‘We were all stuffed’: did the Australian COVID-19 lockdowns exacerbate role-specific stress and alcohol use among working mothers? A qualitative analysis

Abstract

Background

During COVID-19 lockdowns, women and parents were more likely to increase their alcohol use. Working mothers in particular faced additional stressors and roles that may have influenced how they drank. In this study, we explored how the experiences of Australian lockdowns affected drinking practices among a sample of working mothers.

Methods

Between February and June 2022, we conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with working mothers aged 36–51. Participants reflected on their social roles, everyday routines, and drinking practices, highlighting changes that occurred during lockdowns. We applied a critical realist framework, analysing interviews using reflexive thematic analysis.

Results

Women reflected on increased alcohol use during lockdowns, experiencing intensified emotional attachments toward drinking. Women described using alcohol to manage negative affect and stress brought on by additional responsibilities, such as home-schooling. Participants also discussed increased pervasiveness and permissiveness around alcohol, noting that drinking was promoted as a way to maintain relationships within and outside of households during lockdowns.

Conclusion

COVID-19 lockdowns provide a case study for examining how working mothers’ stresses were reinforced by structural barriers and social conventions. They highlight how the gendered division of domestic labour can amplify gendered drinking practices, particularly when lives are centred around the home.

Keywords:

• Alcohol
• covid-19
• working mothers
• qualitative

Alcohol use among Australian women aged between 40 and 65 has increased steadily since the early 2000s (Miller et al., 2022). This has health implications, as women are more likely to develop medical problems due to heavy drinking than men (Erol & Karpyak, 2015). Recently, social restrictions, including lockdowns, designed to stop the spread of COVID-19, have been linked to changed drinking practices (Caluzzi et al., 2021). Indeed, being a woman and reporting high levels of stress have been consistently correlated to increased drinking during COVID-19 restrictions (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2022; Callinan et al., 2021; Rodriguez et al., 2020). Given that increases in drinking, even in the short-term, can have health impacts (Erol & Karpyak, 2015), it is important to understand how and why women’s drinking may have changed in this time. Mid-life women faced disproportionate economic and domestic burdens during the COVID-19 lockdowns (Wenham et al., 2020), and these stresses have been posited as a potential explanation for increased drinking (Caluzzi et al., 2022). However, research has not yet unpacked the drinking of women who took on additional domestic duties alongside paid employment during pandemic restrictions, such as working mothers, and what learnings we can take from this.

Between March 2020 to November 2021, Australian states and territories underwent a range of social restrictions, although the timing and length varied by jurisdiction. Strict government countermeasures, such as lockdowns, were in place in South-eastern Australia during much of 2020-2021, which required the public to stay home unless they had a reasonable excuse to leave. This meant that schools moved to online teaching, most employees shifted to work from home arrangements, and opportunities to socialize or undertake recreational activities outside the home were limited. This also created new opportunities and restrictions on where and how people consumed alcohol. People’s own homes – the context for the majority of drinking among women aged 35 to 54 (Callinan et al., 2016) – temporarily became the only place where people could drink. The COVID-19 pandemic also put greater pressure on working mothers, who faced a heightened risk of job loss, an intensifying of domestic responsibilities due to the closure of schools and childcare centres, and greater burdens as a result of taking on the majority of frontline care roles (Carlson et al., 2022; Hupkau & Petrongolo, 2020; McLaren et al., 2020).

Prior qualitative research has explored Australian women’s experiences during the COVID-19 lockdowns and how this impacted their drinking. For example, Cook et al. (2021) showed how parents’ alcohol consumption patterns changed during COVID-19 restrictions. These changes were associated with reduced socializing with family and friends and changes to employment arrangements, as well as the stress of being unable to separate work and parenting, managing home-schooling, and, especially among mothers, taking the emotional responsibility for others in the house (Cook et al., 2021). A study by Lunnay et al. (2021) on women’s perceptions of alcohol-related health risks during COVID-19 showed that the perceived need to use alcohol to ‘get through’ the pandemic outweighed the potential harms of increased drinking. Reduced work satisfaction, increased work insecurity and increased care and concern for elderly parents and young children reinforced gender expectations around domestic tasks and all contributed to daily struggles (Lunnay et al., 2021). These studies show how changes in women’s drinking during COVID-19 restrictions were closely related to the stresses they faced in both the domestic and work spheres.

