Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic altered our lifestyles and family dynamics; it forced people to stay in their homes and work online; children and adolescents stayed at home without attending educational establishments in person. Unemployment also increased, generating economic instability for thousands of families [1, 2]. In this new context, the domestic environment becomes relevant, a space where, in general, the woman has a fundamental role.

During the industrial revolution, paid work began to be carried out outside the home, and the social division of "work" and "family" arose, where the home became the space for leisure and resting from paid work [3] Here, the sexual division of labor was also generated with specific gender roles; men were part of the public world (labor market), and women were part of the private world, meaning the home [3]. For decades, it has been women who have been most associated with domestic work. The International Labor Office (ILO) has reported that women perform three times more unpaid domestic work than men worldwide [4], including caring for the family, managing household chores, and feeding the family [5, 6]. This would mean that women are in charge of modulating one of the essential food environments, the home food environment [7, 8].

The sanitary crisis due to COVID-19 pandemic had gender dimensions, a point repeatedly demonstrated in aspects such as the probability of becoming ill, mortality, and job losses [9–12]. Added to this, many women postponed their professional careers and personal well-being for the care of others [10]. Emerging research suggests that the crisis led to a dramatic increase in the double workload [13, 14]; women must fulfill both, their paid and unpaid work at home [15]. It has been described that the time spent by women in domestic work was significantly higher during the pandemic compared to a period without a pandemic, raising the average time spent doing these tasks by more than three and a half hours a day [16]. This also increases the risk of causing deterioration in women’s physical and mental health [17–19]. Data showed that women had a higher level of stress than men [20], and compared to the pre-pandemic period, during the pandemic, they could increase their BMI and blood pressure [21]. This way, the pandemic crisis and women’s responsibilities could also affect their general wellbeing.

In conclusion the pandemic has not only been a health crisis but also caused a crisis in the domestic space and home food environment, creating an ideal situation to make structural inequalities more visible [22–24].

In Chile, the scenario was not different. Before the pandemic, the first national economic evaluation of unpaid domestic and care work study in 2019 showed that of the total annual hours devoted to this work, about 71% is done by women [25]. However, this is usually undervalued. If unpaid domestic and care work were economically valued in the country, this would be equivalent to 22% of the Expanded Gross Domestic Product [25]. Additionally, concerning the home food environment, it has been observed that even though some women work outside the home, they are in charge of preparing the family meal and making decisions based on the family tastes and preferences [26, 27]. Evidence suggests that during the pandemic period, the household workload for women has increased [28]; 22.2% of Chilean women increased the time for doing household tasks by more than eight hours [29].

Despite women’s relevance in the home food environment, the literature about women’s specific tasks related to “feeding the family” during the pandemic is still scarce in Chile and Latin America. In this context, it is interesting to study how women perceived domestic work and the changes in their home food environment caused by the pandemic; these aspects have not been studied well in the country or Latin America until now. To fill this gap, we aimed (a) to explore women’s perceptions of domestic work related to food and family care during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and (b) to describe the association of domestic work with sociodemographic and health variables.

Materials and methods

Results

General sample characteristics

The median women’s age was 36 years (IQR: 31–44). Almost half of the women (47.5%) had completed college studies, while 2.8%had an incomplete or complete high school education. The median per capita income was $ 650 (IQR: $ 340–$ 1,000). Women lived in a house with a median of 3 people (IQR: 2–4). The most prevalent type of household was two-parent with children (48.1%); more than half of the women surveyed had a child or an older adult under their care (61.3%); 116 (8.1%) women cared for a child and an older adult. 85.9% of women felt stressed during the last month (pandemic period); 57% self-perceived their general health status as "good." Regarding whether their self-perceived health had changed during the pandemic, 57.8% believed their health had not changed, and 36.3% indicated that their health status had worsened. Table 1 summarizes the characteristics of the sample.

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Table 1. Characterization of the sample by demographic, socioeconomic and health variables.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301038.t001

Domestic work and sociodemographic variables

In the univariate analysis, we found a statistically significant association between a poorer perception of housework and age, educational level (just the postgraduate degree category was significant), the type of household, caring for children or the elderly, and the number of people in the household (just the categories of 3 and 4 members in families was significant). No association with per capita income was found.

The results from the multivariate analysis are shown in Table 2. We observed that age was associated negatively with the women’s perceptions of the housework (OR 0.97 95% CI 0.96–0.99), meaning as age increases by one year, the probability of having a bad perception of the housework decreases by 3%. Regarding education, we found that having a postgraduate degree increases the probability of having a bad perception of domestic work by almost three times when compared to women who had complete or incomplete high school education (OR 3.14 95% CI 1.24–7.96). We observed that women living in single-parent or two-parent households with children increase the probability of having a lower perception of domestic work by more than 95% (OR: 2.15 CI95% 1.28–3.59 and OR: 1.95 95% CI 1.24–3.04, respectively), in comparison with those women living in households with no children.

