The COVID‐19 pandemic has dramatically affected employment, particularly for mothers. Many believe that the loss of childcare and homeschooling requirements are key contributors to this trend, but previous work has been unable to test these hypotheses due to data limitations. This study uses novel data from 989 partnered, US parents to empirically examine whether the loss of childcare and new homeschooling demands are associated with employment outcomes early in the pandemic. We also consider whether the division of childcare prior to the pandemic is associated with parents' employment. For parents with young children, the loss of full‐time childcare was associated with an increased risk of unemployment for mothers but not fathers. Yet, father involvement in childcare substantially buffered against negative employment outcomes for mothers of young children. For parents with school‐age children, participation in homeschooling was associated with adverse employment outcomes for mothers but not fathers. Overall, this study provides empirical support for the current discourse on gender differences in employment during the pandemic and also highlights the role fathers can play in buffering against reduced labor force participation among mothers.

Stay-at-home orders and the removal of care and domestic supports brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic substantially disrupted parents’ work and family lives. This study leverages this exogenous event to test key theoretical explanations of couples’ divisions of domestic labor. Using novel data from 1,025 partnered, different-sex US parents, our analysis shows an overall increase in domestic responsibilities for mothers, who were already doing most of the household labor, as well as an increase in fathers’ contributions. Driven by increases in fathers’ time spent on housework and childcare, we find that both mothers and fathers report a general shift toward more egalitarian divisions of household labor. Consistent with a time availability perspective, the findings indicate the relevance of increased time at home —due to unemployment, reduced work hours, and telecommuting— as a fundamental factor underlying change in parents’ division of domestic responsibilities.