COVID-19 has led to the closure of various schools in Japan to cope with the pandemic. This study explores how school closure influences parents’ work style based on short panel data for the period of school closure from mid-March to mid-April 2020. Specifically, we analyze how the presence of their children influences parents’ work at home and examine how the effect differs by the parent’s gender. After controlling for various factors, we find that in cases where parents are full-time employees and the children are: (1) in primary school, mothers are more likely to work remotely, while fathers are less likely to do so and (2) in junior high school, the parents’ work styles are hardly affected. This shows that mothers shoulder the burden of working remotely and caring for small children at home, while fathers tend to work in the office and spend less time with their childcare at home. Inevitably, COVID-19 has increased the inequality in the burden of child care.

COVID-19 已导致日本多所学校关闭以应对这一流行病。本研究基于 2020 年 3 月中旬至 4 月中旬学校停课期间的短期面板数据，探讨学校停课如何影响父母的工作方式。具体而言，我们分析了他们的孩子的存在如何影响父母在家中的工作并检验效果如何因父母的性别而异。在控制各种因素后，我们发现在父母是全职员工且孩子处于以下情况的情况下：（1）在小学阶段，母亲更有可能远程工作，而父亲则不太可能这样做；（2）初中时，父母的工作作风几乎不受影响。这说明妈妈们肩负着远程工作和在家照顾小孩的重担，而父亲往往在办公室工作，在家照顾孩子的时间更少。不可避免地，COVID-19 加剧了育儿负担的不平等。