Women have shouldered the bulk of extra childcare duties imposed on parents during the lockdown, an official report revealed today.
A study by the Office for National Statistics showed women carried out an average of three hours and 18 minutes of childcare but men just two hours.
Women in households with children under 18 did on average two thirds more of childcare duties per day than men in the first weeks of lockdown.
The report said: “This gender difference in total provision of childcare was mostly driven by the extra time women spent in carrying out non-developmental childcare such as washing, feeding and dressing children and supervision of children.”
The report also found that parents were twice as likely to be furloughed as those without children.
Hugh Stickland, of the ONS, said: “Exploring people’s experiences during these challenging months, we have continually seen that not everyone’s experience is the same. This is true for parents.
"The age of the children, especially, makes a big difference to their experience. Most children engaged with homeschooling, with online resources playing an especially large role in older children’s education. Men have been more involved than before in ‘developmental’ aspects of childcare.”
Joe Wicks today completed his final online PE lesson after 18 weeks of helping families to keep fit during lockdown. The London personal trainer, dubbed “the nation’s PE teacher”, appeared on his YouTube channel with wife Rosie and two children to kick off the final session.
Wicks, 33, said he had loved “every minute” of the sessions but it was time for him to “take some rest”.
