NY Times: Nearly Half of Men Say They Do Most of the Home Schooling. 3 Percent of Women Agree.

Original article posted in May at the New York Times.

A scene of home schooling in Roseville, Minn., in March.Credit...Leila Navidi/Star Tribune, via Associated Press

Home schooling, the new parental chore brought about by coronavirus lockdowns, is being handled disproportionately by women, according to a new poll by Morning Consult for The New York Times. Fathers don’t necessarily agree — nearly half of those with children under 12 report spending more time on it than their spouse — but just 3 percent of women say their spouse is doing more. Eighty percent of mothers say they spend more time on it.

Even though men and women are both doing more housework and child care than usual during the lockdown, the survey found, the results suggest they aren’t dividing the work any differently or more equitably than they were before. Seventy percent of women say they’re fully or mostly responsible for housework during lockdown, and 66 percent say so for child care — roughly the same shares as in typical times.

Again, men and women see it differently. A much smaller share of men, about 20 percent, agree that their spouses are fully or mostly responsible for both housework and child care. About 20 percent of men say they are fully or mostly responsible for these tasks during lockdown. Only around 2 percent of women agree. Although it’s not possible to be certain about which perceptions are correct, years of past research using time diaries have consistently shown that men often overestimate the amount they do, and that women do more.