Everyone Contributes, but Women Contribute Even More

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze, from a feminist economic perspective, the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdown on employment and caregiving roles of women and men in urban areas of Mexico, with a particular focus on couples with preschool-aged children. Using data from the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOE) from 2019 to 2022, the chapter demonstrates that lockdown measures disproportionately affected women’s employment, primarily due to their higher participation in non-essential jobs that could not be performed from home. Additionally, the caregiving inequality between women and men widened: mothers dedicated more time than fathers to the additional caregiving responsibilities that arose from the lockdown of their children, even in cases where both parents continued to participate in some form of market economic activity