COVID-19 and Young Fathers: Negotiating ‘earning’ and ‘caring’ through the COVID-19 crisis: change and continuities in the parenting and employment trajectories of young fathers

In this briefing paper we explore the earning and caring experiences and trajectories of a cohort of seventeen young fathers. We examine continuities and change in their work and family arrangements, the impacts of these changes on their parenting trajectories and personal relationships, and the extent to which these experiences differ for young fathers who are resident and non-resident. The balance of earning and caring has always been negotiated and shared by parents to varying degrees (Neale and Davies, 2015), but never more rapidly than under the renewed socio-economic conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic and national lockdown. As a secondary effect of the lockdown as a major public health intervention, the pandemic has had significant gendered effects, forcing widespread change and renegotiations in the employment and caring circumstances of both men and women.