Abstract

Although men are increasingly willing to participate in the care of their children, women are still mainly responsible for them, despite having been in the labor market for decades. The experience of quarantine, a preventive health measure against the contagion of COVID-19, left families confined to their homes and made the issue of care visible globally. The following study sought to identify the impact of the crisis produced by the social outbreak in Chile and the COVID-19 pandemic on the distribution of unpaid work and parental involvement. Through a cross-sectional, qualitative exploratory design, five upper-middleclass heterosexual couples were interviewed during the first year of their first baby's life. The results show that, although couples continue to view the woman as the main caregiver and the man as the provider, confinement has enabled greater parental involvement, which has been positively signified by both members of the couple. More research is still needed on the unequal and sexist distribution of care and the evolution of paternal involvement after a pandemic.