Work arrangements and father involvement during COVID‐19 lockdown: A mixed methods study

• Published date: 01 February 2024
• Author: Pingping Ni,Peipei Hong,Laike Pan,Xinran Han,Shuyi Zhai,Jie He
• Date: 01 February 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12915

RESEARCH

Work arrangements and father involvement during

COVID-19 lockdown: A mixed methods study

Pingping Ni

1,2

|Peipei Hong

1

|Laike Pan

1

|Xinran Han

1

|

Shuyi Zhai

1

|Jie He

1

1

Department of Psychology and Behavioral

Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou,

China

2

Department of Education, Zhejiang

International Studies University, Hangzhou,

China

Correspondence

Jie He and Shuyi Zhai, Department of

Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang

University, Hangzhou 310058, China.

Email: jiehe@zju.edu.cn and zhaishuyi@zju.

edu.cn

Funding information

National Natural Science Foundation of

China, Grant/Award Number: 31871119;

Fundamental Research Funds for the Central

Universities, Grant/Award Number: 226-2022-

00143

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to examine how father

involvement and family relationships changed during the

COVID-19 lockdown and their relations to fathers’work

arrangements.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed

how parents arrange their work and family in China and

elsewhere. Many fathers, once working long hours at the

workplace, had to adjust their work arrangements, work-

ing reduced hours or working from home.

Method: This study used a mixed methods design. Partici-

pants were parents of preschool or school-age children in

China. In Study 1, 31 mothers were interviewed about the

change in father involvement and family relationships dur-

ing the COVID-19 lockdown compared with pre-COVID-

19. In Study 2, a sample of father–mother dyads (N=637)

completed survey measures of work arrangements, father

involvement, and family relationships.

Results: Study 1 suggested increased father involvement

and improved family relationships amid the lockdown and

highlighted the role of fathers’work. Study 2 revealed that

fathers’changed work arrangements (i.e., working from

home) were associated with higher father involvement and

more positive family relationships during the lockdown.

Father involvement may mediate the associations between

fathers’work arrangements and father–child closeness as

well as mothers’marital satisfaction.

Conclusion and Implications: Working from home could

promote involved fathering and stronger family relation-

ships, strengthening the family’s overall capacity to

Author note Pingping Ni and Peipei Hong contributed equally to this work and share co–first authorship. This work was supported by

the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31871119). We are grateful to the children and their parents who participated in this

project.

Received: 15 January 2022Revised: 1 April 2023Accepted: 26 April 2023

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12915

© 2023 National Council on Family Relations.

54 Family Relations. 2024;73:54–73.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare

combat the stressors and challenges brought by the

COVID-19 pandemic.

KEYWORDS

COVID-19, father involvement, father–child relationships, marital

satisfaction, work arrangement

Today’s fathers are expected not only to provide for their families but also be actively involved

in their children’s daily lives. With a growing expectation of involved fatherhood, the past few

decades have witnessed a rise in father involvement in both the global West and East (Diniz

et al., 2021; X. Li, 2020). Involved fathering has been documented to contribute to children’s

better cognitive, behavioral, and psychosocial functioning; elevated maternal well-being; and

higher quality of family relationships (Diniz et al., 2021). Despite the known benefits, fathers

are still regarded as secondary caregivers and far less involved than mothers in day-to-day child

upbringing (Diniz et al., 2021). Long working hours and less access to flexible work schedules

and places are argued as major stumbling blocks to father involvement (Ewald et al., 2020).

The COVID-19 pandemic abruptly changed the ways working parents arrange their work

and family lives. With the release of stay-home order and the shutdown of school and daycare

facilities, many working parents had to reduce working hours or work from home to take care

of young and school-age children. These changed work arrangements enabled fathers tospend

more time at home and be more available to their children and spouses. According to time

availability and needs exposure hypotheses (e.g., Bianchi et al., 2000; Shafer et al., 2020) and

psychosocial models of fathering (e.g., Cabrera et al., 2014), these changes in work arrange-

ments should increase father involvement and benefit family relationships. However, whether

fathers’changed work arrangements during the pandemic affect father involvement and family

relationships remains an empirical question.

Therefore, this study among Chinese families aims to examine (a) how father involvement

and family relationships (father–child relationships and couple relationships) changed during

the COVID-19 lockdown relative to pre-COVID-19 and (b) whether fathers’work arrange-

ments affect father involvement and further affect family relationships during lockdown. The

Chinese context provides a fertile ground for examining these questions because work demands

are ascribed as the leading obstacle to father involvement in Mainland Chinese families

(iResearch Inc, 2019). Using an exploratory sequential mixed methods design, the current

research unfolded in two studies. Study 1 (an interview study) explored changes in father

involvement and family relationships from mothers’narratives. Study 2 (a survey study) was

followed to test the main findings of Study 1 and the indirect effects of fathers’work arrange-

ments on family relationships through father involvement during the lockdown.

WORK ARRANGEMENTS, FATHER INVOLVEMENT, AND THE

IMPACT OF COVID-19

The pandemic may bring a positive shift in father involvement for two reasons. First, the

COVID-19 lockdown provides fathers with more time at home and greater opportunities to

participate in childcare. The time availability perspective posits that the more (fewer) hours peo-

ple spend on paid work or at the workplace, the less (more) time is available for domestic tasks

(Bianchi et al., 2000). As fathers often prioritize their work role to ensure their family’s eco-

nomic security (McGill, 2014), work responsibilities constrain their time and energy for

childcare. During the pandemic, reduced work hours, more flexible work schedules, or working

from home would alleviate fathers’time constraints, enabling them to share more childcare

FATHER INVOLVEMENT DURING COVID-1955