effect of lockdown essay

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

The good, the bad and the ugly of lockdowns during Covid-19

Contributed equally to this work with: Talita Greyling, Stephanie Rossouw, Tamanna Adhikari

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Economics, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation School of Economics, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

• Talita Greyling, 
• Stephanie Rossouw, 
• Tamanna Adhikari

• Published: January 22, 2021
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

Amidst the rapid global spread of Covid-19, many governments enforced country-wide lockdowns, with likely severe well-being consequences. In this regard, South Africa is an extreme case suffering from low levels of well-being, but at the same time enforcing very strict lockdown regulations. In this study, we analyse the causal effect of a lockdown and consequently, the determinants of happiness during the aforementioned. A difference-in-difference approach is used to make causal inferences on the lockdown effect on happiness, and an OLS estimation investigates the determinants of happiness after lockdown. The results show that the lockdown had a significant and negative impact on happiness. In analysing the determinants of happiness after lockdown, we found that stay-at-home orders have positively impacted happiness during this period. On the other hand, other lockdown regulations such as a ban on alcohol sales, a fear of becoming unemployed and a greater reliance on social media have negative effects, culminating in a net loss in happiness. Interestingly, Covid-19, proxied by new deaths per day, had an inverted U-shape relationship with happiness. Seemingly people were, at the onset of Covid-19 positive and optimistic about the low fatality rates and the high recovery rates. However, as the pandemic progressed, they became more concerned, and this relationship changed and became negative, with peoples' happiness decreasing as the number of new deaths increased.

Citation: Greyling T, Rossouw S, Adhikari T (2021) The good, the bad and the ugly of lockdowns during Covid-19. PLoS ONE 16(1): e0245546. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546

Editor: Francesco Di Gennaro, National Institute for Infectious Diseases Lazzaro Spallanzani-IRCCS, ITALY

Received: July 29, 2020; Accepted: December 30, 2020; Published: January 22, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Greyling et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: The following authors received salaries from their institutions, whom were also the funders of the research. 1. Prof T Greyling: University of Johannesburg via the University Research Fund. 2. Dr Stephanie Rossouw: Auckland University of Technology via the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

1. Introduction

In an attempt to curb the spread of Covid-19 and minimise the loss of life, governments around the world have imposed their version of mandatory self-isolation through implementing lockdown regulations. Unfortunately, restricting people's mobility and depriving them of what matters most might intensify the negative effect on happiness levels.

In an extreme country case, this might be amplified. In this study, we treat an extreme country as a country with very strict lockdown regulations, with likely high infection rates, amidst low levels of well-being. We define well-being as those aspects of life that society collectively agrees are important for a person's quality of life, happiness and welfare. One of the dimensions of well-being, material (income) hinges on a bleak economic outlook.

To this end, our primary aim in this study is to use the Gross National Happiness Index (GNH), a real-time measure of well-being, derived from Big Data, to investigate if lockdown regulations in itself caused a decrease in happiness. Secondly, we determine which factors matter most (factors significantly influencing happiness) to happiness under these changed circumstances. We accomplish these aims by using two econometric techniques: difference-in-difference (DiD) and ordinary least squares (OLS).

Against this backdrop, the current study makes several contributions to the literature:

• Determining whether lockdown regulations cause a decline in happiness –in an extreme country case scenario.
• Investigating specifically the determinants of happiness during a lockdown, whereas other studies have focused on mental well-being and related matters (see section 2).
• Being one of the few studies (see also Rossouw, Greyling and Adhikari; Greyling, Rossouw and Adhikari [ 1 , 2 ]) that investigates the effect of lockdown on happiness making use of real-time Big Data . Other studies such as Hamermesh [ 3 ] and Brodeur et al. [ 4 ] also use Big Data, though limited to Google Trends (see section 2).

These results give policymakers the necessary information to take action in increasing the happiness of the nation and set the scene for increased economic, social and political well-being. It also allows them to reflect on happiness outcomes due to their policy actions. An additional benefit of the current study is that policymakers do not need to wait for extended periods to see the consequences of their policies, as we are making use of real-time data, with immediate information. Usually, policymakers can only evaluate their own decision making, with significant time-lags, prolonging the implementation of corrective actions.

