Studies consistently reported that mental health worsened among parents during the lockdown. Parents with one or two children reported lower levels of mental health compared to people without children [35]. Depression and anxiety increased among mothers compared to the pre-lockdown period [36], and mothers reported higher scores during the lockdown when compared to fathers [37]. Unexpected anxieties, depression, and loneliness were linked to disruption of social support and routine [38] and caring for children with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND), who reported receiving significantly less social support than other parents [39–42]. Greater parenting-related exhaustion and stress, and deteriorated mental health in general, were more common among mothers [43–48], parents under age 35, parents with a pre-existing mental or physical health condition or a disability, receiving psychological treatment [43, 47, 49, 50], parents reporting unemployment, financial stress, change in employment, or a job role in business [43, 47, 49–52], parents reporting fewer perceived social connections or loss of socialization [46, 53], and divorced/separated parents [46, 49, 54]. Parents of children with disabilities experiencing financial difficulties reported sleepless nights, loss of appetite, and anger [55]. Mental health issues were sometimes found to be related to a worsening of existing mental health difficulties, in other cases the lockdown was associated with new mental health problems and symptoms [56]. Moreover, a phenomenon of “emotional contagion” was found among family members (particularly in families with children with disabilities or particular conditions), where a depressed or anxious individual influenced the mental health of the other family members [56]. Poor mental health was significantly more prevalent among parents of younger children (≤4 years) [43, 45, 50], parents with a large number of children [46], parents of children with intellectual disability [39, 40], developmental disorders [51], psychological, physical, or genetic diseases [45], with moderate or high emotional distress or mental illness [47], or behavioral and emotional difficulties [54]. By contrast, parents working in the healthcare sector [44] and fathers had higher scores in psychological wellbeing [57], although one study showed that the former were more likely to report work-related distress [47]. Parents with a supportive employer identified this as a factor that helped managing their stress related to the lockdown [43].

Studies exclusively looking at mothers found that higher age, lower income, poorer physical health, experiencing work suspension and lower perceived maternal support, and being a single mother were associated with more stress [58, 59]. Conversely, protective factors lowering the risk for mental health symptoms included being married, living in rural areas, and having larger families and support [58, 60, 61]. However, high education and high family income were found to relate to high levels of mental health symptoms among mothers living in China [60]. Mothers tried to strengthen their emotional resilience by adopting a variety of psychological strategies, e.g., being optimistic and suppressing negative thoughts [62]. Household income and house size were strongly related to mental health outcomes for parents of children with intellectual disabilities, which tended to improve with better financial means and social support [39].

Parents reported some leisure activities and events were missing in the new daily family life during lockdown [56]. The risk for adverse changes in some dietary behaviors was significantly higher among parents experiencing food insecurity and among single parent families with children compared to single persons and couples without children [63]. Feeding on schedule decreased on average, but a smaller decrease was observed in more educated parents [64]. Less educated parents also tended to serve larger portions and set less restrictions for unhealthy food [64]. Few parents of children affected by mental health conditions reported increased alcohol/drug use during the lockdown compared to the period before [41]. Parents with low educational background were more likely to report a decrease in their general life satisfaction [65].

On the other hand, some parents saw the lockdown as an opportunity to eat healthy, exercise, and lose weight [66–68]. Some enjoyed a slower pace of life and were able to sleep more, go outside more, meditate and reflect [43, 61, 67, 68]. Parents reported the adoption of a healthier diet and lifestyle [68, 69], greater motivation for buying pleasurable, sustainable, and healthy food [64]. Parents with a higher education level reported preparing more homemade, comforting dishes than before, while parents working from home and parents at home without work had lower motivation to buy convenient food [64]. Among mothers with younger children (<6 years), time for physical activity decreased, while sedentary time increased with children’s age [70, 71].

Parents had to perform multiple, unexpected roles during the lockdown. One of these was the educator role usually performed by schoolteachers. The main pedagogical role of teachers is to promote student learning. The teacher needs to be capable in terms of the content to be taught and different ways of student learning, be able to organize lessons, facilitate the interaction among students and solve challenges in learning. While some parents reported that this role allowed them to get more involved in the life of their child and obtain more insight into their child’s learning [72, 73], other studies reported that it was challenging to take over the pedagogical role of the school [74, 75]. Factors that complicated home-schooling were lack of a sufficient number of devices for each member of the family, lack of time and support from the school, and lack of expertise (parents do not feel able to replace teachers, in particular parents have problems in motivating their children) [75]. Parents with children with special learning needs and low-income parents reported greater difficulties due to lack of differentiated instruction for different needs, lack of support, and inadequate digital tools [40, 73, 74, 76].

As most medical consultations for children affected by disabilities or disorders were cancelled or postponed during the lockdown, children required significant parental help. Parents reported performing different types of therapy for their children affected by disability [77], rationing insulin and glucose test strips for their children with type 1 diabetes [78], and facing challenges in accessing health and rehabilitation services and medication. Parents experienced great distress as they noticed their child’s health worsening without having access to appropriate medical care (particularly among parents from rural backgrounds) [28, 55, 76, 79]. Parents with lower education perceived more difficulties meeting their child’s basic care needs than those with a college or university degree [80].

