-emotional well-being, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Results: The impact of the lockdown on family well-being was conditional on socioeconomic factors and their changes over the period. Deterioration of households' financial situation and having to work outside the home during lockdown was negatively correlated with family relationships and children's socio-emotional well-being. Conclusion: Overall, our results suggest that while France's first lockdown was a relatively positive period for many households with a primary-school-aged child, we highlight that restrictions exacerbated existing difficulties for disadvantaged families.

Socio-occupational inequalities in potential work-related exposure to SARS-COV-2

Introduction The risk of contracting COVID-19 is not uniform across occupations. Certain workers, exposed to diseases/infections, interfacing with the public/colleagues, unable to work from home, and without appropriate personal protective equipment are likely to experience higher workplace exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Objective To describe the proportion of workers potentially exposed to coronavirus in each occupation under 'routine' working conditions, as well as a baseline socio-demographic profile of these workers in France. Methods We combined two French cross-sectional population-based surveys: 'Working Conditions' (CT-2013) and 'Medical Surveillance of Occupational Risk Exposure' (Sumer-2017) to quantify 'exposure to infectious agents', 'face-to-face contact with the public' and 'working with colleagues'. We then identified the most exposed occupations before the first lockdown and built an exposure matrix. Finally, we described other socio-demographic characteristics (age, sex, occupational group, educational level, income level, origin) of the workers with the highest potential exposure to COVID-19. Results Before the first lockdown, 42% (11 million) of French workers were exposed to at least two COVID-19 occupational exposure factors. While most exposed workers are in the health care sector, other occupations such as social workers, hotel/restaurant employees, army/police officers, firefighters, hairdressers, and teachers also have a high proportion of exposed workers. Middle age participants, females, unskilled employees, those with post-secondary non-tertiary education, those with lower income level, French-born in overseas departments, and descendants of non-European immigrants faced a greater risk of occupational exposure to coronavirus before the first lockdown. Conclusions Our exposure matrix can now be used as an input in ongoing French cohorts to attribute a baseline level of work-related exposure and adjust it based on actual working arrangements during the epidemic. Surveillance of occupational exposure to coronavirus and the socio-demographic characteristics of the workers vulnerable to this virus is key to the implementation of occupation-specific public health response to Covid-19.