The burdens of poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic

Publikationstyp:
Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Metadaten:
Abstract
<jats:sec><jats:title>Background</jats:title><jats:p>Individuals living at-risk-of-poverty have an increased risk of poor mental health. The pandemic and its societal impacts might have negative effects especially on this group widening the gap between rich and poor and also exacerbate gender gaps, which in turn might impact social cohesion.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Aim</jats:title><jats:p>The objective of this longitudinal study was to determine if people living at-risk-of-poverty were more vulnerable to economic and psychosocial impacts of the pandemic and showed poorer mental health. Moreover, gender differences were analyzed.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Method</jats:title><jats:p>We drew data from a sample of <jats:italic>N</jats:italic> = 10,250 respondents of two time points (T1 starting from October 2020, T2 starting from March 2021) of the Gutenberg COVID-19 Study. We tested for differences between people living at-risk-of-poverty and more affluent respondents regarding economic impacts, psychosocial stressors, as well as depressiveness, anxiety and loneliness, by comparing mean and distributional differences. To test for significant discrepancy, we opted for chi-square- and <jats:italic>t</jats:italic>-tests.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>The analysis sample compromised <jats:italic>N</jats:italic> = 8,100 individuals of which 4,2% could be classified as living at-risk-of-poverty. 23% of respondents living at-risk-of-poverty had a decrease in income since the beginning of the pandemic–twice as many as those not living at-risk-of-poverty, who reported more often an increase in income. Less affluent individuals reported a decrease in working hours, while more affluent people reported an increase. Between our survey time points, we found a significant decrease in these economic impacts. Gender differences for economic changes were only found for more affluent women who worked more hours with no change in income. Less affluent respondents were more impacted by psychosocial stressors, depressiveness, anxiety, and loneliness. Gender differences were found particularly with regard to care responsibilities.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Discussion</jats:title><jats:p>Our results indicate a widening in the gap between the rich and the poor at the beginning of the pandemic. Gender differences concerning economic changes affect more affluent women, but women in both income groups are more burdened by care responsibilities, which might indicate a heightened resurgence of gender role in times of crisis. This increase in inequality might have impacted social cohesion.</jats:p></jats:sec>
Autoren
  • Julia Petersen
  • Nora Hettich
  • Rieke Baumkötter
  • Philipp S Wild
  • Norbert Pfeiffer
  • Thomas Münzel
  • Jochem König
  • Karl J Lackner
  • Manfred E Beutel
DOI
10.3389/fsoc.2022.995318
eISSN
2297-7775
Zeitschrift
Frontiers in Sociology
Online publication date
2022
Status
Published online
Herausgeber
Frontiers Media SA
Herausgeber URL
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.995318
Datum der Datenerfassung
2022
Titel
The burdens of poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic
Ausgabe der Zeitschrift
7

Datenquelle: Crossref

Andere Metadatenquellen:
Author's licence
CC-BY
Autoren
  • Julia Petersen
  • Nora Hettich
  • Rieke Baumkötter
  • Philipp S Wild
  • Norbert Pfeiffer
  • Thomas Münzel
  • Jochem König
  • Karl J Lackner
  • Manfred E Beutel
Hosting institution
Universitätsbibliothek Mainz
Sammlungen
  • DFG-491381577-G
Resource version
Published version
DOI
10.3389/fsoc.2022.995318
Funding acknowledgements
  • Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 491381577
File(s) embargoed
false
Open access
true
ISSN
2297-7775
Zeitschrift
Frontiers in sociology
Schlüsselwörter
  • 610 Medizin
  • 610 Medical sciences
Sprache
eng
Open access status
Open Access
Paginierung
995318
Datum der Veröffentlichung
2022
Public URL
https://openscience.ub.uni-mainz.de/handle/20.500.12030/8680
Herausgeber
Frontiers Media
Datum der Datenerfassung
2023
Datum, an dem der Datensatz öffentlich gemacht wurde
2023
Zugang
Public
Titel
The burdens of poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic
Ausgabe der Zeitschrift
7

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Datenquelle: OPENSCIENCE.UB

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