Did COVID-19 reshape fatherhood? New study finds Filipino dads stepped back, not up, after lockdown

By Hugo Francisco de SouzaReviewed by Susha Cheriyedath, M.Sc.May 10 2026

Despite widespread predictions that pandemic lockdowns would usher in a new era of hands-on fatherhood, a 15-year study of Filipino dads reveals a surprising reversal: routine caregiving dropped after restrictions lifted, and a father’s job status, not the pandemic itself, proved the real force shaping time spent with their kids.

Study: Fathers’ caregiving time before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Image Credit: bekulnis / Shutterstock

In a recent study published in the journal PLOS One, researchers investigated how the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may have influenced long-term paternal caregiving. The study used roughly 15 years of follow-up data from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS). Its analyses compared paternal parenting practices from 2014 (pre-pandemic) to 2022-23 (post-pandemic).

Study findings revealed that while fathers maintained their involvement in overall, recreational, and educational activities, they showed a significant within-individual decline in "routine" or intensive caregiving tasks following the end of lockdown restrictions.

Notably, the analyses found that shifts in employment status were the most consistent predictor of changes in caregiving, though the authors caution that aging and changing family demographics could not be ruled out as alternative explanations. The results provide limited support for the widely predicted domestic "reset" and associated novel era of gender-equitable parenting.

COVID-19 and Paternal Caregiving Background

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic forced the world to come to a standstill, inadvertently resulting in a massive global experiment on family dynamics. Early reports from Euro-American cohorts suggested that during the lockdown, fathers increased their quota of parenting investment, resulting in unprecedented caregiving.

These findings led to predictions suggesting a lasting shift toward gender equity in the home. However, subsequent work found that much of this evidence was anecdotal or cross-sectional, with little data on whether such changes persisted post-pandemic (particularly in non-Western contexts).

The Philippines provides a unique case study. It is a lower-middle-income country (LMIC) with deeply rooted cultural norms regarding fatherhood, often centering on the father as the symbolic head and provider for the household. Coincidentally, the lockdown in the Philippines lasted more than two years.

Cebu Fathers Longitudinal Study Design

The present study aimed to leverage this extended period of restricted movement and at-home learning to observe whether prolonged proximity to children would fundamentally reshape the "socio-ecological system" of the Filipino family.

The study utilized a subset of longitudinal data from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS). CLHNS is a population-representative birth cohort study that has followed participants born in Metropolitan Cebu in 1983–84.

The analyses specifically focused on a sample of 649 men, with a core "within-individual" group of 307 fathers who resided with at least one child under the age of 13 during both the pre-pandemic (2014) and post-pandemic (2022-23) data collection waves.

The study defined and tracked 20 separate caregiving behaviors, which were categorized into three domains for statistical evaluation: 1. Routine care, bathing, grooming, helping with toilet needs, feeding, and putting to bed (intensive activities), 2. Recreational care, which comprised engaging activities such as playing, going on outings, singing/dancing, or telling stories, and 3. Educational care, which included reading, taking children to school, and helping with schoolwork.

All study data were self-reported weekly. Analyses were conducted across three distinct waves: 2009 (Wave 1), 2014 (Wave 2), and 2022-23 (Wave 3). These statistics leveraged a mixed-effects negative binomial regression model to handle right-skewed, over-dispersed count data, with individuals compared to their own past values over time.

Importantly, the study did not collect data during the pandemic lockdown, so it cannot directly address short-term shifts in caregiving while restrictions were in place.

Employment Shifts and Caregiving Findings

The study's primary finding contradicted the "lasting change" hypothesis: fathers' post-pandemic caregiving time did not increase relative to pre-pandemic levels; rather, routine care declined statistically.

When comparing study participants' pre-pandemic data to the same individual's post-pandemic performance (2014 vs. 2022), fathers reported similar levels of overall, recreational, and educational care (p > 0.2). However, the data demonstrated a meaningful within-individual decrease in routine caregiving post-pandemic (p = .01, with an effect size of 0.45 SDs).

The analyses further revealed that employment status was the most consistent predictor of these changes. Specifically, men who transitioned from being partially employed or unemployed pre-pandemic to being fully employed post-pandemic were found to show the largest declines in overall, routine, and educational care (p < 0.05).

Conversely, fathers who moved from full employment to partial or unemployment increased their educational caregiving by an average of 0.59 standard deviations in the pre-to-post-pandemic period, whereas men transitioning to full employment tended to decrease such care (−0.26 SDs).

Education Patterns in Filipino Fatherhood

Findings for education were mixed and, in some respects, ran counter to the authors' hypotheses. Fathers with high school or college degrees reported larger post-pandemic declines in routine care compared to those with less than a high school diploma (p < 0.05). The authors had anticipated that college-educated fathers, who might be more likely to have work-from-home-capable jobs, would maintain or increase caregiving post-pandemic, but they instead showed the largest declines in routine care.

Although college-educated fathers still engaged in more absolute caregiving time at both waves, their temporal patterns did not support the idea that pandemic conditions facilitated a permanent increase in their involvement.

Pandemic Parenting Reset and Study Limits

The present study concludes that the pandemic did not act as a permanent catalyst for increased paternal care in the Philippines. Instead, fathers largely maintained their engagement in overall, recreational, and educational tasks while stepping back from intensive routine labor.

The authors note several important limitations. Because all CLHNS participants are roughly the same age, the roughly 8-year gap between waves means the effects of the pandemic cannot be fully disentangled from the effects of aging and shifting family demographics (e.g., fewer very young children requiring intensive care as fathers moved into their late 30s). Additionally, Super Typhoon Rai in 2021 may have further confounded the pandemic's effects by disrupting regional livelihoods and infrastructure. The caregiving data also came from a single reporter, without complementary maternal or alloparental time-use data.

The researchers emphasize that their observational design cannot establish causality. Nonetheless, their findings complement work from Euro-American contexts, suggesting that fathers' employment dynamics, including partial employment and work-from-home arrangements, are meaningfully linked to how much time fathers spend caring for their children during and after the pandemic.