Women Shouldered Most of Kids’ In-home Schooling Needs During Early Pandemic

(We don’t think this comes as much of a surprise…)

February 21, 2024 By Laurel White

Women took on more education-related childcare responsibilities than men during the first several months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this disparity was even sharper for some lower-income women, according to a new University of Wisconsin–Madison study.

The study, published in the journal Sociology, found that daily time spent helping children with education-related activities, such as virtual schooling, homework and school projects, decreased for men in 2020 compared to previous years. For women, that daily time commitment more than doubled. For low-income women living in areas with widespread childcare facility closures during the pandemic, the increase in time was even steeper.

The study used 2020 data from the U.S. Database of Child Care Closures, a public database created by researchers at Columbia University, along with several years of daily time use data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey.

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These first three paragraphs are probably the most valuable. After these the author argues for more government aid and intervention, which you may or may not agree with. We, of course, happen to know many mothers who taught their kids to read during this time and/or took over the schooling of their kids completely. So, all in all, the turn towards homeschooling was and has been largely driven by moms who could not stand by and watch their kids fall behind. And they also soon realized that using phonics to teach their kids to read is the basis for all learning to follow.

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