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Table 2. Univariate and multivariate analysis of variables associated with the women’s perception of domestic work related to food and family care during the COVID-19 pandemic period (n = 1406).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301038.t002

Concerning the type of confinement, we found no significant association between quarantine (phase 1) and transition (phase 2). However, being in the initial opening phase and having more freedom (phase 3) decrease the probability of having a bad perception of domestic work by half (OR: 0.41 95% CI 0.21–0.79). Being in charge of children or an elderly person also increases the probability of women having a bad perception of housework during the pandemic by more than twice compared to not having this responsibility (OR: 1.92 95% CI 1.32–2.77). We did not find significant differences in the multivariate model regarding the number of people in the household. Finally, for the variables related to the women’s perception of their health, the self-perception of stress was not significant in the multivariate model.

Discussion

This study explored women’s perceptions of domestic work related to feeding and caring for the family during confinement due to COVID-19 and how these perceptions were related to sociodemographic and health variables. Child care, food preparation, and other tasks were perceived even worse for some women during this health crisis. This study contributes with supporting evidence about the role and the inequalities women had during the pandemic related to specific household tasks such as food purchases, food preparation, and family care that should be considered in futures similar sanitary and social crises.

Most women generally perceived domestic work’s burden as "regular." In concordance, women also expressed in the open-answer question that this period had advantages and disadvantages. It was a challenging period where they had to balance paid work with unpaid work. These general results align with previously published data showing negative perceptions about women’s double burden during this health crisis [35, 36]. Additionally, research demonstrated that men also perceived an increase in their domestic workload, however, this extra work is considered a slight increase [37, 38] and lower than what women do [39, 40]. Some research has indicated that the pandemic could produce “regressive shifts in gender role attitudes” (p. 30) [41].

Regarding sociodemographic variables, we found that women in the older groups had a better perception of domestic work related to food and family care during the pandemic than younger women. Although domestic and care tasks occupy an essential part of a woman’s time, new generations have had a cultural and social openness that distances them from the domestic space [42]. Today, there is a questioning of gender roles; new generations demand that domestic tasks be shared with their partners, especially when women enter the job market and share the role of provider. This situation is very different from the one experienced by older generations [43].

Furthermore, we observed a trend between having a higher educational level and a higher probability of having a poor perception of the household burden, especially significant for women with postgraduate degrees. This perception could be because most jobs that were lost were in the service, formal and informal trade, and industrial sectors [44]. In Chile, these sectors are the primary sources of employment for women with lower educational levels [45]. Therefore, it is possible that women with a higher socioeconomic level did not lose their jobs but had to reconcile paid work with unpaid work at home, making them feel more overwhelmed than their counterparts, as they pointed out in some of the comments. Finally, it is also relevant to consider that they could not count on the support of domestic workers due to the confinement and mobility restrictions.

When we analyzed women caring for children or the elderly, we found that the probability of perceiving domestic labor as bad was almost double that of those who did not have this responsibility. This finding is in concordance with other studies on the topic carried out during the pandemic in which the presence of children or the elderly in the home worsened the perception of the domestic workload, especially when children are homeschooled or elderly people have special care needs [12, 23, 46]. In concordance with this, women living in households with children had more than a 90% probability of having a bad perception of domestic work than women living without children. This fact is in line with women indicating that they had a higher demand from their children, even becoming mothers and teachers simultaneously during the pandemic. However, we did not analyze the children´s ages to evaluate the differences in the perception of burden in domestic work. Studies before the pandemic show that working mothers of preschool or elementary school children perceive more domestic workload [47, 48].

In addition, we found almost the same probability of having a lower perception of domestic labor in women living with partners and children and those living without a partner but with children. Having a partner in the home does not appear to be perceived as an extra domestic burden because women are used to doing this extra household work, so it wasn’t perceived as heavier during the pandemic. This finding is surprising because the evidence shows that women spend 9 hours a week more than men cooking and cleaning, 14 hours more than men caring for children, and 57% of men dedicated 0 hours a week to this activity [49]. Similar results were found in studies conducted in Australian and Canadian couples, where the time spent caring for children was much higher during confinement, with mothers spending more time than fathers, even though fathers increased the time they take care of their children [38, 50]. A recent study in Argentina which also used an online survey to collect the data, showed that women assumed a more significant proportion of domestic tasks and childcare. The authors concluded that one of the reasons the gender gap increased was women, besides the household work, continued working from home [51]. It is necessary to note that we did not collect information about the composition by sex of the two-parent households; therefore, we assumed that most of our women were part of households with a man and a woman, as most of the families in the country [52].

