The balancing act: A qualitative study on remote work and childcare during the COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa

Introduction

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious viral disease that has shaken the world of work through a COVID-19-all-remote work experiment (Liang, 2020; Tavares, 2017). This experiment resulted in specific sectors’ employees using their homes as workplaces, relaxation spaces and schools for the first time (Oakman et al., 2020). According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (OECD, 2020), work productivity has declined on individual and organisational levels due to the lack of childcare support, violations of family-work boundaries and social isolation. South Africa has the highest number of COVID-19 infections on the African continent (Mwai, 2020; South African Corona Virus portal, 2021). Additionally, the population is under a unique threat during the pandemic with its high HIV and tuberculosis infections, diabetes and shared substance abuse (Egbe et al., 2019; Egbe & Ngobese, 2020).

After the first positive COVID-19 case was reported in South Africa on March 5, 2020 (Stiegler & Bouchard, 2020), the infection rate quickly increased and lead to drastic measures taken by the South African government, namely: a nationwide lockdown starting on March 26, 2020 (South African Government News Agency, 2020). According to The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) (2020), the middle class South African citizens adhered to the lockdown regulations well; staying home and working remotely, which according to Putro and Riyanto (2020), is a highly desired work arrangement for this professional group. However, as in-person schools and childcare centres were closed during some phases of the lockdown, childcare responsibilities increased, thereby blurring the boundaries between work and home (Shockley et al., 2020). This study sought to explore the experiences of these South African employees in balancing remote work and childcare during the 2020 South African lockdown to identify opportunities where managers and healthcare workers can lend support to these employees.

Lockdown is a situation where people are not allowed free movement in an area due to danger, such as that posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The South African lockdown started on level five, the strictest lockdown level, indicating a high COVID-19 infection rate and low health system readiness (Businesstech, 2020). The lockdown was soon extended, and the country only entered lockdown level one on September 20, 2020 (Mwai, 2020; Stiegler & Bouchard, 2020). During the level five lockdown, all activities such as dog-walking, attending school, outdoor exercises, the use or purchase of alcohol and cigarettes (public consumption) were banned (Stiegler & Bouchard, 2020), making South Africa one of the African countries with the strictest lockdown regulations (Stiegler & Bouchard, 2020). The restrictions slowly eased with every level after that, with lockdown level three (May 31), for example, allowing alcohol retailing, religious activities and exercise (South African Coronavirus Portal, 2020a).

During the lockdown, certain employees found themselves remote working for the first time by conducting work at home or a place other than that of the organisation’s usual site (Baruch, 2000; Cambridge Dictionary, 2021). This work arrangement can potentially promote various personal and professional benefits, for example, a better work-life balance for employees (Sarbu, 2020), improved company culture, communication and productivity (Tuyo, 2020). Baard and Thomas (2010) found that South Africans experienced improved organisation loyalty, productivity and work-life balance when working from home. Choudhury (2020) adds that remote workers enjoy the freedom to work from home and experience a higher quality of life, improving their overall happiness. Organisations also benefit by increasing employee engagement with happier and more productive employees and lower office hire expenses. However, Anderson and Kelliher (2020) warn that remote work benefits differ when enforced and full-time. Their research indicates that the benefit of autonomy and gratitude employees experience from willingly remote working can be lower when employees are deprived from the choice to do so. This lowered remote work benefit can especially be seen in mothers due to less control of when and how work is conducted in the midst of family responsibilities when employees are forced to work from home (Anderson & Kelliher, 2020).

First-time remote workers in South Africa experienced work overload and performance pressure despite the positive aspects of working remotely (Matli, 2020). This work overload was especially true when employees’ home responsibilities increased, and work-life boundaries became vague (Sarbu, 2020). Due to the governmental lockdown, parents had to work from home while fulfilling their children’s teacher and parent roles (Casale & Posel, 2020). Thus, a tremendous burden was placed on families (Del Boca et al., 2020) as they balanced their responsibilities in unexpected ways (Limoncelli, 2020) and work hours were influenced by what happened within homes (Casale & Posel, 2020). In academia, for example, some researchers have experienced a decrease in publications during the lockdown, which could be due to juggling childcare and working from home (Hedding et al., 2020). Research shows that one parent’s need to stay home and care for the children has made it difficult, especially for women, to work during the COVID-19 pandemic (Queisser et al., 2020). According to Odek (2020), the school closures restricted South African women as many women had to stay home and care for children instead of working (Odeku, 2020).

