Support measures during COVID-19

05 July 2021

Source: Living, working and COVID-19 datatset

 Topics: Subjective well-being Trust COVID-19 Living conditions and quality of life

Eurofound’s unique e-survey, Living, working and COVID-19, provides a snapshot of the impact of the pandemic on people’s lives, with the aim of helping policymakers to bring about an equal recovery from the crisis. Three rounds of the e-survey have been carried out to date.

  • Round 1: Launched on 9 April 2020 when most Member States were in their first lockdown
  • Round 2: July 2020 when economies and societies were gradually reopening
  • Round 3: March 2021, almost a year on, as countries were still dealing with various levels of lockdown to curb the spread of new strains of the virus, while vaccination programmes were rolled out.

The data cover a range of questions about the availability, take-up of and satisfaction with support measures offered to citizens and businesses during the pandemic. Compare the data for each round and explore by country, gender and age.

Key findings

  • Citizens’ satisfaction with crisis support measures has declined dramatically with only 12% now feeling support measures are fair, down from 22% in summer 2020. Those who felt obtaining support was easy and efficient also fell from 16% in summer 2020 to 10% in spring 2021. Close to one in ten respondents have had a request for financial support rejected. Large country differences have appeared with up to 40% of people in Ireland and Malta expressing positive support for measures, but less than 15% in Germany and Spain viewing measures positively.   
  • Clear communication and comprehensive information on the provision of and access to financial support will be required if trust and perceptions of fairness in the provision of support are to improve.

Background and data collection

Suggested citation

Eurofound (2020), Living, working and COVID-19 dataset, Dublin, http://eurofound.link/covid19data

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In light of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union on 31 January 2020, it should be noted that data published on the Eurofound website may include the 28 EU Member States, as the UK was covered in earlier research. This will be progressively amended to reflect the current composition of the 27 EU Member States.

COVID-19 data

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