The Impact of the Pandemic on Changes in Roles in Families – The Results of Nationwide Research

Family structures and the performance of roles by individual family members are based on established social norms and patterns. The volatility of the environment more and more often forces, especially working parents, to constantly adapt to emerging challenges, which requires looking for a balance in performing different roles.In the literature on the subject, more and more attention is paid to the occurrence of conflicts and difficulties related to the sharing of time and resources between various activities of people. Recent changes caused by the pandemic have revealed difficulties in reconciling various spheres of life, especially for working parents. One of the areas that has been modified is the change in the roles played by working parents.The aim of the article was to show whether and how the pandemic influenced changes in roles in families. This article contains a review of the literature on the subject and an analysis of the results of nationwide questionnaire surveys conducted during the pandemic on a sample of 10,331 respondents. As part of the issues related to the roles performed by working parents, a research hypothesis was formulated, assuming that the pandemic affected the roles performed by working parents.The analysis of the research showed that during the pandemic, the commitment to fulfilling family and professional roles has changed, and gender is the dominant factor influencing the scope of performing family roles. The pandemic has only reinforced inequalities in the division of responsibilities among working parents. In addition, analyzes have shown that one of the reasons for the unequal division of roles in families is the income earned by spouses/partners.