Coping with the COVID-19 lockdown: The role of household and family responsibilities in Beijing

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic combined with lockdown measures fundamentally changed urban family life worldwide. This article compares how different household types—singles, couples, nuclear families, and extended families—experienced the lockdown during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing. It argues that not only the household responsibilities associated with household types at the household level, but also the family responsibilities on a larger geographical scale must be considered to understand the challenges faced by different households under the COVID-19 lockdown in urban China, where intergenerational supports such as family responsibilities to other generations living apart are prevalent during the pre-pandemic stage due to the collectivist culture. This article contributes the lens of household diversity and geographic distance to understanding everyday lives of families under lockdown and to reflect on family transformation in urban China over the past decades more broadly. Through the study of families, it also has implications for neighborhood planning and management aimed at mitigating a pandemic’s negative impacts.