As expected, women in phase 3 of the health crisis plan, meaning more freedom, were more likely to perceive domestic labor better than their counterparts. Being in phase 3 meant freedom of mobility on weekdays and weekends, the opening of some schools with voluntary attendance, the opening of gyms and restaurant terraces, and social gatherings with limited capacity in residential spaces were allowed [53], as such, women had the opportunity to spend time doing other activities that they enjoyed). Domestic workers were also able to resume working for some women. In addition, with more freedom on weekends [54], women living in zones in phase 3 could use these days as a time of distraction from work and homeschooling.

Concerning women’s health status, in our sample, a high percentage of participants felt stressed, and more than a third felt their health status was not good. These findings align with several studies conducted during the pandemic in quarantine periods, showing that people experienced the worst level of health, especially women. The lower access to medical check-ups, the changes in diet due to confinement and lower access to healthy food, and the high sedentary lifestyle and low level of physical activity could explain this worst level of health in women [21, 55]. In our study, a negative perception of mental and general health status was also associated with a worse perception of domestic work. The fact that most women do those tasks related to caring for others [5, 6], but in sanitary crisis, with the school closure and the mobility restriction, these tasks were done every day and most of the day, and at the same time, most of them had to comply with paid job requirements, all could cause more pressure on women. In our study, women commented that during the pandemic, they felt stressed and domestic work made them feel stressed and overwhelmed. This increase in the double burden of household work, added to the families economic straits, could lead to a higher stress level [56]. Furthermore, literature on the topic has indicated that women, especially those with school-age children, felt stressed and worried about the pandemic consequences, altering their mental health [57] which our participants also pointed out. Having women with less time for themselves, less leisure time, and less communication with others close to her could lead to physical and emotional problems and even depression and anxiety. If, in this context, it is added sanitary conditions such as the mobility restriction, in which women could not access health care services, and the increase in domestic violence, in some cases, it is easier to visualize why there is a deterioration of women’s health status.

The present study highlights the potential effect of a health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic on a social structure as the family. This study mainly shows the effect on women and how they perceived the domestic workload, a role inside the family traditionally given to them by society. Some participants had to overcome the challenges of reconciling paid and unpaid work during a stressful period. This context made women perceive the domestic workload as regular and bad during the lockdown. Policymakers must create more social and health policies with a gender approach that allows women to face the crisis, the post-crisis period and be prepared for new crisis. An excellent example of promoting a gender approach is found in the Food Guidelines. Some guidelines surpass mere recommendations for food intake and incorporate social and cultural aspects. For instance, the latest Chilean Food Guidelines, published in 2022, have embraced a gender approach by incorporating the notion that ’household chores are everyone’s responsibility’ [58]. This concept should be promoted in schools and other contexts, including workplaces. Another pressing public health need is the establishment of mental health programs with a gender perspective within the public health system. Primary care settings have the potential to host these programs.

Furthermore, to alleviate stress during confinement or similar circumstances, governments should contemplate public policies about regulations on paid work, flexible or remote working hours, and clear guidelines to promote employees’ emotional and mental well-being [59, 60]. Paid parental or family leave remains a crucial support for families in managing care responsibilities for children or other dependents [61]). Lastly, it has been recommended that governments implement tax policies favoring sectors where women are predominantly employed, thereby facilitating their (re)entry into the labor market [61]. All these policies could contribute to better integrating domestic and paid work.

Despite our valuable results, this study has structural limitations: First, we did not use a probabilistic sample, meaning there was selection bias; women who participated in this study had access to the internet and wanted to answer the survey; therefore, the results of this study could not be extrapolated to all Chilean women. Second, most of our participants had a higher level of education; consequently, we may not reach the most vulnerable population in which household tasks could be perceived differently from our sample. Third, we considered self-perception of mental and health status in our study through one question and not from previously validated instruments. Fourth, we collected data during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile, a stressful period filled with uncertainty; therefore, it is possible that women perceived their workload even worse because of the negative context. Finally, we did not have a baseline or data from men to compare our results to enrich our analysis. In future research, including a representative sample of men to understand their perspective and contribution to household responsibilities during a health crisis would be relevant to obtain a complete and balanced picture of how the crisis affected both genders.

Conclusions

This study contributes to the literature by exploring the perception of Chilean women about the burden of domestic work related to feeding and caring for the family during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile. It complements the existing information about time spent by women on domestic tasks, adding that this is perceived as regular or bad. The probability of perceiving this domestic work as worse increased in women who took care of children or the elderly at home, in younger women, those with a higher level of education, single women or women living with partners and children, and those with worse perception of mental and physical status. Comments from participants indicated that the pandemic is a challenging time for taking care of the family and other domestic tasks. The evidence provides interesting data to raise awareness regarding the need to generate cultural changes regarding domestic tasks. Additionally, the data provided in the current study could work as a baseline for future research that evaluate domestic work in a post-pandemic period.

Supporting information

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mr. Brian Boyle and Ms. Danitza Osorio for helping with the English Edition of the manuscript.