Our results indicate lockdown itself causes a decrease in happiness. Furthermore, in an extreme country case (a country under stringent lockdown regulations coupled with low levels of well-being) what matters most to happiness under lockdown is the factors directly linked to the regulations that were implemented. These factors can be classified as (i) social capital issues; lack of access to alcohol (and tobacco), increased social media usage, and more time to spend at home, of which all are negatively related to happiness except the stay-at-home factor, and (ii) economic issues; concerns over jobs and the threat of retrenchments, which are negatively related to happiness. The finding on the stay-at-home order is interesting as even though lockdown itself caused a decline in happiness, it seems that people adjust and over time begin to appreciate the benefits of staying at home.

Noteworthy is that Covid-19, proxied by new deaths per day, had an inverted U-shape relationship to happiness. Seemingly people were, at the onset of Covid-19, positive and optimistic as the fatality rate was relatively low and recovery rates high. However, as the pandemic progressed, they became more concerned, and this relationship changed and became negative, with peoples' happiness decreasing as the number of new Covid-19 deaths increased.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. The next section contains a brief background on South Africa and briefly discusses literature about happiness and studies conducted on the impacts of pandemics and consequently lockdown regulations. Section 3 describes the data, the selected variables and outlines the methodology used. The results follow in section 4, while the paper concludes in section 5.

2. Background and literature review

2.1 south africa.

In this study, we focus on South Africa because it presents us with a unique case to investigate the effect of a lockdown on happiness when levels of well-being are already low. Health and income, two dimensions of well-being, was significantly affected, although in opposite directions. Health was positively affected by the lockdown since it limited the spread of Covid-19. At the stage of writing the paper (3 June 2020), the number of new Covid-19 cases were nearly 120,000 (John Hopkins University [ 5 ]). On the other hand, the economic outlook of the country, and therefore peoples' incomes, was negatively affected. This opposite effect has led to significant debates on the value of the implementation of the lockdown.

Furthermore, South Africa implemented one of the most stringent lockdown regulations (comparable to the Philippines and Jordan), which exacerbated the costs to well-being and the economy while already experiencing a severe economic downturn. Therefore, South Africa is an example of an extreme country case which unfortunately amplifies the effects of the difficult choices made by policymakers. Therefore, we take advantage of this unique country case and determine how stringent lockdown regulations impact happiness during a one in 100-year event.

In South Africa, there are five levels of differing lockdown regulations, with alert level 5 being the most stringent and alert level 1 the most relaxed. The idea behind these levels is to curb the spread of Covid-19 and give time to South Africa's health system to prepare itself. Additionally, as they move down in levels, South Africans receive increasingly more of their previous liberties back. During level 5, which was announced 23 March 2020 and implemented on 27 March 2020, South Africans were only allowed to leave their homes to purchase or produce essential goods. All South Africans were instructed to work from home, there was no travel allowed, the sale of alcohol and tobacco were banned, people were not allowed to exercise outside their homes, and the police and defence force ensured compliance to the restrictions. South Africa moved to level 4 lockdown on 01 May 2020. With this move, they received back the ability to exercise outside from 6 am—9 am, purchase more than just essential goods, including food deliveries as long as it was within curfew.

Interestingly, the sale of alcohol and tobacco was still banned. On 01 June they moved to level 3, allowing restricted sales of alcohol (Mondays to Thursdays) and the re-opening of certain businesses. However, the services industry, especially beauty and tourism, remained closed. At the time of writing this paper, South Africa was still under level 3 lockdown.

Whereas everybody understands that the Covid-19 infections curve needs to be flattened, there are grave concerns that these stringent lockdown regulations will also flatline South Africa's well-being and economy. Before the Covid-19 lockdown, South Africa's average happiness levels were 6.32 compared to an average of 7.23 and 7.16 in Australia and New Zealand, respectively (Greyling et al. [ 2 ]). Furthermore, South Africa had a 29 per cent unemployment rate, and the gross domestic product (GDP) has been estimated to shrink by 7 per cent in 2020 (Bureau of Economic Analysis [ 6 ]). According to the South African Reserve Bank [ 7 ], an additional 3 to 7 million people can potentially become unemployed as a direct consequence of the pandemic, thereby increasing unemployment rates to approximately 50 per cent. The country's sovereign credit rating was downgraded to junk status in March 2020, which impacted on political stability, the level of the national debt and debt interest payments. Add to this already grim situation, the fact that consumption of South Africans has been declining in 2020, with a significant decrease seen after lockdown, then one can very easily see how the well-being and happiness levels in South Africa can plummet.

