Family Harmony in the COVID-19 Pandemic among Housewives in Malang

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic spreads quickly and affects various aspects of human life, one of which is family life. This study aims to describe family harmony, especially for housewives accompanying their children in distance learning. This study uses samples from a group of housewives in Malang. The family harmony scale was used to collect information about family harmony, while the interviews were used to find the factors that promote and hamper family harmony. The data is analyzed by a mixed-method.  The results showed that the career housewives did not experience a significant negative effect from the pandemic. The promoting factors involve good communication, appreciation, acceptance of strengths and weaknesses, understanding the wills of family members, open communication and supporting among family members. The hampering factors are poor communication, lack of quality of time, poor of economy, selfishness, emotional acts, and low awareness and sensibility to the people in the workplace and the neighbourhood. This research results could be used to facilitate housewife to manage their family after COVID-19 pandemic to create more harmony family.