The parenthood penalty in creative occupations: how the Covid-19 pandemic made existing inequalities worse

Creative occupations are well-known for inequalities and exclusions. This article focuses on one such excluded group—creative workers who are the parents of young children—to examine the impact of the pandemic on their creative careers. We use the Household Quarterly Labour Force Survey, a large and nationally representative database of UK workers covering the period of 2015–2021. We run regression analyses to estimate the multidimensional impact of working in the creative field, gender, parenting and the pandemic period. The analysis demonstrates a clear parenthood penalty in creative occupations. For women with young children working in the ‘core’ creative occupations this penalty equates to working around nine fewer hours per week. This penalty is in addition to the general penalty for being a woman parent (25 fewer hours per week). The pandemic saw a further hit to ‘core’ creative parents’ working hours, and mothers suffered the heaviest reduction in working hours. Reduced working hours will exacerbate existing gendered inequalities in creative occupations. Based on the figures presented in the article, more must be done by policy interventions and employer activity to prevent even greater exclusions from creative work for mothers.