RAPID: Work, Family, and Social Well-Being among Couples in the Context of COVID-19

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COVID-19 has disrupted daily work and home lives. More than 297 million people in the U.S. have been placed on full or partial social distancing restrictions. Millions were told to work remotely; others were deemed essential and found themselves on the frontline of this unprecedented pandemic. More than half the schools are closed, leaving more than 33 million children at home. Consequently, millions of dual-income families have been forced to find new ways to balance the competing needs of work and family while maintaining individual and relational well-being. Prior to COVID-19, research consistently showed workers to experience higher work-to-family than family-to-work conflict; however, workers may now experience as high, if not higher, family-to-work conflict given that they have to juggle work and family from the same location: home. Both of these conflicts can have negative effects on individuals and families, including psychological distress, anxiety, anger, guilt, and decreased couple relationship quality. Most studies to date have tested spillover effects of work to family conflict using individual-level data; few have examined the crossover effect with both members included in the analysis, and even fewer longitudinally. This project will survey and interview both adults of dual-income couples at three time points to assess how work, family, and health among dual-income couples have changed within the context of COVID-19. Findings from this project will inform workplaces on the development of policies to support workers and their families during times of crisis and return-to-work transitions, thus facilitating recovery from this pandemic and preparedness for future extreme events. These are key insights needed to train employers/workers on best practices for employment interventions on family-friendly policies, facilitating organizational change and contributing to healthy workplaces, thus facilitating health and well-being and U. S. economic competitiveness.Covid-19 has disrupted work and family arrangements owing to school closures, requirements for telework, and social distancing mandates. This project uses a mixed-methods approach by combining surveys and in-depth interviews with both members of a sample of dual-income couples over one year. The project will collect data at three time points: baseline (while most of country is under lockdown orders), transition (after orders start to phase out), and adaptation (one year after the first case of community transmission was detected). The project will use both a traditional single person data analysis strategy, including growth curve modeling and panel regression, and a dyadic data analytical method, the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model, to analyze survey data (n=300 couples; 600 individuals). For the qualitative data, the project will use a thematic analysis to identify emergent patterns on perceptual/behavioral work-family conflict, workplace resources/support, mental health, and relationships. The project will use the qualitative software package NVIVO to manage interview data. Findings from the project will inform sociological theories regarding work-family conflict and accommodation, as well as theories related to the gendered division of household labor.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.