Although these studies did not focus on working mothers specifically, they highlight how the social roles women absorbed as mothers and workers can influence drinking practices and meanings (i.e., as compensation for domestic and emotional labour). Indeed, working mothers who already juggled ‘double shifts’ of paid employment, childcare and domestic tasks (Hochschild, 1989) may have been required to absorb a ‘third shift’ of home-schooling children during COVID-19 lockdowns. It is possible these arrangements not only reinforced gender roles (by situating women as primary carers) but also increased the burdens and stresses women faced, influencing drinking patterns and practices (Caluzzi et al., 2022). Indeed, higher psychological distress and home-schooling during COVID-19 restrictions have been associated with greater alcohol consumption (Mojica-Perez et al., 2022), while less egalitarian sharing of home-schooling duties, with women taking on a higher load, has been associated with increased alcohol frequency (DesRoches et al., 2021). However, research has yet to test this ‘third shift’ theory in relation to the drinking practices of working mothers.

Researchers have suggested that in-depth qualitative research is needed to review the full impact of Australia’s lockdowns and restrictions (Cook et al., 2022) and to contextualize the self-reported link between stress and drinking among parents—mothers in particular (Cook et al., 2021). Given that role overload has been linked to increased drinking among working mothers (Kuntsche et al., 2012), we suggest that COVID-19 lockdowns are an important context for examining how the lives of working mothers were affected, and in turn, how their drinking practices might have changed. Thus, we aim to build on the literature on drinking practices during COVID-19 social restrictions, as well as the literature on drinking among working mothers. In this study, we investigate how the experiences of COVID-19 lockdowns influenced drinking among a sample of Australian working mothers, and the learnings we can take from this going forward.

Methodology

We conducted semi-structured telephone interviews with 22 working mothers from February to June 2022 across Australia. This was at least four months after the last government-enforced COVID-19 lockdowns ended in Victoria, Australia. Participants were eligible if they: identified as women who were 35 and 50 years old, resided in Australia, were employed (including self-employment) for at least 15 hours a week, cared for at least one dependent school-aged child over six years old, had no prior history of substance use disorder and self-reported that they were consuming alcohol on at least a weekly basis. This included a wide range of women who were currently drinking—both in terms of frequency and quantity (e.g., 1–2 standard drinks a week vs several standard drinks every day). We chose mothers of school-aged children to purposely move away from research on mothers during the post-partum stage, and to increase the likelihood that women were participating in paid labour. One participant aged 51 and one participant with a four-year-old child were also included. Nearly 80% of participants (n = 17) were from Victoria, who had the longest time spent in lockdowns of all the Australian states. Over 70% of the sample were married/partnered (to men, n = 16), and over 60% worked between 31 and 40 or more than 40 hours per week (n = 14).

The study was advertised through social media and shared through networks of women’s health community groups and drug and alcohol organizations. Prior to each telephone interview, consent was obtained verbally, and interviews were audio-recorded and later transcribed. All names have been changed using pseudonyms to protect privacy. Ethical approval for the study was granted by the La Trobe University Human Research Ethics Committee (HEC21325).

An interview guide was used to explore how social roles and everyday routines influenced drinking practices among working mothers. The interview guide was designed within the authorship team according to our knowledge of drinking practices among working mothers. While the effects of lockdowns on drinking were not an explicit part of the interview guide, the flexible format of the interviews allowed participants to reflect on their alcohol use during COVID-19 restrictions. For example, participants often reflected on how these had changed over the previous two years as they went in and out of COVID-19 lockdowns, and where they felt their drinking aligned with the stresses and uncertainty of the pandemic restrictions.

Data analysis

We used reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) for data analysis. This approach acknowledges the researcher’s own assumptions and experience, and how this shapes their interpretation of the data (Braun & Clarke, 2022). The analysis was conducted by an interdisciplinary team of psychologists, sociologists and public health researchers working on a broader project looking at the links between stress and alcohol consumption among working mothers. An experiential orientation was specifically chosen to focus on the subjective meanings and experiences endorsed by our participants, and our active roles (as the researchers) in generating themes (Braun & Clarke, 2022; Byrne, 2022).

