Hours worked dropped by 40% in lockdown

The number of hours worked in Britain dropped significantly in lockdown, with mothers most likely to sacrifice work for home schooling and developmental play, according to new research from the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS). Two briefing papers, published today by CLS, use new data from a survey of over 18,000 people who take part in UCL's cohort studies to analyse work, finances and parenting among four generations who were born in 1958, 1970, 1989-90, and 2000-02. The researchers found that the average hours worked had decreased by around 40% when combining those who had stopped working completely with those who took on reduced hours. For example, among those age 19, hours reduced from an average of 25 to 10 per week across the cohort as a whole, and for those age 30, hours dropped from 34 to 22 hours. As the coronavirus pandemic closed schools and nurseries across the UK, it was mothers, especially those of young children, who were most likely to have stopped work, and to have stepped in to provide educational support for their children. Participants of the study, who are all taking part in nationally representative longitudinal studies that have been following them since their childhoods, completed surveys during May 2020 and were asked to complete a web survey about their experiences since the coronavirus outbreak, including questions on their employment, daily activities and family life. Educational activities among mothers and fathers.