2.2 Happiness

Why should we care whether people's happiness is adversely impacted by not only a global pandemic but also by the response from the government? The studies of Helliwell, Layard, Stiglitz et al., Veenhoven, Diener and Seligman and others [ 8 – 12 ], have shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that if policymakers want to maximise the quality of life of their citizens, they need to consider subjective measures of well-being. Piekalkiewicz [ 13 ] states that happiness may act as a determinant of economic outcomes: it increases productivity, predicts one's future income and affects labour market performance. By measuring happiness, individuals themselves reveal their preference and assigned priority to various domains, which cannot be identified by a measure such as GDP. As was pointed out by Layard [ 9 ], while economists use exactly the right framework for thinking about public policy, the accounts we use of what makes people happy are wrong. In layman's terms, we say that utility increases with the opportunities for voluntary exchange. However, Layard [ 14 ] argues that this overlooks the significance of involuntary interactions between people. Policymakers should formulate policy to maximise happiness or well-being, as is the main aim of many constitutions. This can be achieved by directing economic, social, political and environmental policy to maximise well-being while acknowledging that people's norms, aspirations, feelings and emotions are important. Thereby underscoring that understanding and measuring happiness should be an integral part of the efforts to maximise the quality of life.

On the other hand, if people's happiness is negatively affected, such as it was in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the implementation of lockdown regulations, there are far-reaching consequences.

These consequences are as follows:

• Social capital: unhappier people display less altruistic behaviour in the long run (Dunn et al. [ 15 ]). They are also less active, less creative, poor problem solvers, less social, and display more anti-social behaviour (Lyubomirsky et al. [ 16 ]). If unhappier people display more anti-social behaviour, South Africa could see an increase in behaviour such as unrests, violent strikes and perhaps higher crime rates.
• Health care: unhappier people are less physically healthy and die sooner (Lyubomirsky et al. [ 16 ]). Additionally, unhappy people engage in riskier behaviour such as smoking and drinking, thereby placing unnecessary pressure on national health systems.
• Economic: unhappy workers are typically less productive, in particular in jobs that require sociability and problem solving (Bryson et al. [ 17 ]). If an economy can raise the rate of growth of productivity, by ensuring their workers are happier, then the trend growth of national output can pick up.

2.3 Literature on the determinants of happiness during a lockdown

Having established that policymakers should strive to maximise the happiness of their people, it is necessary to know what determines happiness. Previous studies have investigated, at a macro-level, what influences happiness and found that economic growth, unemployment and inflation play a significant role (Stevenson and Wolfers, Perović, Sacks et al. [ 18 – 20 ]). However, these studies were conducted during 'normal' periods and not under such conditions that are currently plaguing the world. The current study will have the opportunity to investigate this exact question, namely what determines happiness during a lockdown driven by a global health pandemic.

Naturally, the number of studies being conducted to examine the effect of Covid-19 is growing exponentially. This increasing interest in the effect of a global pandemic as well as the policies implemented by governments on peoples' well-being, come on the back of relatively few studies conducted during prior pandemics such as SARS and the H1N1. When SARS hit in 2002 and then again when H1N1 hit in 2009, scholars were only truly starting to understand that for governments to formulate policies to increase well-being, you needed to measure well-being. Of the current studies being conducted on the effect of Covid-19 or lockdown regulations on all affected domains, not many studies are in a position to use real-time Big Data, such as we do.

In layman's terms, Big Data is a phrase used to describe a massive volume of both structured (for example stock information) and unstructured data (for example tweets) generated through information and communication technologies such as the Internet (Rossouw and Greyling [ 1 ]). At the time of writing this paper, the following studies were closest aligned with our study and focused on:

