Stay‐at‐home orders and the removal of care and domestic supports during the early days of the COVID‐19 pandemic substantially disrupted US parents’ work and family lives. Although much is known about changes in US parents’ paid labor arrangements, the evidence regarding changes in unpaid domestic labor has been largely anecdotal. This study uses novel data from 1,025 US parents in different‐sex partnerships to provide a descriptive overview of changes in mothers’ and fathers’ participation in, and division of, housework and childcare from March 2020 to the early days of the pandemic (late April 2020). Findings show an overall increase in domestic responsibilities for mothers who were already doing most of the household labor. Still, both mothers and fathers report a general shift toward more egalitarian divisions of household labor, driven by increases in fathers’ contributions. The shift toward more egalitarian sharing of domestic labor is observed across demographic groups and across types of domestic tasks. Consistent with findings from other countries, egalitarian divisions of domestic labor increased among U.S. parents during the early days of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Mothers, nonetheless, report retaining primary responsibility for domestic labor in the majority of families.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted work and family life around the world. For parents, this upending meant a potential re-negotiation of the ‘status quo’ in the gendered division of labour. A comparative lens provides extended understandings of changes in fathers’ domestic work based in socio-cultural context – in assessing the size and consequences of change in domestic labour in relation to the type of work-care regime. Using novel harmonized data from four countries (the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) and a work-care regime framework, this study examines cross-national changes in fathers’ shares of domestic labour during the early months of the pandemic and whether these changes are associated with parents’ satisfaction with the division of labour. Results indicate that fathers’ shares of housework and childcare increased early in the pandemic in all countries, with fathers’ increased shares of housework being particularly pronounced in the US. Results also show an association between fathers’ increased shares of domestic labour and mothers’ increased satisfaction with the division of domestic labour in the US, Canada, and the UK. Such comparative work promises to be generative for understanding the pandemic’s imprint on gender relations far into the future.

The gendered division of housework is an important predictor of relationship satisfaction, but the mechanisms linking these variables remain poorly understood. Using data on N = 487 couples from the 2006 Marital and Relationship Survey, the authors examine the association of heterosexual partners’ communication quality with the division of housework and the role of partners’ communication quality in the association between the division of housework and relationship satisfaction. Results from instrumental variable models and Actor-Partner Interdependence Models indicate that the quality of women’s communication with their male partners predicts how couples divide housework. The quality of men’s communication with their female partners, however, appears to be an outcome of domestic arrangements. Men’s communication quality mediates the association between the division of housework and women’ relationship satisfaction, while women’s communication quality confounds the association for men.

Recent European studies suggest that fathers’ leave-taking may contribute to parental relationship stability. Paternity leave-taking may signal a commitment by fathers toward a greater investment in family life, which may reduce the burden on mothers and strengthen parental relationships. This study uses longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) to analyze the association between paternity leave-taking and relationship stability in the United States. Results indicate that paternity leave-taking, and taking relatively short leaves (i.e. two weeks or less) in particular, is associated with greater relationship stability. These findings increase our understanding of the potential benefits of paternity leave, and can inform policy decisions that aim to increase family stability.