COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on distress level differ by social group
Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on subjective wellbeing, income and time use varied across social groups, according to study results published in PLOS One.
“We wanted to see where we are now, 1 year after the outbreak of the pandemic in the U.K., with three national lockdowns and other various measures to contain the virus,” Muzhi Zhou, of the department of sociology at the University of Oxford in the U.K., told Healio Psychiatry. “Currently, we know little about the relatively longer-term impact of the pandemic.”
Zhou and co-author Man-Yee Kan, also of the department of sociology at the University of Oxford, investigated how different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.K. affected earning, time use and subjective wellbeing among various social groups.
They analyzed data of 51,000 individuals aged 16 or older from approximately 40,000 households who participated in the U.K. Household Longitudinal Survey (UKHLS) COVID study, as well as in earlier waves of this study. Specifically, they examined within-individual changes in labor income, paid work time, housework time, child care time and distress level during the three lockdown periods and the easing period in between, all of which occurred between April 2020 and late March of this year.
Results showed a reduction in average earnings and hours worked per week among those who worked as well as an increase in weekly housework hours and an increase in distress levels at the beginning of the pandemic. These effects varied by gender and ethnicity and between degree and non-degree holders.
For example, the decline in paid work hours was smaller for female workers during the first lockdown, explained partly by the higher proportion of women working in essential sectors; however, men’s paid work time recovered more quickly than women’s after the first lockdown. Women had much higher initial elevations in distress levels than men during the first month of the lockdown; however, as women’s subjective wellbeing recovered, men saw an increase in distress levels. Black, Asian and individuals from other underrepresented groups experienced more negative effects regarding earnings than white individuals, with an earnings gap that remained after easing of lockdown restrictions.
“The negative impacts of the spread of COVID-19 and its related measures vary not only in their extent but also in their speed among different social groups,” Zhou and Kan wrote. “Further research should be conducted to understand factors that have driven these social inequalities and to monitor how inequalities based on gender, educational level and ethnic minority status might be persistent or even exacerbated in the long term.”