• nationwide lockdown on institutional trust, attitudes to government, health and well-being, using survey data collected at two points in time (December 2019 and April 2020) (1003 respondents) (Sibley et al. [ 21 ]). Their preliminary results showed a small increase in people's sense of community and trust. However, they also found an increase in anxiety/depression post-lockdown and hinted at longer-term challenges to mental health.
• the happiness of married and single people while in government-imposed lockdown by running simulations to formulate predictions, using Google Trends data (Hamermesh [ 3 ]). Not surprisingly, married people were more satisfied with life than single people.
• the timing of decision-making by politicians to release lockdown based on a comparison of economic benefits with the social and psychological benefits versus the cost, increase in deaths if policymakers released lockdown too early (Layard et al. [ 22 ])
• the stages of GNH using a Markov switching model in New Zealand (Rossouw et al. [ 23 ]). They found that happiness was at a lower level and the unhappy state lasted longer than was expected. Furthermore, they found that the factors important for New Zealand's happiness post-Covid-19 were related to international travel, employment and mobility.
• exploring Covid-19 related determinants of life dissatisfaction and feelings of anxiety in a cross-country study using survey data collected between 23 March and 30 April (de Pedraza et al. [ 24 ]). They found that persons with poorer general health, without employment, living without a partner, not exercising daily and those actively seeking out loneliness report higher dissatisfaction and higher anxiety. Additionally, they found that the effect of Covid-19 on dissatisfaction and anxiety levels off with a higher number of cases.

2.4 Literature on the causal effect of a lockdown

To the knowledge of the authors, there are only two papers that investigated the causal effect between lockdowns and population well-being. Brodeur et al. [ 4 ] investigated the changes in well-being (and mental health) in the United States and Europe after a lockdown was implemented, using Google Trends data. They found an increase in searches for loneliness, worry and sadness, which indicated a negative effect on mental health. Greyling et al. [ 2 ] conducted a cross-country study investigating the effect of lockdown on happiness. They found that lockdown caused a negative effect on happiness, notwithstanding the different characteristics of the countries (South Africa, New Zealand and Australia), the duration and the type of lockdown regulations. When they compared the effect size of the lockdown regulations, they found that South Africa, with the most stringent lockdown regulations incurred the greatest happiness costs.

Brodeur et al. [ 4 ] study analysed data from one Big Data source, Google Trends and collected data for a short period between only 01 January 2019 and 10 April 2020 in countries that had introduced a full lockdown by the end of this period. Greyling et al. [ 2 ] study used both Google Trends and the GNH index but did not investigate the determinants of happiness after lockdown for an extreme country case.

In summary, taking all of the above into consideration, there is not one study which determines causality between lockdown and happiness and analyses the determinants of happiness in an extreme country case using real-time , Big Data . Therefore, our study is the first of its kind.

3. Data and methodology

To estimate the causal effects of a lockdown on happiness, we use a Difference-in-Difference (DiD) approach (see section 3.3.1). The technique compares happiness (dependent variable), before and after the treatment (the lockdown) to a counterfactual time period in the year before. For the control period, we select the same time period, with the same number of days in 2019, corresponding to the number of days in 2020, thus 152 days in each year (01 January 2020 to 03 June 2020, excluding 29 February 2020). Our results should thus be interpreted as the average impact of the lockdown on happiness, comparing pre and post-lockdown in 2020 to the same time period in 2019, which we assume had normal levels of Gross National Happiness (see a discussion on the GNH in section 3.2.1). In this manner, we also account for seasonal trends in happiness.

In the analyses, we make use of daily data for South Africa. As high-frequency data available at almost real-time, is scarce, we make use of novel Big Data methodologies to harvest data. Additionally, we use the Oxford Stringency dataset that was released in May 2020, which includes data related to lockdown regulations, such as time-series data on the stay-at-home index, Covid-19 cases and Covid-19 deaths (Hale et al., Roser et al. [ 25 , 26 ]).

3.2 Selection of variables

The selection of the variables included in our estimations is based on the reviewed literature, the contents of tweets related to the lockdown and data availability.

3.2.1 Gross National Happiness Index–the dependent variable.

To measure happiness (the dependent variable), we make use of the Gross National Happiness Index (GNH), which was launched in April 2019 (Greyling, Rossouw and Afstereo [ 27 ]). This project measures the happiness (mood) of a country's citizens during different economic, social and political events.

Since February 2020, the researchers extended the project that initially analysed the sentiment of tweets, to incorporate the analysis of the emotions underpinning tweets. The team did this to determine which emotions are most prominent on specific days or events.

To construct the GNH index, the researchers use Big Data methods and extract tweets from the voluntary information-sharing social media platform Twitter. Big Data, such as Twitter, provides real-time information for policymakers to assist them when facing short-term deadlines with imperfect information. Big Data also allows governments to 'listen' and capture those variables which their citizens deem to be important for their well-being, rather than relying on pre-defined economic utility theories. Big Data offers governments the opportunity to observe people's behaviour and not just their opinions. This approach of revealed preferences unveils a reflexive picture of society because it allows the main concerns of citizens (and the priority ranking of those concerns) to emerge spontaneously, and it complements as such the information captured by gross domestic product. Lastly, Big Data does not suffer from non-response bias (Callegaro and Yang [ 28 ]).

