Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: objective changes and subjective evaluation in comparison to reference groups
Final Report Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken in response have led to a severe economic crisis and significant changes in living conditions. The project focused on the economic impact of the pandemic in the form of changes in employment and income. In addition to objective changes, in particular the subjective assessment of these changes was examined. The project was based on the general hypothesis that the subjective view of the consequences of the pandemic, i.e. the question of perceptions and evaluations, is important for assessing the social impact of the pandemic in addition to objectively ascertainable factors. In particular, the question of what role comparisons with different reference groups (people in their personal environment, in Germany or in the EU) play in the perception and assessment of the economic impact was examined. The central data basis of the project was provided by a panel survey conducted in four waves from March 2020 to August 2022, which was already started in an earlier project and expanded in the current project (SOECBIAS/COVREF data). In addition, labour market data at county level and on COVID-19 incidence as well as Eurobarometer data were used. As expected, there is a correlation between objective changes in employment and income and the subjective economic impact. A key finding is that on average people consider themselves to be less affected than others. This applies to their immediate social circle, people in Germany and people in the EU. Groups further away are considered to be more affected. With regard to differences according to socio-economic status groups, it can be seen that low status groups, like their own affectedness, also rate the affectedness of others as higher. We also looked at how these assessments affect life satisfaction. As expected, it was found that people who consider themselves to be more affected than others have a lower level of life satisfaction. However, comparisons, as would be assumed according to the concept of relative deprivation, do not appear to play a central role here. The results are driven by people who perceive themselves as very strongly affected and therefore as more affected than others. Over the observation period from 2020 to 2022, fundamental patterns remain relatively stable, even if gradual changes can be observed. However, there are signs that the crises triggered in connection with Russia's war against Ukraine are having a greater impact on subjective economic concerns and economic uncertainty than the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it cannot be ruled out that the accumulation of crises is having an impact here.
Publications
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SOECBIAS Data Set. GESIS, Köln. Datenfile Version 1.0.0
Beblo, Miriam, Bublitz, Elisabeth, Jäger, Julian, Lohmann, Henning & Wang, Hequn
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SOECBIAS/COVREF Data Set: Income, (Mis-)Perceptions, Redistributive Preferences and Economic Affectedness in times of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Method Report, Hamburg.
Lohmann, Henning; Wang, Hequn & Eggers, Nico
