For several years, a hopeful narrative emerged from the wreckage of the global pandemic: that the forced proximity of lockdowns had fundamentally rewritten the script of fatherhood. The idea was that as fathers spent more time at home, they would naturally lean further into the daily, often invisible labor of child-rearing, creating a more equitable distribution of caregiving responsibilities in dual-parent families.
However, new longitudinal research suggests that this shift was largely temporary. While the pandemic provided a glimpse of a more involved version of fathering, the return to “normalcy” has seen many fathers revert to pre-pandemic behaviors, indicating that the pandemic did not have the lasting effects on fatherhood many had hoped for.
The findings, led by Lee Gettler, a professor of anthropology and chair of the anthropology department at the University of Notre Dame, highlight a sobering reality: the desire for fathers to be more involved is often secondary to the structural constraints of the modern workplace. For most, the “new vision” of fatherhood was a byproduct of crisis rather than a permanent cultural evolution.
The Longitudinal Lens: Tracking Fatherhood Over 15 Years
To understand whether pandemic-era changes were permanent, Gettler and his team—including coauthor and postdoctoral research associate Sarah Hoegler Dennis—did not rely on short-term surveys or anecdotal evidence. Instead, they utilized 15 years of longitudinal data, which allows researchers to track the same individuals over a long period to identify genuine trends versus temporary fluctuations.
The study focused on a non-Euro-American perspective, examining a large sample of men in a major metropolitan area in Cebu, Philippines. The participants were approximately 25 years old at the start of the study. This specific location provided a rigorous testing ground because the Philippines implemented some of the world’s longest and strictest government-mandated quarantine guidelines, maximizing the amount of time fathers were required to spend at home.
The research team compared socio-demographic and caregiving data collected in waves from 2009 and 2014 (pre-pandemic) against data collected between 2022 and 2023 (post-pandemic). By focusing on fathers who had young children at home during both periods, the team could isolate how the pandemic specifically influenced routine, hands-on care, recreational play, and educational tasks.
Where the Shift Failed to Stick
The primary objective of the analysis was to see if the “ideal vision” of shared parenting had become a reality. In this vision, the lockdowns would have habituated fathers to the mundane and intimate tasks of child-rearing, leading to a permanent increase in their daily contributions.
The data, however, told a different story. For the vast majority of fathers, caregiving behaviors shortly after the pandemic ended were remarkably similar to those observed before the pandemic began. “What we found is that COVID—and the time dads spent at home with their children during that period—did not change fathering in any lasting way,” Gettler stated. “As soon as life gets back to normal, we see that dads are continuing to do the same thing they were doing before COVID.”
This suggests that while the environment of the lockdown forced a change in behavior, it did not necessarily change the internal norms or the societal expectations that govern how fathers operate within the household. The “uptick” in involvement was a response to a mandate, not a shift in identity or social structure.
The Employment Exception: A Key Predictor of Care
Despite the general trend of reversion, the researchers found one significant exception. The study revealed a strong correlation between a father’s employment status and his continued involvement in his children’s lives—specifically regarding education.
For fathers who transitioned from being employed to being either unemployed or underemployed due to the pandemic, involvement in educational caregiving “shot up noticeably,” and this change persisted even after the acute phase of the pandemic passed. This indicates that when the structural barrier of a full-time job is removed, fathers are more likely to sustain a higher level of engagement with their children’s schooling and homework.
This finding is critical because it identifies employment status as the primary predictor of how much care a father provides. It suggests that the limitation is not a lack of will or a lack of “habituation” to caregiving, but rather a conflict between professional demands and domestic responsibilities.
Addressing Workplace Precarity and Economic Inequality
From a public health and sociological perspective, these findings point toward a systemic failure rather than an individual one. Gettler argues that initial reports of “involved dads” during the pandemic often lacked a wider perspective on the realities of the modern workforce, including economic inequality and workplace precarity.
For many men, the pressure to be the primary breadwinner, combined with rigid work schedules and a lack of support for male caregivers, makes the “ideal” of shared parenting impossible to maintain. When the lockdown ended and the pressure to return to the workforce intensified, the domestic gains were sacrificed to professional survival.
The research emphasizes that we cannot expect a cultural shift in fatherhood to occur in a vacuum. If the workplace continues to penalize flexibility or fails to recognize the caregiving role of fathers, the behavior will always revert to the path of least resistance—which is the traditional, less-involved model of fatherhood.
The Path Toward Permanent Change: Policy Over Habit
If the pandemic alone wasn’t enough to create lasting change, what is? The University of Notre Dame research suggests that structural policy changes are the only viable path toward a permanent shift in norms. To encourage fathers in dual-parent families to “pull their weight” and be supportive partners, the environment around the family must change.
Gettler advocates for several specific workplace interventions:
- Paid Paternity Leave: Formalizing the father’s role as a primary caregiver from the start.
- Widespread Flexibility: Normalizing work-from-home arrangements and flexible working hours for both parents.
- Structural Support: Shifting corporate expectations so that men can be available at home without the risk of professional penalty.
The goal is to allow fathers to be present and involved without the “caveat of having to become unemployed or underemployed” to achieve that balance. By changing the policy, society can change the norm. by changing the norm, it can eventually change the behavior.
As a physician and journalist, I find this research particularly poignant. We often speak of the “mental health crisis” affecting families post-pandemic, but we rarely discuss the structural failures that prevent parents from achieving the balance they desire. The pandemic “exposed or habituated” fathers to a different way of living, but without a supportive infrastructure, that exposure remains a memory rather than a blueprint for the future.
The challenge now is to move beyond the hope that a crisis will fix gender roles and instead build the policies that make equitable parenting possible for every family, regardless of their economic status.
World Today Journal will continue to monitor emerging research on family dynamics and public health policy. We invite our readers to share their experiences with workplace flexibility and caregiving in the comments below.