Greyling, Rossouw and Afstereo [ 27 ] apply sentiment analysis to a live Twitter-feed and label every tweet as having either a positive, neutral or negative sentiment. This sentiment classification is then applied to a sentiment-balance algorithm to derive a happiness score. The happiness scores range between 0 and 10, with five being neutral, thus neither happy nor unhappy.

All tweets per day are extracted, and a happiness score per hour is calculated. The index is available live on the GNH website (Greyling, Rossouw and Afstereo [ 27 ]). In South Africa, the average number of tweets extracted for 2020 is 68,524 per day. South Africa has approximately 11 million Twitter users, representing almost 18 per cent of the population (Omnicore [ 29 ]). Although the number of tweets is extensive and represents significant proportions of the populations of the countries, it is not representative. However, Twitter accommodates individuals, groups of individuals, organisations and media outlets, representing a kind of disaggregated sample, thus giving access to the moods of a vast blend of Twitter users, not found in survey data.

Furthermore, purely based on the vast numbers of the tweets, it seems that the GNH index gives a remarkably robust reflection of the evaluative mood of a nation. Also, we correlate the GNH index with 'depression' and 'anxiety', derived from the 'Global behaviors and perceptions at the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic data ' survey, for the period from 01 March 2020 (OFS [ 30 ]). We find it negative and statistically significant related, therefore, it seems that the GNH index derived from Big Data gives similar trends to survey data. (We would have appreciated the opportunity to correlate the GNH to a happiness measure–but a happiness measure, as such, was not included in the survey).

Considering the GNH index over time, we found that the index accurately reflects a nation's emotions, for example, when South Africa won the Rugby World Cup on 02 November 2019, the happiness index accurately depicted the joy experienced by South Africans ( Fig 1 ). The hourly happiness score was 7.9 at 13:00, the highest score ever measured, at the exact time that the final whistle was blown to announce the victory of the Springboks over England.

• PPT PowerPoint slide
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Source: Authors' calculations using GNH dataset (Greyling et al. [ 27 ]).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.g001

Also, when the famous American basketball player, Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gigi, tragically passed away on 27 January 2020, the happiness index once again captured the negative mood of the nation, and the happiness score decreased to 5.8, significantly below the mean (see Fig 2 ). The result of the GNH mirrors the one determined by the Hedonometer, which recorded an average happiness score of 5.89 on the day of Bryant's death. The top three words that made this day sadder than the previous seven were 'crash', 'died' and 'rip'.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.g002

3.2.2 The selection of covariates included in estimations.

We found ourselves in uncharted territory, as there are limited studies estimating happiness functions during a lockdown (see Brodeur et al., Greyling et al., Rossouw et al. [ 2 , 4 , 23 ]). As a result, we considered these studies and the tweets to determine the factors to consider, which might influence happiness during a lockdown , as well as the most tweeted subjects. It was evident from the tweets that the main topics of discussion related to economic concerns, the prohibition of the sale of alcohol and tobacco, the stay-at-home orders and the Covid-19 pandemic itself.

To estimate our difference-in-difference model, we restricted our covariates to the lockdown variable, a year effect, the difference-in-difference estimator and controlled for new Covid-19 deaths, job searches and searches for alcohol. We were restricted in the number of covariates due to the limited observations and potentially encountering the issue of over-identification of the models. Therefore, we selected those variables which were available for both 2019 and 2020, and which were also trending subjects during the lockdown period. We were not able to add a stay-at-home variable which captures the lack of mobility, as the counterfactual time period is then not comparable to 2020.

Lockdown, our treatment variable, divides the sample into two distinct time periods: before the announcement of the lockdown, 23 March 2020 and thereafter. We make use of the date of the announcement of the lockdown rather than the date of the implementation, as this showed the severest effect on happiness (see Brodeur et al. [ 4 ]).

The Covid-19 pandemic and consequent spread of the virus is the reason for the lockdown. As such, we include the number of new daily Covid-19 deaths as well as its square. This will allow us to control for the likelihood of a U-shaped relationship between the number of Covid-19 deaths and happiness. Furthermore, there is likely a lagged effect on happiness due to Covid-19 deaths being reported in the media only the following day. Therefore, we lag these variables by one day. We derive the data from the Oxford Stringency data set (Hale et al. and Roser et al. [ 25 , 26 ]).