Parents expressed concerns about their children’s emotional, social, and cognitive developments and their children’s growing use of screen media [56, 81]. Few parents reported interpersonal conflict with their child during the lockdown [51]. Mothers reported concerns about lack of direct external support. In particular, they acknowledged that social contacts would have helped them to understand and perform their role in supporting the psychological wellbeing of their children and provide social support to them [81]. Parents’ perceived difficulty in parenting due to social isolation was found to be significantly associated with risk for child maltreatment [82]. Parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) reported an increase in irritability, shouting at the child, verbal abuse, and punishments [79].

On the other hand, studies consistently reported that the lockdown allowed parents to spend more time with their children [38, 71, 79, 83]. New mothers reported that the lockdown represented an opportunity to have more freedom to enjoy their babies, to learn about them, to bond with babies alone, and to experience an improved breastfeeding journey [81, 84, 85]. The lockdown allowed parents to be more involved in their children’s lives [69]. The pandemic situation helped them improve their listening, relational, and educational abilities, and enhanced dialogue in the family and the quality of time shared with children [43, 51, 86, 87], and it helped them contribute to the child’s psycho-social development [88]. In some cases, new common interests were developed [56], and children helped parents more in the household chores [79]. Families ate together more often during the lockdown [66], and more time was spent cooking together with children particularly in families with more educated parents [64].

Parents who experienced more loneliness or stress also perceived more adverse change in their parenting and interpersonal difficulties with their children [51, 89]. The meal time atmosphere quality improved during the lockdown, but not for those parents who became more stressed at home [64]. Parents of older children and children affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD) reported experiencing more difficulty ensuring their child’s cognitive, affective, basic, and security needs were met than parents of younger children [42, 80]. Mothers who experienced financial loss were more likely to have higher child abuse risk scores [89]. Parent-child relationships were more difficult for separated families with shared custody, and some children were not able to access parents who lived across state borders [56].

During the lockdown, only a minority of families remained food secure, while mild, moderate, and severe forms of food insecurity increased [36]. Some families experienced “money worries,” while others faced serious deprivation, e.g., worries for paying rent or mortgages, and having enough money to buy food or other essentials such as household utilities and medications, or worries related to future needs and possibility to afford them [56, 61]. One study found that 10% of parents lost their jobs and had financial difficulties as a consequence of the lockdown [92]. Mothers experienced relatively harsher financial hardship than fathers [48], and more mothers than fathers extended their working hours in the first months of the pandemic [93].

In terms of perceived work productivity and job satisfaction, studies found that, before the COVID-19 lockdown, women’s perceived work productivity was as high as men’s, while, during lockdown (and particularly during the early period), women reported being less productive than men and less satisfied with their job [91, 94, 95].

The lockdown made conciliating paid and unpaid work burdensome and beyond the capabilities of many parents because of an increased amount of tasks concerning the household and the management of the family [56, 75, 90], with some having to work late into the night in order to manage their job and home schooling at the same time [56]. Families particularly missed the support of friends and family who used to help with childcare and chores [56]. The presence of the father at home was experienced positively in terms of support but negatively due to the increased confusion and necessary planning [81]. At times, husbands appeared to be unhelpful and indifferent to cleanliness standards, and they were considered an assistance for women [62].

Studies consistently showed the presence of gender disparities in the distribution of paid and unpaid work during the lockdown. While both mothers and fathers reported spending more hours per day on housework and childcare during the lockdown than before, women reported spending more hours than men in unpaid work, perpetuating or aggravating an already unequal pre-pandemic distribution of tasks [35, 48, 86, 93–96]. Mothers had to organize childcare and home-schooling and complete household chores much more often than fathers and, consequently, they had much less time for paid work, for themselves, and to focus on their career, and they felt more often exhausted, nervous, and insecure than fathers [65, 90, 97]. In one study conducted in Italy, increased participation by fathers overtook that of mothers only when mothers continued to go to their usual place of work and their partner did not work because of the pandemic, but even under these circumstances, fathers were increasingly involved in childcare but not in housekeeping [98].

Contrary to mothers, fathers were more likely to report they had been impacted positively by the lockdown since they got to spend more time with their children [97]. Moreover, while women’s housework was not affected by their partners’ working arrangement during the pandemic, men were more likely to spend additional time on chores when their partners were working [98]. Higher educated parents, healthcare workers, single parents, and parents with primary school children had a significantly greater chance to face increased difficulty combining paid work and childcare during the lockdown [47, 56, 62, 96].

However, one study indicated small shifts toward a more equal division of labor in the early lockdown period, with increased participation in housework and childcare by fathers [99]. Gender gaps in paid vs. unpaid work time, and satisfaction with work-family balance and partner’s share narrowed because the relative increase in childcare was higher for fathers and because more fathers also felt less satisfied during lockdown than they had before [100].