South African child caregivers fulfilled these roles of parent, teacher, and employee until August 3 2020, when schools gradually opened, starting with Grade 12 learners (Enca, 2020). The largest group of learners, grades R to four, six, nine, 10 and 11, started attending school on August 24, and the final grades five and eight returned on the 31st (Makou, 2020). However, as most schools could not fulfil the requirements for social distancing in 2021, half of the learners still spend some time at home during the week. Some schools accept learners on a ‘week on’ – ‘week off’ basis, and other schools allow learners to attend school every second day. This type of arrangement led to learners attending half the school days of the second part of the school year in 2020 (van der Berg, 2020). Working from home was also complicated by childcare as it interfered with conducting remote work, as some employees feared clients might infect their children if they met at home (Odeku, 2020). Adding to this was caring for those who have contracted the COVID-19 virus and expanding work hours (Khwela-Mdluli & Beharry-Ramraj, 2020). Therefore, Khwela-Mdluli and Beharry-Ramraj (2020) and Odeku (2020) urged South Africa to devise systems to support the health and work equality of South African remote working women. This system is especially imperative during school closures and women carrying the burden of care and remote work for their families (Odeku, 2020).

International research also shows that most of the additional work during lockdown fell on women (Sevilla & Smith, 2020). A Spanish study found that women experienced higher work and family conflict than men (Lopez-Núčez et al., 2021). In contrast, Del Boca et al. (2020) indicated that childcare was distributed equally between Italian parents whilst home activities were still primarily the responsibility of women. Time spent with children during the lockdown was also less if the parents returned to workplaces after the lockdown (Del Boca et al., 2020). Research by Shockley et al. (2020) investigated the gender roles whilst remote working and caring for children. Their results showed that dual-earner couples assumed gendered roles during the lockdown. In contrast, men only occasionally looked after children (e.g. when wives were in meetings or one day a week), with most or all childcare duties falling on wives. They also found women had high relationship tension, low family cohesion and poor job performance. Men also experienced some impact on job performance, presumably due to marital strife due to unequal distribution of household duties (Shockley et al., 2020).

Additionally, couples tried alternating days of work and care with one partner working in the morning and the other in the evening; this, however, still impacted their job performance and may not help those who work remotely full-time (Shockley et al., 2020). In India, women experienced higher emotional exhaustion than men caused by personal life interference whilst working from home (Bhumika, 2020). Putro and Riyanto (2020), on the other hand, found that Asian sandwich generations, i.e. persons caring for both their parents and their children, experienced relief from work conflict as their parents could assist in childcare while they remote worked. South African households, however, are unique compared to international families due to parental absence (Hall, 2019). According to Hall (2019), South African children make up 34% (19.7 million) of the total South African population, and of these children, only 34% live with both their biological parents (Hall, 2019; Hall & Mokomane, 2018). Thus, children are often raised by relatives, without fathers or live separate from their siblings (Hall, 2019).

Methods

A qualitative research method was followed in this study. Therefore, the researcher focused on how participants organise themselves in their contexts and make sense of these contexts through naturalistic research using words (Nieuwenhuis, 2016a).

Results

Findings of participant experiences are presented through descriptions that exhibit themes and categories (Kim et al., 2017). Overall the qualitative findings derived from the content analysis showed that employees experienced remote working and providing childcare during the COVID-19 lockdown period as a strenuous task: it was “difficult” (P11), “… stressful” (P6), “very challenging” (P19) and “chaos” (P22) (Scholtz, 2021). Participants often followed their expression of its difficulty with information on balancing work and family life:

Another participant described the experience as:

Only three participants described their general experience as positive stating that is was “easy” (P8) or “good” (P1; P18).

