Fifth round of the Living, working and COVID-19 e-survey: Living in a new era of uncertainty
Objavljeno: 6 July 2022
The fifth round of Eurofound's e-survey, fielded from 25 March to 2 May 2022, sheds light on the social and economic situation of people across Europe two years after COVID-19 was first detected on the European continent. It also explores the reality of living in a new era of uncertainty caused by the war in Ukraine, inflation, and rising energy prices.
The findings of the e-survey reveal the heavy toll of the pandemic, with respondents reporting lower trust in institutions than at the start of the pandemic, poorer mental well-being, a rise in the level of unmet healthcare needs and an increase in the number of households experiencing energy poverty.
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Trust in all institutions and across all Member States continued to fall during the pandemic, with even those respondents who previously expressed higher trust levels, such as people in financially secure positions, becoming less trusting. Non-vaccinated respondents also report much lower trust in institutions than those who are vaccinated, and the gap has widened since 2021 with a trust score of 2.3 out of 10 for the non-vaccinated respondents compared to 5 for the vaccinated.
Social media emerges as a key driver of declining trust, with an average trust score of 3 out of 10 for respondents who use social media as their preferred news source, which is much lower than 4.2 for those preferring traditional media. It will be critical for policymakers to combat the spread of misinformation to avoid undermining the stability of the Union in the coming period.
Unmet healthcare needs have increased across the EU affecting almost one in five respondents (18%). The backlog in care is highest for hospital and specialist care with unmet mental healthcare, especially for women (24%), having increased since spring 2021, causing particular concern.
Mental well-being in the EU remains below the level recorded at the start of the pandemic, despite the phasing out of restrictions. 18- to 29-year-olds still report the lowest levels of mental well-being and although older age groups have improved, the over 60s report a marked deterioration in mental health. This can probably be attributed to the war in Ukraine for which 76% of respondents expressed high or very high concern.
A large number of financially vulnerable households were at serious risk of energy poverty in spring 2022. 28% of respondents reported living in a household that is behind on utility bills and has difficulties making ends meet, while 45% of this group are worried they will not be able to pay their utility bills over the next three months.
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The factsheet contains the following list of tables and figures.
Table 1: Proportion of respondents reporting arrears, EU27 (%)
Figure 1: Proportion of people who became unemployed during the pandemic by country, EU27 (%)
Figure 4: Proportion of people in teleworkable jobs who never telework (%)
Figure 5: Work–life balance mismatches by sex (% ‘all’ or ‘most of the time’)
Figure 7a: Negative feelings and risk of depression by age category (%) - feeling tense
Figure 7b: Negative feelings and risk of depression by age category (%) - feeling lonely
Figure 7c: Negative feelings and risk of depression by age category (%) - feeling depressed
Figure 7d: Negative feelings and risk of depression by age category (%) - at risk of depression
Figure 8: Proportion of people at risk of depression among selected groups (%)
Figure 10: Unmet needs for healthcare by type of healthcare, EU27 (%)
Figure 11: Unmet needs for mental healthcare by age category, EU27 (%)
Figure 12: Ability to make ends meet by level of difficulty, EU27 (%)
Figure 13: Proportion of respondents with utility bill arrears by housing status, EU27 (%)
Figure 14: Correlation between current utility bill arrears and expected payment problems by country (%)
Figure 15a: Trust in institutions – mean scores (scale 1–10), EU27
Figure 15b: Trust in institutions – spring 2021 questions – mean scores (scale 1–10), EU27
Figure 16: Trust in the EU by country and e-survey round – mean scores (scale 1–10), EU27
Figure 17: Trust in national government by ability to make ends meet (scale 1–10)
Figure 18: Trust in the EU by ability to make ends meet and e-survey round (scale 1–10)
Figure 19: Trust in national government by employment status (scale 1–10)
Figure 20: Trust in the EU by employment status (scale 1–10)
Figure 21: Trust in institutions by preferred news source – mean scores (scale 1–10), EU27
Figure 22: Political participation by vaccination status – mean scores, EU27 (%)
Podcast
Listen to our Eurofound Talks podcast on 'Living in a new era of uncertainty'
The worst of the Covid pandemic may have passed, but in households across Europe its effects linger longer. Add today’s cost of living crisis, rising inflation and the war in Ukraine to the detrimental impacts of Covid and a distressing picture emerges: of mental health issues - especially among young people - of job loss and job insecurity, and of persistent uncertainty about the future. In this episode of #EurofoundTalks, we speak with Daphne Ahrendt, expert on Eurofound’s unique Living, Working and COVID-19 e-survey, on these very issues. As Daphne explains, the latest phase of the survey reveals many insights that could help policy-makers respond to the extraordinary circumstances of day-to-day living and working in Europe.
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Eurofound (2022), Fifth round of the Living, working and COVID-19 e-survey: Living in a new era of uncertainty, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.
ISBN
978-92-897-2268-1
Broj stranica
17
Referentni broj
EF22042EN
ISBN
978-92-897-2268-1
Kataloški broj
TJ-08-22-185-EN-N
DOI
10.2806/190361
Trajna poveznica
http://eurofound.link/ef22042
Aktivnost
Ovaj odjeljak pruža pristup sadržaju koji je povezan s publikacijom.
7 December 2022
Living, working and COVID-19 in the European Union and 10 EU neighbouring countries
The Living, working and COVID-19 survey, first launched by Eurofound in early 2020, aims to capture the wide-ranging impact of the pandemic on the work and lives of EU citizens. The fifth round of the Eurofound survey, which was implemented in spring 2022, also sheds light on a new uncertain reality caused by the war in Ukraine, record-high inflation and sharp rises in the cost of living. As a pilot survey, a shorter version of the questionnaire was fielded by the European Training Foundation (ETF) in 10 European Union (EU) neighbouring countries. This joint Eurofound-ETF factsheet presents a selection of results from the survey covering both the EU-27 and the 10 selected EU neighbouring countries.
The results reveal at least one clear commonality across respondents from all countries: serious concerns about the rising cost of living. At the same time, the results point to a large divergence in living and working conditions between respondents in the two groups of countries, but also show large differences within the EU itself and amongst the selected EU neighbouring countries.
9 May 2021
Living, working and COVID-19 (Update April 2021): Mental health and trust decline across EU as pandemic enters another year
The third round of Eurofound's e-survey, fielded in February and March 2021, sheds light on the social and economic situation of people across Europe following nearly a full year of living with COVID-19 restrictions. This report analyses the main findings and tracks ongoing developments and trends across the 27 EU Member States since the survey was first launched in April 2020. It pinpoints issues that have surfaced over the course of the pandemic, such as increased job insecurity due to the threat of job loss, decline in mental well-being levels, erosion of recent gains in gender equality, fall in trust levels vis-à-vis institutions, deterioration of work–life balance and growth of vaccine hesitancy. The results of the survey highlight the need for a holistic approach to support all the groups hit hard by the crisis in order to prevent them from falling further behind.
11 July 2022
