Coronavirus: Parents ‘struggle to juggle’ kids, working from home

Half of all parents working from home are finding it difficult to combine work with care for their children.

Parents working from home are struggling to care for their children and work. Picture: Istock

Half of all parents working from home are finding it difficult to combine work with care for their children, and mothers are bearing the brunt.

And in what may be a red flag for employers, 22 per cent of parents working from home were always or often actively caring for children while working, and another 15 per cent were passively caring while working, a new report reveals.

Women were more likely to be in this dual role. Almost a quarter of mothers who work from home say they are also actively looking after their children, while for fathers it is 15 per cent, the Australian Institute of Family Studies research reveals.

The new report, titled Families in Australia Survey: Towards Covid Normal, surveyed more than 3000 people at the end of last year, finding a significant change in work practices due to the pandemic.

It found at the time that 29 per cent of Australians said they “always” worked from home, compared to just 7 per cent pre-Covid.

Before the pandemic 58 per cent of people never worked from home, but that was down to just one in three. For many parents this change has not come easy. Half of parents working from home find it harder to combine their work and care responsibilities than before the pandemic, compared to 40 per cent of those who never work from home.

“When parents, especially mothers, work from home, they are sometimes expected to perform two jobs at once – their paid work and caregiving for their children,” the report’s lead researcher Jennifer Baxter said.

Graphic: The Australian

“This doesn’t always mean productivity is sacrificed, however, as some jobs that involve working from home can readily be managed around care responsibilities,” Dr Baxter added.

Mothers are the most likely to adjust their work arrangements to care for children, the report shows, with 57 per cent of mothers working part time to accommodate childcare duties, com­pared to 9 per cent of fathers.

But 38 per cent of fathers now said they were working from home to help with childcare.

“For some parents, a silver lining of Covid has been the greater acceptance of fathers working from home,” Dr Baxter said.

“It will be interesting to see if this trend continues as we move further towards ‘Covid normal’, and to see whether this also results in changes in mothers’ and fathers’ use of other types of flexible working arrangements.”

The study reveals how hard Covid-19 has hit families. One in 10 respondents said either they or their partner had lost their job.