To measure jobs (a proxy for future job uncertainty) and the sale of alcohol and tobacco, we use the methodology as set out by Nuti et al. and Brodeur et al. [ 4 , 31 ] and use daily searches on Google Trends (see also Simionescu and Zimmermann [ 7 ]). We considered searches for both the alcohol and tobacco topic; however, the variables follow the same trends during the lockdown period and are highly correlated (r = 0.83). We are, furthermore, restricted in the number of covariates to include in the model and decided to include only 'alcohol' in the estimations. We justify this decision since the ban of alcohol affects a larger proportion of the population. It is estimated that 41 per cent of males and 17.1 per cent of females consume on average 9.3 litres of alcohol per capita annually whereas only 17.6 per cent smoke (Peltzer et al. and Reddy et al. [ 32 , 33 ]). However, as a robustness check, we also run all estimations using the searches for tobacco.

It should be noted that when we use Google Trends data, it is expressed as an index between 0 and 100 with 0 being the "least" interest and 100 being the "most" interest shown in the topic for the year. However, the series are not comparable across years as the underlying data is sourced from different search requests for each of the two years. To address this, we use a scaling procedure outlined in Brodeur et al. [ 4 ]. First, we generate "weekly" interest weights for each day by expressing the average weekly score that a particular daily score fell on, as a proportion of the average yearly score. Then, we multiply the daily scores with these weights to obtain weighted search trends. Finally, we normalise these weighted search trends to render us a score between 0 and 100, which is comparable across years.

Other topics that are trending are related to the 'stay-at-home' orders. The Oxford Stringency dataset includes a time series variable on the stay-at-home orders. It differs on a day to day basis according to its stringency. It is an ordinal variable plus binary of geographic scope. It takes the value 0 if there are no stay-at-home orders and 1 if the government recommends not leaving your house. Value 2 represents people not leaving their homes with the exceptions of daily exercise, grocery shopping, and 'essential' trips. Not leaving your home with minimal exceptions (e.g. allowed to leave only once a week, or only one person can leave at a time, etc.) takes the value 3 (Hale et al. [ 25 ]).

Furthermore, we include the number of tweets per day, as it forms part of the Twitter data extracted daily for South Africa (Greyling et al. [ 27 ]), which is a proxy for connectivity. It also gauges the opportunity cost of not being able to have face to face interactions, which seems to be negatively related to happiness (Chae and Wilson et al. [ 34 , 35 ]). Interestingly the number of tweets increased markedly during the lockdown period, from an average of 60,708 to 80,000 tweets per day. Table 1 provides descriptive statistics for the variables included in the estimations.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.t001

3.3 Methodology

3.3.1 difference-in-difference..

Where GNH it is the daily happiness for South Africa at time t . The treatment variable lockdown takes the value of 0 pre-announcement day (23 March) and one post-announcement of lockdown in both the year of the actual lockdown (2020) as well as the year before the lockdown (2019). Year is a dummy variable where 1 is the year 2020. We control for new deaths per million with a one-day lag as well as the quadratic effect of new deaths per million on GNH. Additionally, we control for the effect of job and alcohol searches. As a robustness test, we use the number of new Covid-19 cases instead of new Covid-19 deaths (see Table 4 in S1 Appendix ).

Our main coefficient of interest is the interaction between the lockdown and the year variable. If it is found to be significant, it provides evidence of a causal effect of the lockdown on the dependent variable, in the current year, notwithstanding the trend in 2019.

3.3.2 OLS regression.

Here, y t refers to the Gross National Happiness Index (GNH) for each day and X t is a vector of several relevant covariates to account for the changes in the happiness levels during the lockdown period. μ t is the error term.

Due to the various factors that affect happiness, some of our independent variables may be correlated with the error term, leading to endogeneity concerns. Depending on the direction of the correlation between the error term and the X-variable, the coefficient could be biased upwards or downwards. For instance, the coefficient on the indicator for jobs is likely biased upwards as it, in all likelihood, shows the effect of concerns about jobs as well as some other negative economic shock on happiness. In the absence of panel data or an appropriate instrument, it is difficult to ascertain causality to Eq ( 2 ). However, simply correlating the covariates and the error term we find all levels of correlation to be less than 0.3, although a very basic test, this still indicates that the likelihood that endogeneity might bias estimations is relatively small. A natural extension of the work, as better data becomes available with time, would be to address these concerns.

