Work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict and their relation to perceived parenting and parent-child relationship before and during the Covid-19 lockdown

Objective: Our objective is twofold: First, to examine whether, to what extent and for whom (by sex and educational attainment) work-to-family conflict (W→F-conflict) and family-to-work conflict (F→W-conflict) increased from the pre-Covid-19 period to the lockdown period. Second, to examine whether, to what extent and for whom the associations between W→F-conflict/F→W-conflict and perceived parenting (positive encouragement, coercive parenting and parent-child relationship) became stronger. Background: During the Covid-19 lockdown, parents were asked to provide childcare and home-schooling for their children while also being expected to fulfil their work obligations. Under these circumstances, this study was set out to examine how W→F-conflict/F→W-conflict, perceived parenting and their association were affected. Method: Multilevel regression models were applied to longitudinal data collected among 59 employed mothers and 77 employed fathers with a 3-year-old child. Results: We found that F→W-conflict/W→F-conflict increased most strongly among highly educated mothers, followed by lower/medium educated mothers and highly educated fathers, while no increase or even a decrease was observed among lower/medium educated fathers. We found some associations between W→F-conflict/F→W-conflict with perceived parenting, but these were not consistent for fathers nor mothers, nor across waves. Although overall heightened levels of conflict did strongly not spill-over to mothers’ and fathers’ perceived parenting, our results showed that for some parents, in particular those with high working hours, conflict clearly increased with negative implications for their perceived parenting. Conclusion: With some noteworthy exceptions, increases in F→W-conflict/W→F-conflict did not coincide with decreases in perceived parenting, indicating that most parents did not let increased conflict between work and family affect their parenting.