Contrasting Conceptions of Work–Family Balance and the Implications for Satisfaction with Balance during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Pandemic-related changes, including the expansion of remote work and the closure of schools and daycare supports, posed unprecedented challenges to parents’ conceptions of their work and home routines. Drawing on interviews with 88 heterosexual partnered parents, we examine the different ways parents understand what it means to balance work and family responsibilities and how their conceptions shaped satisfaction with their balance during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, we discover that parents held three distinct conceptions of work–family balance at the outset of the pandemic: (1) individualistic (where balance is understood as an individual pursuit and regarded independently of their partner’s efforts in the work and family spheres), (2) specialized (where each partner specializes in one sphere, producing balance between spheres), and (3) egalitarian (where partners share responsibilities in both spheres). Next, among the women and men who held specialized or egalitarian conceptions of balance, most sustained their level of satisfaction. In contrast, among those with individualistic conceptions, most women (but not men) reported a change in their satisfaction. These findings provide new insights about the varied meanings people attach to the concept of “work–family balance” and how these diverse conceptions have consequences for satisfaction with gender dynamics in households.