This study analyzes the adjustment in time allocation to school support activities by mothers and fathers during the pandemic across 22 Latin American and Caribbean countries, exploring the repercussions on labor market outcomes and children's learning losses. Our analysis reveals that mothers experienced a disproportionate increase in time dedicated to children's educational support compared to fathers, particularly when mothers could work from home. The results suggest that these effects were more pronounced in countries with stringent school closure measures and limited access to in-person instruction. Even as mobility restrictions eased and schools reopened, the additional responsibilities taken on by mothers remained above pre-pandemic levels.
Mothers also significantly increased the time spent on non-educational childcare, though to a lesser extent than educational support. We also show evidence indicating a decline in maternal labor force participation and a rise in flexible labor arrangements as mothers allocated more hours to child-related duties. Our study also provides descriptive evidence that children's learning losses were less severe in countries where the gender disparity in pandemic-related school support was greater.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.