First, the lead author familiarized herself with the data by reading each transcript multiple times and re-listening to each audio recording. The lead author then coded the data using a descriptive label, both at the semantic (i.e., explicit) and latent (i.e., implicit) level where appropriate, using an inductive approach (Braun & Clarke, 2022; Byrne, 2022). Our flexible, data-driven approach allowed us to generate new codes and redefine old codes. Once the lead author had a final list of codes, these were collated and combined into potential themes, and with input from the authorship team, these themes were defined, named and refined.

Critical realism was chosen as the philosophical underpinning. Critical realism posits that an objective reality exists, but is mediated by social structures and mechanisms, such as gender, social norms, or power relationships (Bhaskar, 2008; Kersey et al., 2023). It offers a particularly valuable tool for illuminating the material and socio-cultural contexts shaping women’s drinking behaviours (Kersey et al., 2023). Thus, a critical realist approach allows us to explore psychological and emotional factors that influence women’s drinking practices at the individual level (e.g., affect, experiences) as well as how these connect to broader social and cultural factors (e.g., norms around motherhood, the cultural acceptance of alcohol).

Findings

Participants in our sample almost always felt they were the primary caregivers, explaining that they took on additional responsibilities during lockdowns by default. While most women had reduced their drinking to pre-pandemic levels once lockdowns ended, they also described lockdowns as periods of increased stress. This both exacerbated the frequency and quantity of consumption, but also intensified the emotions they attached to alcohol, where alcohol was often associated with managing intense negative emotions. Below, we detail these changes in three themes.

‘It was in excess, absolutely’—reflecting on increased drinking and emotional meanings attached to alcohol

Many participants described increasing the frequency and quantity of alcohol they consumed during COVID-19 lockdowns. When reflecting on alcohol consumption during lockdowns, a small number of women felt their drinking remained unchanged. However, the majority of working mothers described increased alcohol consumption, often in terms of frequency of drinking occasions (particularly on weekdays) during lockdowns. Some women also recounted that they had increased the quantity they consumed, such as pouring extra glasses or larger glasses. For example, Jackie, a full-time employed, partnered mother highlighted increasing weekly alcohol use from 1–2 days per week pre-lockdowns, to 5–7 days during lockdowns.

…during lockdown one and two here in [city], it was probably five, six, seven times a week… – Jackie

She later added:

Before COVID, maybe one or two nights a week and it would be a couple of glasses of wine. It wasn’t anything in excess, but then during COVID it became a bottle of wine sometimes… – Jackie

While reflecting on their drinking during COVID-19 lockdowns, women noted the lack of control they felt both over their everyday lives and drinking. This included adjusting to remote work arrangements, working on the frontline in the healthcare sector, job insecurity, home-schooling children, additional caregiving roles, juggling home and work duties, concerns for the mental and physical health of family members, not being able to participate in recreational activities (such as exercise), and general anxieties around COVID-19. These stressors amplified the lack of control and autonomy women felt in their everyday lives, and increased permissiveness toward drinking as a way of coping with new and compounding stressors. For example, Olivia, a self-employed partnered mother contrasted her relationship with alcohol during and post-COVID-19 restrictions, highlighting:

…I think I’ve got a handle on it, whereas a couple of years – like those last two years, one drink could have turned into two, and then three. I could have, yeah, I probably could have sensed that there could have been a problem if I had have another glass, and then had another one, and then have another one. But right now, I feel like, totally in control. – Olivia

A few women described making conscious efforts to stop or reduce their drinking during lockdowns. Brooke, a part-time employed, partnered mother, described how she chose to abstain completely – partly because she did not feel she could limit her intake, and partly because she felt drinking would not “help” her during COVID-19 lockdowns:

…For example, in the rolling lockdowns, I went weeks without drinking […] and I just knew it wasn’t going to help me, so I didn’t trust myself that I’d only have one 100ml glass of wine or 150 ml glass of wine, so I just had nothing… – Brooke

Upon reflection during our interviews, once the lockdowns ended, most women had reduced their drinking to pre-pandemic levels. Respondents described their drinking during the two-year lockdown period as “excessive,” exceeding pre-pandemic levels or more than what they considered normal or healthy. Post-lockdowns, they talked about (re)setting boundaries for themselves and consciously cutting back on the frequency and quantity of their drinking. However, for some mothers, like Jackie, drinking practices that had been learned and reinforced during lockdowns were harder to undo.

