Social Justice in the Domestic Realm: Time Poverty and Wellbeing during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The concept of time poverty is useful for investigating the widely reported exacerbation of gender inequality in families during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. I explore the nature and frequency of this situation in Ontario, Canada to assess domestic inequality, free time, and gendered wellbeing as issues of social justice. Between January and June, 2021, I administered online time use surveys to 100 self-identified women and 100 self-identified men who were living with a spouse and had at least one child learning remotely. The combined responsibilities for the household, childcare, and children’s online learning were overwhelming for the vast majority of women. Consequently, their general experience in the context of the pandemic was one of intensified “time poverty,” a condition I conceptualize as incorporating paid work, the “patriarchal dividend” in domestic task allocation, the endless nature of feminized care-related responsibilities, and women’s consequent lack of recuperative leisure. I assess the nature of leisure, its importance to wellbeing, and the impact of its shortage on women’s lives. Finally, I consider theories of social justice that can illuminate and rectify the imbalances entrenched in gendered divisions of labour within families. The study contributes to pandemic and time poverty literatures, and to the social justice literature by identifying time poverty as an aspect of social injustice in the pandemic context.