In the corona pandemic, there may have been a step backwards in terms of sharing care work in couple relationships.

At least that's what the new "Equal Opportunities Report" of the trade union-related Institute for Economic and Social Sciences (WSI), which will be published this Wednesday, suggests.

According to this, there are encouraging findings on women's employment: the gender gap in the employment rate is 7 percentage points, which is smaller than ever.

However: Before Corona, 62 percent of mothers and 5 percent of fathers in families with children took over the majority of the care time, a third of the couples divided it roughly equally.

This picture has now changed to the detriment of mothers: according to current data from the latest wave of the Hans Böckler Foundation’s representative survey of employed persons among more than 6,000 employed persons from June 2021, only 22 percent of parents divided unpaid care work evenly.

The proportion of mothers who mainly take care of the children has increased: This is now the case in 71 percent of families.

After all, the proportion of fathers who mainly take on childcare has increased slightly – to 7 percent.

There is a risk "that the pandemic will call into question progress that has been made slowly over the years," said Yvonne Lott, co-author of the study.

In doing so, she is taking up a debate that was started at the weekend by statements by the Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Anne Spiegel (Greens).

"Corona didn't turn back equality that quickly," Spiegel told the newspaper "Bild am Sonntag", thus turning against the thesis of a re-traditionalization of gender roles.

"Many fathers who were more committed to the family during the pandemic want to continue doing so in the future."

Ambiguous study situation

The scientific director of the WSI, Bettina Kohlrausch, described Spiegel's statements on Twitter as "enigmatic" in view of the new research findings.

Representative surveys by her institute have shown an increase in the number of mothers who reduced their working hours in favor of the family;

in January, that number reached the second-highest since the pandemic began.

The Berlin DIW also recently examined the question of "re-traditionalization" with reference to data from spring 2021.

As a result, the group of fathers of younger children most frequently moved away from their very egalitarian attitude to the issue of gainful employment by women during the period when schools and day-care centers were closed.

Compared to 2016, slightly more toddler fathers found it good when mothers concentrated on the role at home.

The study is based on representative data from the “Compass” survey by Infratest Dimap and on data from the “Allbus” population survey.

The study situation on the question of "retraditionalization" remains ambiguous.

Jan Braukmann, project manager at the analysis and consulting company Prognos, assumes - like the family minister - that men have experienced a "change in perspective on children and families" (see Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper of December 2nd, 2021).

The pandemic also presented many opportunities for a more active role as a father.

According to his data, fathers with little education and low income in particular were more involved.

And Marita Jacob, sociologist at the University of Cologne, together with other authors, wrote a study in mid-2021 entitled "Workin' moms ain't doing so bad" - "Working mothers don't do so badly".

In it, she uses representative IAB data to show that the gender inequality of working mothers and fathers has hardly changed a year and a half after the start of the pandemic.

Even Yvonne Lott comments on her own current findings on care work in couple relationships that they are "first of all a snapshot".