British mothers are more likely than fathers to have left paid work or had their hours reduced during the coronavirus pandemic, a study has shown. 

Research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) and University College London's Institute of Education examined the lives of 3,500 families with two parents of opposite genders. The study focused on the effect of school closures, job losses, working from home and the UK government's furlough scheme – which provides millions of workers with 80 percent of their salary while they are temporarily stopped from working by the pandemic.

The study, which was conducted online from 29 April to 15 May, noted an increased imbalance between two-parent heterosexual households – it suggested that mothers are doing a third, on average, of the uninterrupted paid-work hours fathers are doing. Before lockdown that figure stood at 60 percent, the study noted. 

Alison Andrew, a senior research economist at the IFS, warned of a risk "that the lockdown leads to a further increase in the gender wage gap."

The UK's economy, like many across the world, has been severely damaged during the pandemic as the government introduced social distancing and lockdown rules which shut down large sections of the economy. In April alone, there were 856,500 extra unemployment claims. 

The study noted, of those who were in paid work prior to the lockdown, mothers were 47 percent more likely than fathers to have permanently lost their job or quit, while they are 14 percent more likely to have been furloughed.

The imbalance stretches into the home. Researchers found that mothers are also doing more housework and parenting when working from home compared with men. Almost half of mothers' working hours are interrupted by activities including childcare, compared with less than a third of fathers' paid working hours. 

"The only set of households where we see mothers and fathers sharing childcare and housework equally are those in which both parents were previously working, but the father has now stopped working for pay while the mother is still in paid work," explained Lucy Kraftman, a researcher at the IFS. 

"However, mothers in these households are doing paid work during an average of five hours a day in addition to doing the same amount of domestic work as their partner." 

While many imbalances have increased between the genders, the study found the lockdown has led to fathers doing nearly double the hours of childcare they were prior to the crisis. 

Sonya Krutikova, a deputy research director at IFS, noted: "This may bring about changes in the attitudes of fathers, mothers, children and employers about the role of fathers in meeting family needs for childcare and domestic work during the working week.

"It may serve as an impetus for a more equal sharing of childcare and housework between mothers and fathers after lockdown ends."