COVID-19 lockdowns ‘deepened social inequality’

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• Lockdown measures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have changed people’s lives.
• Different social groups felt these changes disproportionately.
• Future research is needed to determine if, how and why these social inequalities persist.

The UK officially announced its first lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic on March 23, 2020. In the months that followed, there were two more national bans.

The lockdowns resulted in unprecedented changes in people’s lives, but not all of those changes ended when the lockdowns were over.

A current study, which appeared in the open access journal PLOS ONE, examines the longer-term effects of COVID-19 on different dimensions of different social groups.

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Researchers at the University of Oxford, UK, used data from the first eight waves of the UK Household Longitudinal Survey on COVID-19 – from March 2020 to March 2021. They also used data from the main survey from two waves before the pandemic – from 2017 to 2019 .

The panel survey includes a representative sample of 51,000 adults from around 40,000 households. The researchers reached out to people aged 20 to 65 who were taking part in the main study to ask them to take part in the COVID-19 add-on study. This required monthly online reporting from April 2020. In May 2020, the researchers added the option of reporting by telephone.

A total of almost 16,000 people responded, which corresponds to a response rate of 42%.

The authors reviewed the effects of COVID-19 and COVID-19-induced measures, as reported by the surveyed population.

The researchers were particularly interested in how incomes, their use of time and their well-being changed during the different phases of the pandemic. They also wanted to determine whether these factors varied based on the gender, ethnicity, and educational level of the respondents.

Many of the measures officials have taken to contain the spread of COVID-19 have included reducing physical contact between people. As a result, the first wave of lockdowns had an immediate impact on global social behavior.

For example, store closures and remote working changed work patterns. Countries that introduced lockdown measures, such as the UK, Australia and the United States, saw immediate cuts in labor income.

Studies carried out in the UK after the initial lockdown showed that women and parents had a more negative impact on their subjective well-being than that of other social groups. Black, Asian, and ethnic minority immigrants were also more likely to experience economic difficulties.

“We often focus only on cases and hospital stays, ICU use and mortality rates, but it’s important to consider the social impact as well,” Richard M. Carpiano, Ph.D., said in an interview with Medical News Today .

Carpiano is a health scientist and medical sociologist. “A pandemic is just as much a sociological phenomenon as the spread of a virus.”

As the number of lockdowns increased, people’s health and general well-being changed, not just because of the possibility or fact of contracting SARS-CoV-2, but also because of the worry and stress that came with it.

The study showed that at the start of the pandemic, people who were employed saw a decline in median income and weekly hours worked. There was also an increase in exercise intensity.

The data suggests that the mental health of most adults in the UK has returned to pre-pandemic levels after the initial lockdown, but that was not the case for all.

Another study that appears in The Lancet supports this observation. It found that 1 in 9 people did not experience any improvement in their mental health after the initial ban was lifted.

These persistent lockdown effects differed by gender, ethnicity, and between graduate and non-graduate holders. For example, during the first lockdown, the decline in wages was smaller for women than for men, possibly due to a higher proportion of women working in key sectors. Later, however, men’s paid working hours recovered faster than women’s.

The subjective well-being of women initially suffered more than that of men. Then, as women’s subjective well-being began to recover, men’s levels of suffering began to rise.

In terms of income, black, Asian, and marginalized ethnic people were more affected than white people. This income gap persisted after lockdown restrictions were relaxed.

The researchers conclude that the long-running pandemic and the associated restrictions have persistent negative consequences for income, work patterns and subjective well-being.

Author Muzhi Zhou spoke to MNT about the study:

“Some changes in social inequality seem to go away after lockdowns are lifted, while other changes persist throughout the year. It is worrying to see that deeper social inequality for certain social groups could be long-term. “

The study concludes with the statement: “The negative effects of the spread of COVID-19 and the associated measures vary not only in their extent, but also in their speed between different social groups.”

The authors suggest further research to understand the factors that drove and exacerbated these social inequalities. To underline their point of view, they quote the poet Damian Barr: “We are in the same storm, but we are not all in the same boat.”

Regarding future research, Zhou told MNT, “I think given the richness of this ongoing data set and the growing number of people who are contracting [SARS-CoV-2], it is time to investigate whether positive and negative COVID-19 test results have different effects on people of different social groups. In addition, the question of whether people react and behave differently after vaccination is another very interesting topic. “

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source https://www.bisayanews.com/2021/10/01/covid-19-lockdowns-deepened-social-inequality/