…It was in excess, absolutely. I recognise that now, but I am finding it very hard to shift the habits that have formed in that time period to now and not have that thought that, “Oh God, I need a drink.” – Jackie

Lockdowns also amplified an excessive emotional intensity toward alcohol, with alcohol becoming associated with managing intense, often negative emotions. Women described their usual relationship with alcohol as including a range of pleasures, such as relaxation, socializing, and taste. However, when reflecting on the meanings they associated with alcohol during lockdowns, women tended to describe drinking to cope and to alleviate feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and lonely. For example, difficulty maintaining social relationships during lockdowns increased feelings of loneliness for a few mothers, such as Shauna and Charlotte, both full-time employed separated mothers.

…And so having to move, and then going into all the lockdowns and feeling really isolated, yeah that’s why my drinking increased. – Shauna

…I actually notice that the pandemic, because there would be some days where I was sitting downstairs on my own. So that’s when I’ve kind of – I think that’s been the trigger… – Charlotte

Because of this association between alcohol and managing negative emotions, and the lack of other activities women could pursue that might have otherwise helped them manage these emotions, women became more preoccupied with drinking. This changed the drinking patterns of some women, leading to drinking at different times of the day or days of the week. While women set boundaries around their drinking (e.g., after work or home-schooling), several women discussed a shift toward drinking earlier in the day or having less alcohol-free days during lockdowns. For example Belle, a partnered mother who worked part-time, noted:

…I did feel a bit gross; I was thinking “oh my God,’ I normally always have a break of a day or two, but I felt I couldn’t. I felt, “Why would I have a break from drinking? We’re in lockdown.” It was so shit. And my husband was never at home, and it was just really shit. So I definitely relied on alcohol. You know, not till 5:00: I sort of felt I was okay. But I definitely felt I couldn’t go a night without drinking. – Belle

For participants like Katie, a part-time employed partnered mother, using alcohol to help manage negative emotions meant that drinking, and the temporal boundaries she placed around drinking, preoccupied her mind during lockdowns:

I remember during lockdown seeing the bottle of wine on the bench and going, ‘Oh my God, how long do I have to wait till I can actually have some?’ Feeling like life’s hard and you want to make it easier somehow. – Katie

While alcohol was associated with managing negative emotions, at the same time, some working mothers emphasized that alcohol was the only thing they really looked forward to, describing it as necessary. They explained there was little to look forward to during lockdowns with the absence of their usual activities, which created further frustrations. As a result, the perception of alcohol as a reward was amplified.

…I have a feeling that having the drink of wine every night probably increased during lockdown because there wasn’t that much else to look forward to. – Katie

Although alcohol was described as providing something positive “to look forward to”, the accounts above highlight how drinking was rarely framed as a genuine pleasure. Indeed, affective meanings of alcohol were framed by coping with stress and a lack of other meaningful alternatives.

‘It was probably the home-schooling that really made me crack’ - how additional responsibilities linked to increased drinking

Additional duties, such as caregiving roles and home-schooling, were absorbed by working mothers in our sample. Many women described feeling overburdened because of their increased workload and highlighted a lack of organizational support, contributing to increased alcohol consumption. Most women in our sample indicated that they were the primary caregivers of their household, and during COVID-19 lockdowns, they often took on extra care-related duties at home including home-schooling and domestic tasks such as cooking and cleaning. Home-schooling children involved supervising and teaching online content during lockdowns when schools were closed. Thus, women were often juggling employment, parenting, household, and teaching roles. Women who struggled the most with managing these burdens noted increased alcohol consumption. For example, Belle linked increases in drinking to the stresses of home-schooling, describing the exhaustion working mothers faced as ‘horrible’ and ‘awful’:

…Especially the working mums: we were all stuffed, it was horrible. We were all working and trying to home school, and it was just so awful […] And so I guess my girlfriends were going through that too, the ones with kids, and they were all definitely drinking a lot more… – Belle

Women in our sample tended to be in jobs that allowed them to work from home (more so than their partners), which contributed to them being designated as responsible for home-schooling. Many felt frustrated and devalued by the lack of organizational support they received from their employers and the government, and while some workplaces allowed women to work flexible or reduced hours around home-schooling, others were less accommodating and failed to recognize the time and energy involved in home-schooling. This was exacerbated by the limited access they had to after-school or child-care programs, meaning women had few to no breaks in providing care for children.