The role players that promoted or hindered balancing remote work and childcare during the COVID-19 lockdown

When balancing work and childcare at home, participants received assistance mostly from their partners. This helped employees to divide work and family responsibilities: “My wife and I took turns to manage different responsibilities” (P20), and devised schedules “Schedule between my spouse and myself” (P16). However, in some cases this assistance was limited: “My husband was there to assist, but only when he came home after work in the evening” (P9). Other family members also assisted in childcare to create opportunities for employees to complete their work such as “The older kids helped a lot with the smaller child. The live in grandparents was great assistance in balancing the house work and assisting the older children” (P15). The environment played a role for one participant as they “[live on] a farm, it was not a problem” (P8), whereas one employee received help from a community member, namely: “from [a] pastor” (P23) in balancing their work and family. Five participants did not receive any assistance.

The organisational or personal resources employees used in balancing their remote work and childcare during the COVID-19 lockdown

Employee resources consisted of people, technology, time and their houses. Specifically, employees utilised organisational resources such as technology through “[Microsoft] Teams” (P1), and “online organisation resources … ” (P3) in balancing remote work and childcare. Personal resources included “Homeschooling via internet” (P22), “ … home internet … ” (P20), “TV and DVDs … ” (P2) for entertaining children whilst working. People were also seen as both an organisational and personal resource to achieve balance between remote work and childcare, for example: “Family and employees had to help” (P4) and “Personal resources include my husband being able to take 1 child with to his work so there were days I only had 1 toddler to look after” (P9), or “… grandparents to assist with child care when possible …” (P14).

Time slots as they became available for employees to complete their work were also employed as a valuable resource. For example, Participant 14 indicated that they worked “from 19:00 to 00:00 when all was quiet and I could focus on my work” and Participant 19 worked “[i] n the mornings, while toddlers slept and middle childhood child did home Montessori work, so that there was uninterrupted time to work quickly”.

Home spaces available for work were used or created; specifically, participants listed private spaces such as “ … [a] room where I closed the door” (P2), or a home office: “ … turned our spare room into an office” where “… our son knew he mustn’t disturb us” (P20). The shared home spaces were used to perform childcare responsibilities while working like in the case of Participant 6 “In our living room, where I could keep an eye on my child playing outside/inside” or the “[i] n the lounge or dining room table when the childrens home work also needed attention” (P15).

Lastly, employees restructured aspects of their home or work life to fit with their unique remote work contexts. For example, Participant 19 applied a “… stricter routine for children, chores for children. Work done while children take naps and did homework” to change her home life to fit with her work requirements. Participant 10, on the other hand, changed her mode of work: “Area (especially outside if possible) where kids can be play around you” to fit with her home or family requirements.

The role organisations can play in assisting employees with balancing remote work and childcare

“They need to give more autonomy …” (P20) was a key feature of improving remote work and childcare for the sampled employees. This need for autonomy was expressed through more than half of the participants that listed “Flexible hours” (P13), or “Workable timeframes and deadlines” (P11) as a way organisations can assist in balancing their work and family lives. One participant described how flexible work hours was granted by their organisation during the lockdown: “There was a deadline, but it didn’t matter at what time or how I got the work done, as long as it was finished by the deadline” (P19). In addition to flexible work hours, employees indicated that meetings as a mode of organisational communication were at times unnecessary “To not waste my time with unnecessary meetings and trainings that can be communicated through email.” (P14) and that “minimising meetings that can be emails” (P4). Lastly, those that were not allowed to work remotely full-time expressed a desire to do so: “Working from home” (P) or having “Childcare at work” (P2). However, participants did acknowledge that full-time remote work was not always possible: “Depending on the organisation. Consulting require face time with clients and interaction with team members. Working in isolation is not always feasible. Companies should remain fluid and flexible however employees should remain loyal and focused” (P16).

Conclusions/discussion

This study aimed to explore the experiences of employees whilst remote working and providing childcare during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa. The descriptive qualitative design showed that this South African sample’s experiences were similar to many other international samples in that employees struggled to juggle work and family life during lockdown (Qian & Fuller, 2020). Employees did not report disliking remote working; on the contrary, those who could only remote work part-time expressed their desire to do so full time. However, the lack of control over how they conducted their remote work made it challenging in the midst of childcare responsibilities. To combat this difficulty, the participants depended on certain role players as well as organisational and personal resources.

