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Even More Work for Mother? Online Schooling and Asymmetric Parental Involvement during the Pandemic in Indonesia

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After Latour: Globalisation, Inequity and Climate Change (IFIPJWC 2023)

Part of the book series: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology ((IFIPAICT,volume 696))

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Abstract

In this paper, we investigate accounts of what online schools meant for the paid and unpaid work done by women during Covid-19. When schools closed, and online schools started in Indonesia, parents were faced with restructuring the activities their children had earlier carried out at school and that were now centered at home. They also dealt with the introduction of digital technology in households. How did women (mothers specifically) negotiate these changes and what were the implications of these changes for their work burden? To understand this, we carried out a study in Batu, Indonesia, with heterosexual families that had multiple primary school-age children dealing with the transition from in-person to online schooling between March and May 2021.

Rather than a silver bullet for freeing up time, the introduction of information systems and digital technology into schooling merely added another task to the list of unpaid work that women perform. We use an Actor-Network lens but bring in the role of ideology to understand how networks are configured in times of change. How did mothers cope with the disproportionate burden of tasks related to online schooling that fell on them? Throughout, we found that mothers remained the dominant actors organizing their children’s online schooling, regardless of which parent earned more, had more free time from paid work, or was more digitally literate. We argue that since a gendered ideology underpins this reality, interventions such as online schooling cannot be designed in a gender-blind or gender-neutral manner.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Maseiro (2020) and Oreglia and Srinivasan (2016) for a review of this literature and the range of themes covered.

  2. 2.

    The possession of benggol (money) and bonggol (sexual virility) are seen as desirable masculine attributes [15] with Lelananging Jagad (or the most masculine man in the entire universe) being one that’s powerful, handsome and has many wives [44]. Women and the attributes associated with them, on the other hand, ​​are considered subordinate [15]. The very term “Wanita,” which stands for “Women” in Javanese comes from the words wani (brave) and tapa (suffering). Wanita means someone who dares to suffer for others [18]. The widely used adage “Suwarga nunut neraka katut” – that the husband decides whether his wife will go to heaven or hell – indicates how a woman/wife is expected to fit into the family of the man, and the extent to which a wife’s life should depend on her husband’s. Thus, when a husband goes to heaven or hell, so does his wife. This happens even where a wife’s own actions may have earned her paradise but her husband’s would lead her to hell – the wife’s position is in hell merely because that is where her husband is headed, and her fate depends on her husband’s [24].

  3. 3.

    The pandemic was challenging for Susi’s family. At the pandemic’s beginning, Ridho, Susi’s husband, had a nervous breakdown. As a result, the family had to stop using cars because only Ridho could drive a car. In the end, Susi had to open a kiosk and sell her wares. However, she earned very little, and the family had to sell its car to make ends meet during the pandemic. Ridho often complained about the difficulty of even getting food for them.

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Acknowledgements

This work was carried out as part of the first author’s masters thesis at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore, (IIITB), supervised by the second author.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wahana Visi Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia

    Hotma Uli Octavia Tampubolon

  2. International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIITB), Bengaluru, India

    Janaki Srinivasan

Authors
  1. Hotma Uli Octavia Tampubolon
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  2. Janaki Srinivasan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hotma Uli Octavia Tampubolon .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Matthew R. Jones

  2. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Arunima S. Mukherjee

  3. University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

    Devinder Thapa

  4. University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Yingqin Zheng

Appendices

Annexure 1

figure a

Annexure 2

Table of Respondent

Family members

Relationship

School

Job

Mischa

Sarmi

Mother

 

Food seller

Thomas

Father

 

Driver

Gilang

1st Son

 

hotel broker

Agnes

1st daughter

Public

student

Hana

2nd daughter

Private

student

Grace

3rd daughter

Public

student

Mischa

4th daughter

Public

student

Jio

Susi

Mother

 

Kiosk seller

Ridho

Father

  

Aza

1st Daughter

Private

student

Jio

2nd Son

Private

student

Olivia

Rina

Mother

 

Private School Teacher

John

Father

 

car/motorcycle repair worker

Jevon

Son

Private

student

Olivia

daughter

Private

student

Atta

Nina

Mother

 

Food seller

Baro

Father

 

Food seller

Atta

Son

Public

student

Aro

Son

Public

student

Ipah

Sela

Mother

 

Village treasure and Villa caretaker

Opik

Father

 

Hotel employee

Ipah

Daughter

Public

student

Aloysius

Gina

Mother

 

Civil servant

Supratman

Father

 

Cook

Aloysius

Son

Public

student

Juni

Elvira

Mother

 

Public School Teacher

Ari

Father

 

Private sector worker

Juni

daughter

Private

student

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Tampubolon, H.U.O., Srinivasan, J. (2023). Even More Work for Mother? Online Schooling and Asymmetric Parental Involvement during the Pandemic in Indonesia. In: Jones, M.R., Mukherjee, A.S., Thapa, D., Zheng, Y. (eds) After Latour: Globalisation, Inequity and Climate Change. IFIPJWC 2023. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 696. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50154-8_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50154-8_14

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