…I don’t think there was, across the board, a great understanding of the stress involved in taking on supervision of children’s education in private work settings. – Brooke

Women attributed feeling overwhelmed by the additional burden of home-schooling as a key driver of changes in their regular drinking patterns, such as increasing their desire to drink, their alcohol frequency or quantity. As Belle reflected:

…So when there was no home-schooling, I stopped drinking as much; like, when the kids could go back to school, I felt less reliance on alcohol. Yeah, it was probably the home-schooling that really made me crack… – Belle

A small number of participants like Stephanie, a full-time employed partnered mother, also described drinking at different times of the day due to these burdens:

…So I think some days I’ll have a drink during the day, I might just be feeling a little bit overwhelmed when the kids were home learning…. – Stephanie

In addition to home-schooling, working mothers also obtained extra caregiving roles related to their children that influenced their alcohol consumption. As children were home all the time during lockdowns, this added to women’s domestic workload and stresses, such as having to cook and clean up after children more often. Women also exerted more emotional energy by attempting to help their children with their struggles while being locked down, such as attempting to entertain and soothe their children.

…It was just having kids at home all the time screaming and being so loud, it kind of gets you on edge, and then there’s so much to absorb at home and to do because your workload of making food has increased and cleaning has increased, because you’re all at home. So, there was kind of that, but then it also became a, “Well, let’s have a wine out on the deck and relax,” sort of thing as well… – Jackie

As the account above highlights, as working mothers felt compelled to emotionally support others and ensure all other commitments were met first, the role of their additional responsibilities meant there was often no time or space designated for themselves. Here, alcohol was presented as a way to relax and negotiate these stresses.

‘No, no, no, alcohol’s considered an essential service’—the permissiveness and pervasiveness of alcohol during lockdowns

Alongside all the additional stressors that women were facing, women also described an increased permissiveness and pervasiveness around alcohol. During the COVID-19 social restrictions in Australia, alcohol was considered an ‘essential’ product, meaning it was available to purchase throughout the lockdowns. Some participants like Brooke noted how this normalized alcohol during the pandemic:

The footage on the news of Dan Murphy’s, people lining up with trolleys when we went in lockdown thinking that store might be closed, and then the premier had to come out and say, “No, no, no, alcohol’s considered an essential service…” – Brooke

Brooke later mentioned how the media framed drinking as a way for people to maintain social connections during lockdowns.

…Even on the news and current affairs programs, they promote neighbours having ‘fencies’, which is a beer over the fence together… – Brooke

A few women also noted how the availability of alcohol, including the growth of home delivery services, implicitly promoted alcohol as a way to deal with the stresses of COVID-19 restrictions. We note that, within our sample, several women described that they started purchasing alcohol online during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Indeed, previous qualitative research has highlighted how middle-class Australian women actively ‘stockpiled’ alcohol during lockdowns (Ward et al., 2022).

More generally, women discussed how they felt alcohol was more pervasive through online advertising and media depictions of alcohol. For example, a few women noticed an increase in alcohol advertising during COVID-19 lockdowns. Women also noted how consuming alcohol seemed to increase in social acceptability, as they reflected on sharing memes and sending photos of their wine with their friends. In particular, these memes portrayed drinking to cope with lockdown stressors as humorous and socially acceptable and created a collective sense of drinking together (despite the isolation of lockdowns).