Unsurprisingly, the most significant role players lived with participants (e.g. partners, live-in grandparents and older children), which may be due to social distancing restrictions. Partners were the most popular role players and provided assistance based on availability and on schedules devised by couples. Creating schedules to conduct work or care for children can promote remote work; however, the choice of who worked and who cared for children during the pandemic was reportedly still burdensome for couples (Qian & Fuller, 2020). Additionally, a study conducted in November 2020 found that despite men’s involvement in childcare during the pandemic, South African female employees still took on most childcare responsibilities (Casale & Shephers, 2020), which was also found in this study. Some female participants either received no assistance, worked whilst caring for children, had to wait for their partners to become available (i.e. return from work) or worked at night when children were asleep. Globally, gender inequality at work was as expected based on research indicating that women were often those who could not work due to childcare and that women are often part of the in-person labour market, which was hard hit by the lockdown (Kochhar & Barroso, 2020; Lemieux et al., 2020). This study contributes to research in those South African women who remained employed during the lockdown through remote working still took on the bulk of the childcare responsibilities.

To achieve a balance between work and childcare, employees used personal resources such as people and spaces. Specifically, there were employees that chose private versus shared spaces to conduct their remote work at home. Those who chose private spaces strengthened the barriers between work and family life by trying to keep these two aspects separate by, for example, informing children not to disturb them when they are in their home office. Alternatively, some of the employees actively diminished these barriers by combining childcare and work, such as working outside while children played or working while children completed their homework in shared spaces such as dining rooms. This finding concurs with other research; whereas some employees prefer a separation between work and non-work roles, others choose to blur these roles (Gonsalves, 2020). The type of workspace employees chose could, therefore, possibly be dependent on employee preference (Gonsalves, 2020). Additionally, participants in this study also add to literature that the type of work they had to complete influenced their chosen workspace as, for example, private spaces helped them to focus.

Furthermore, based on the experiences and work hours, most employees often did not seem to control their work schedules at home. They usually only had time to work when childcare responsibilities and meetings forced them to work. Work-family conflict has been found to influence involuntary variable work schedules and vice versa and has been linked to lowered job satisfaction, perceived stress, psychological distress and greater turnover intention (Kaduk et al., 2019). However, if remote working employees follow a variable work schedule that they choose, i.e. “temporal flexibility” (Gonsalves, 2020), they experienced higher work satisfaction (Kaduk et al., 2019). Temporal flexibility has many benefits, such as decreasing work/family role blurring and improved employee health (Moen et al., 2016). Additionally, having control over their schedules can improve employee remote work experiences whilst also promoting the benefits of remote working for both the employee and the organisation (Kaduk et al., 2019). Therefore, organisations and healthcare workers are faced with an opportunity to improve South African employees’ remote working experiences and reap the benefits of this new mode of work through flexible work hours. Especially considering that parents are part of the group most willing to remote work (Bloom, 2014) and most of the current study sample of child caregivers highlighted the need for creating flexible work hours.

Employees also stated that management could focus on adapting their mode of communication through limiting meetings or changing meeting times to accommodate most employees where possible. Zoom meetings have been found to require more emotional effort and cognitive load than in-person meetings due to the absence of non-verbal cues and the need for increased eye contact and focus (Sander & Bauman, 2020). Additionally, employees with children have the added anxiety of a child interrupting or walking in during meetings (Sander & Bauman, 2020). However, online meetings are unavoidable in the new remote workplace and employers are encouraged to use alternative forms of communication such as detailed documents or phone calls (Sander & Bauman, 2020) to create online meeting breaks for employees. Other research found turning off video when not speaking in meetings or employing other technologies such as virtual reality headsets can assist in Zoom fatigue (Reinach, 2020). In this sample specifically, employees preferred communication to be through email rather than online meetings. New standards of working together and communicating are called for to adapt to the post-COVID-19 workplace (Wiatr, 2021).

The boundaries between work and home are in normal circumstances porous, with one often creeping over to the other (Dunn & McMinn, 2021). This research concludes that employees used resources such as people, time and spaces to repair or uphold the balance between work and family by re-establishing these boundaries or intertwining work and family life in the new and abnormal work circumstances brought on by COVID-19. For managers, it is clear that South African remote working employees who care for children require flexible work hours and variation in the modes of communication to promote balance and thus well-being in their new remote working lives. Healthcare workers on the other hand, are encouraged to use findings to conduct further research into how resources can be employed to promote work-family balance for new remote workers.

Data availability