News

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - On Monday, November 16, from 3:00-4:00 p.m., the School of Labor and Employment Relations will continue their speaker series with a presentation from Dr. Yana Rodgers (Rutgers University). Rodgers will present on, “COVID-19 and the Overlap Between Job and Home Responsibilities: New Evidence for the U.S.”

The stay-at-home orders associated with the COVID-19 pandemic left many employees teleworking from home and increased the amount of unpaid care work within the home. Such disruptions have the potential to upend the gendered distribution of unpaid labor and influence job productivity and satisfaction, particularly for dual-career families.

To investigate the extent of change in the gendered distribution of unpaid labor and its impact on job productivity and satisfaction, Rodgers and her team measured self-reported and partner-perceived contributions to household labor before and during the pandemic among people in cohabiting, opposite-sex partnerships in the United States. They conducted a real-time survey in May 2020 that yielded a cross-sectional sample of 920 respondents.

Results from bivariate and multivariate analyses show that both men and women experienced an increase in the amount of unpaid work within the home during the pandemic relative to before, with women performing more. However, men reported participating in more labor related to the care of elderly and disabled family members compared to women. Regression results showed that as men took on a greater share of household labor, women reported a greater odds of being more productive in and satisfied with their paid jobs.

Rodgers is a professor in the Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations, and in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies, at Rutgers University.  She also serves as Faculty Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers. She specializes in using quantitative methods and large data sets to conduct research on women's health, labor market status, and well-being. Rodgers has worked regularly as a consultant for the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Asian Development Bank, and she was President of the International Association for Feminist Economics.  She currently serves as an associate editor with the journals World Development and Feminist Economics. Rodgers earned her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and her BA in economics from Cornell University. She is originally from the Netherlands and is a mother of three and an avid runner.

November 2, 2020