…And, like, friends – everyone would send each other little memes of women just drinking, and it definitely became socially acceptable, and a socially acceptable way of getting through that really shit time […] So it definitely became a crutch, and I was definitely drinking a lot more; like definitely two glasses of wine every night. And my friends and I would talk about it, and – I don’t know, it was definitely a crutch…. – Belle

Alongside this social acceptability, women talked about how drinking played a prominent role in social connections and interactions during lockdowns. Unable to physically see their friends and extended families, participants described feeling isolated from their communities and support networks. Women shared that during COVID-19 restrictions, their permitted social interactions often centred around alcohol use and sharing a drink. This involved drinking with families and partners within the home most commonly, but also included catching up with friends during lockdowns by going on walks (exercise was a permitted reason to leave the house) and having drinks outside the home.

…And being at home most evenings, we watched a lot of movies as a family, so we would sit down as a family and watch a movie, and I would quite often have a glass of wine… – Abby

…Like, a girlfriend and I would go for a walk and then we ended up at a cocktail bar that was doing takeaway cocktails and kind of walked home with a cocktail in our hand… – Nikki

The unprecedented nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns enabled changes to cultural and social norms around alcohol. Legitimatizing alcohol as an “essential service” and normalizing drinking contributed to alcohol becoming both pervasive and permissive. In contrast to the strict regulations of social life and business during lockdown, the continued accessibility and marketing of alcohol highlights the role of the alcohol industry in influencing drinking practices among women during COVID-19 restrictions.

Discussion

Using COVID-19 lockdowns as a case study, we examined how structural barriers and social conventions reinforced working mothers’ stresses, leading to changes (often increases) in drinking practices. Such learnings are useful going forward, particularly in the face of other potential social shifts or crises. Among our sample of working mothers—who already juggled multiple roles and responsibilities pre-pandemic—’triple shifts’ of work, childcare and home-schooling were common during lockdowns. The addition of these gendered roles and responsibilities was linked to altered drinking practices and meanings. For instance, women described an intensification of the meanings they attached to alcohol during lockdowns. These were exacerbated by stresses and a lack of meaningful outlets and social engagement, and the pervasiveness and availability of alcohol throughout social restrictions.

Our findings support data from earlier stages of COVID-19 lockdowns around increased alcohol frequency and quantity among parents and women especially (Alcohol and Drug Foundation, 2020; Callinan et al., 2021; Cook et al., 2021; Farrugia & Hinkley, 2021). Other Australian studies have shown that, during COVID-19 restrictions, women perceived drinking as an acceptable short-term practice to ‘get through the pandemic’ (Cook et al., 2021; Lunnay et al., 2021)—although this should be understood within the context of broader tensions, complexities, and social expectations that shape women’s relationships with alcohol (Lunnay et al., 2022). Our research built on this and showed that participants reflected more negatively on their alcohol consumption post-lockdowns, associating it with the challenges and feelings they had during this time (e.g., the stress of home-schooling). While lockdowns can provide an opportunity to reassess relationships with alcohol (Nicholls & Conroy, 2021), only a few women in our sample were able to do so. For many women we talked to, lockdowns seem to be characterized by anxiety, stress, time poverty, a highly gendered division of labour, a merging of personal and professional spheres, and a lack of control over how these spheres were managed. These challenges and restrictions during lockdowns sat alongside the constant availability of alcohol, amplifying the emotional meanings women attached to drinking, and influencing the frequency and quantity at which they drank.

We also unpacked some of the mechanisms contributing to increased alcohol intake, highlighting how drinking was motivated by increased emotional distress, and closely aligned with the social roles of working mothers. Indeed, as gendered social roles, i.e., childcare and household chores, tended to be reinforced during lockdowns, this impacted working mothers’ drinking practices. For example, by changing drinking routines, such as starting at earlier times or during the day, and changing meanings, such as associating drinking with a lack of autonomy over their lives and feelings of loneliness and uncertainty. While many women reduced their drinking back to pre-pandemic levels at the time of interviews, prolonged associations between drinking practices, meanings and the pandemic may have a longer-term impact on some women’s relationship with alcohol. Moreover, new learned drinking practices and meanings emerging as a result of lockdowns may represent new barriers for public health in times when women face a lack of control, or increased stress or burdens.

