COVID-19's lockdown and time allocation in Russian households

The database contains the survey on the changes of gender time allocation during two waves of the coronavirus lockdown (self-isolative restrictions) in Russia. Self-isolation included shift to remote work and study, the closure of childcare facilities, restrictions of mobility, etc.

Sample information

The survey was conducted on Yandex.Survey platform. The first wave was conducted on 22-23 th of May, 2020, after 2 months of the beginning of first lockdown. The second wave took place on 17-19th of November, 2020 after 1 month of the second lockdown’start.

Data was collected via online service Yandex.Survey. The platform offers a service for conducting an online survey among 50 million users of the Yandex advertising network with the ability to make a random sample, including a sample by demographic, geographic and some socio-economic characteristics.

The respondents were women of predominantly working/reproductive age (15-55) from Russia. 1411 women took part in the first wave and 1408 in the second. After cleaning data and removing outliers 2795 respondents left.

The coincidence of the distributions with the general population in terms of the main parameters (age, size of the settlement, employment, household composition) is satisfactory. The observed (insignificant) deviations are as follows: the proportion of women aged 30-43, living in cities with a population over one million has increased; decreased - at the age of 50-54 years, living in settlements with a population of less than 100 thousand people working in agriculture.

The female respondents were asked if they spend more or less time household chores and care, including: cleaning, cooking, laundry, shopping, management, child care, other care or nothing. If a woman marked, that she is living with a partner during the lockdown, she was also asked if her partner spends more or less time on each chore.

The survey also includes questions concerning the occupation type (work, work and study, study, child care leave, doesn’t work), if a woman works (or works and studies), how the lockdown effected on her job: shift to remote work, fired, paid leave, unpaid leave, no income on restrictions, continues in-person work, and if a woman lives with a partner the same question was asked considering his work on the lockdown. Further, occupational features were divided into three: income (or husband’s income) means that a woman (or her partner) has her income on the lockdown which includes remote work, in person work, paid leave; gotowork means a woman (in her partner’s case – husb_gotowork) continues in person work; and distant if a woman is working online (husb_distant for her partner). Further, we asked whether a woman has an experience of remote work: no, and it is impossible, no, but it is possible, yes. We also asked about the size and type of her employer (small, medium, large firm or state firm).

The next set of questions considers who a woman is living with on self isolation: alone, children, partner, parents, parents-in-law, others. At last, we asked respondents age, number of children and the age of the youngest child (if the number of children >0).

The database’ structure

Survey's wave variables

Social and demographic variables

age of female respondent

size of the city

number of children

the age of the youngest child

age at last birth

woman lives with her husband

woman lives with children

woman lives with children over 18 years old

woman lives with her parents

woman lives with her husband's parents

woman lives alone

woman lives with someone else

type of activity

how the lockdown effected female occupation

field of employment

type of enterprise where woman works (or does not)

there is wife's income in household

how the lockdown effected her husband's occupation

there is husband's income in household

woman's work experience at a remote location

woman has remote work in the period of lockdown

her husband has remote work in the period of  lockdown

her husband has out of home work in the period of  lockdown

woman has out of home work in the period of  lockdown

her husband is fired or doesn't have income temporarily because of the lockdown

her husband was fired because of the lockdown

Time use variables: the changes in lockdown

WOMAN MORE

childcare

care

cleaning

cooking

laundry

shopping

management

nothing

WOMAN LESS

childcare

care

cleaning

cooking

laundry

shopping

management

nothing

HER HUSBAND MORE

childcare

care

cleaning

cooking

laundry

shopping

management

nothing

HER HUSBAND LESS

childcare

care

cleaning

cooking

laundry

shopping

management

nothing

TOGETHER MORE

childcare

care

cleaning

cooking

laundry

shopping

management

nothing

TOGETHER LESS

childcare

care

cleaning

cooking

laundry

shopping

management

nothing

INSTEAD MORE

childcare

care

cleaning

cooking

laundry

shopping

management

nothing

INSTEAD LESS

childcare

care

cleaning

cooking

laundry

shopping

management

nothing

There are English and Russian versions of variables’ description.

During exploratory data analysis we introduced features instead or together. These new features are restricted to answers of women who live with partners. Whether a woman marks that she spends less(more) time on the chore and her husband spends more(less) time on that exact type of chore, that means he does it instead of his wife. Whether both a woman and her partner spend more (less) time one the chore, it means they do it together.

The variable “type of enterprise” was built on the criteria of credibility and stability during the corona-crisis from a small to a state firm (small, medium, large, state firm). Small and medium enterprises were hit the most by the pandemic (http://doklad.ombudsmanbiz.ru/2020/7.pdf), whether large and especially state firms had more resources to maintain employment and payments.