Drinking practices were also impacted as working mothers navigated additional roles, i.e., home-schooling and caregiving, and, at times, felt a lack of organizational support or awareness. Many Australian parents reported difficulties finding work-life balance during COVID-19 lockdowns, and working from home did not necessarily facilitate a better balance (Baxter & Warren, 2021). As the results revealed, these pressures could lead to increased anxiety, stress, and drinking. This resonates with previous research (Cook et al., 2021; DesRoches et al., 2021), while expanding on the mechanisms linking lockdowns to stress and drinking among working mothers. For example, having to adapt to complex work arrangements while managing home-schooling created conflicting obligations and, without adequate social and workplace supports, could lead to working mothers feeling frustrated and devalued. At the same time, women described being the emotional anchor of their families; caring, supporting and reassuring children, and completing additional caregiving duties and household chores. These details represent an important context for understanding pandemic-specific drinking patterns identified in prior research (Brezovec et al., 2022; Cook et al., 2021; Farrugia & Hinkley, 2021; Tucci et al., 2020).

We also saw an increased permissiveness and pervasiveness around drinking in popular discourse, which was further shared within the networks of working mothers. Prior research has shown that alcohol advertisements encouraged and normalized drinking as a coping strategy during lockdowns (Foundation for Alcohol Research & Education, Cancer Council WA, 2020), particularly among mothers (Bosma et al., 2022). The availability and marketing of alcohol during lockdowns normalized increased consumption, which seemingly contributed to it becoming entwined with making and maintaining relationships and friendships. Jackson et al. (2023) research has shown how women’s drinking is relational, centred around friendships, families, and practices of self-care. Because the pandemic changed the structure of social relationships and interactions (Tucci et al., 2020; Wardell et al., 2020), the role alcohol plays in these may have also changed, making women connect or manage relationships in new ways. At the same time, women noted how comfort and dealing with stress through drinking seemed to be legitimatized during lockdowns by mainstream media, social media, and their social networks. Indeed, the alcohol industry targeted women during COVID-19, promoting ‘norms’ that associate alcohol use with ‘coping’ with distressing challenges (Movendi International, 2020). Coupled with the accessibility of alcohol and a distinct lack of social alternatives, this contributed to drinking becoming a socially permissive self-care practice among working mothers during lockdowns.

Limitations

While we aimed to recruit working mothers from across all Australian states, the majority of our participants were sampled through social media and were from Victoria, the state that had the most restrictions and for the longest period of time. Repeated and extended lockdowns, and the accompanying stress and responsibilities that affected working mothers, may have had a unique impact on their relationships with alcohol which may not have been representative of the experiences of working mothers elsewhere. Moreover, COVID-19 placed particular burdens on women in terms of job insecurity and job loss (Wenham et al., 2020). Our sample of participants managed to continue their employment throughout COVID-19 lockdowns, highlighting a degree of career security and how we may not have recruited women from a broad range of industries most affected by lockdowns (e.g., hospitality). Finally, our sample did not include multigenerational households (e.g., children, parents, and grandparents) and women were in heterosexual relationships, which potentially influenced how responsibilities and labour were distributed in the home.

Implications

While COVID-19 social restrictions shifted the temporal boundaries and contexts that shaped drinking practices (Caluzzi et al., 2021), the restrictions also blurred and compounded social roles, creating new challenges for women’s health and their relationships with alcohol. Implications of this study underscore the need to reassess how working mothers can be supported at the service level (e.g., schooling, employee assistance) when informal social supports may be restricted, as well as the role of alcohol marketing in constructing drinking as a tool to manage during periods of uncertainty and stress. Alongside the provision of adequate employment protections and options for more flexible work arrangements and hours, the role of working mothers in providing mental, emotional, and educational care in the home during COVID-19 lockdowns should be acknowledged. Indeed, these changes to traditional gender social roles and norms had important ramifications for the drinking practices of the working mothers we talked to. This highlights the need to better address the persistent gendered division of domestic labour, particularly when lives are centred around the home – as was the case with COVID-19 lockdowns.

Disclosure of statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval for the study was granted by the La Trobe University Human Research Ethics Committee (HEC21325).

The participants of this study did not give written consent for their data to be shared publicly, so due to the sensitive nature of the research supporting data is not available.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP210103446). The funding agency had no role in study design, results, final approval of the study or decision to submit. Maree Patsouras is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship via La Trobe University.