We cannot rule out the probability of autocorrelation and heterogeneity in our data, especially due to its time-series nature. We use robust standard errors to account for this. The choice of our controls, however, comes with a caveat. Seeing as we only have 81 daily observations using a larger battery of covariates would lead to problems arising due to overfitting of the model. This issue is considered in Green [ 36 ], who suggests a minimum of 50 observations for any regressions as well as an additional eight observations per additional term. As a robustness test, we included tobacco rather than alcohol products (see Table 5 in S1 Appendix ).

4. Results and analysis

4.1 difference-in-difference estimation.

Fig 3 tracks the dependent variable (GNH) over the time period before and after the date of the lockdown (23 March) in the year of the lockdown (2020) and the year preceding it. On the day of the announcement of the lockdown and for a few successive days, we see a sharp downwards departure from the 2019 trend, assumed to be normal.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.g003

Table 2 provides the results for the difference-in-difference specification, which helps us to make causal inferences on the effect of the lockdown on the GNH. At the outset, we notice a negative and significant effect of the 'year' variable (p<0.001), showing that on average the GNH was lower in 2020 than in 2019.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.t002

We control for trends in job searches (a proxy for job uncertainty) and alcohol searches (a proxy for increased interest in alcohol-related topics in the specification). Both variables show a negative association with GNH, implying if there are more searches for jobs or alcohol, reflecting a scarcity in these items, GNH decreases. The negative effect of alcohol is statistically significant at the 1% level (p<0.001). We also control for lagged new Covid-19 related deaths and lagged new Covid-19 related deaths squared, both are significant (p<0.001). Interesting is the finding of the significant inverted U-shaped relationship between new Covid-19 deaths and happiness ( Fig 4 ). In the earlier stages of the pandemic, with very few new Covid-19 deaths, it appears that people were positive and optimistic as the fatality rates were very low and the recovery rates very high. However, as time progressed, the higher fatality rates turned the relationship around so that the number of new Covid-19 cases were negatively related to happiness.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.g004

To determine if the decrease in GNH was due to the lockdown (the treatment) specifically and not just due to the year trend, we must consider the estimated coefficient of the interaction variable 'lockdown and year'. We report a negative and statistically significant coefficient (p-value 0.064) on the interaction variable, indicating that 'lockdown' caused, on average a decrease in GNH of 0.101 points when compared to its mean values for average 2019 values, controlling for the general trend in the two years. Thus, we can conclude that the lockdown caused a decline in GNH in 2020 compared to 2019. The decline of 0.101 may seem small at first but given the low general levels of happiness in South Africa compared to other countries (Greyling et al. [ 27 ]) the reduction is substantial.

4.2 Regression analysis

To address the second research question, namely, to determine the factors that are related to happiness after the lockdown was implemented, we consider the results of Table 3 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.t003

Table 3 shows that job searches (p-value 0.09), searches for alcohol (p-value<0.001) and the number of tweets is negatively related to happiness. In contrast, the stay-at-home index is positively related to happiness (p-value<0.001). The squared relationship between new Covid-19 deaths and happiness is negative and statistically significant (p-value<0.001), indicating that this relationship changed over time as was highlighted in section 4.1. Suppose we consider the relatively low mortality rate (0.02 per cent of confirmed cases in the early stages) compared to countries such as the USA (3.9 per cent), the U.K. (15.4 per cent) and Spain (9.4 per cent). In that case, it could explain the initial positive relationship between the number of new Covid-19 deaths and happiness. Although as time passed and the death rate increased (currently, the mortality rate is at 1.5 per cent of confirmed cases), this relationship became negative. As a robustness test, we used the number of new Covid-19 cases and its square instead of the new Covid-19 deaths and found similar results (see Table 4 in S1 Appendix ).

As expected, job searches, a proxy for uncertainty about the future job market is negatively related to happiness (p-value<0.001). Analysing the tweets, we realised that this is a major concern, which is closely related to economic concerns. The economic performance of South Africa in the last year has been weak with high levels of unemployment (increase to 50 per cent), low growth rates (GDP is expected to contract with 7 per cent in 2020) and high debt to income ratios (government debt as a percentage of GDP– 80 per cent). In a recent survey conducted by Statistics South Africa on behavioural and health impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic (Statistics South Africa [ 37 ]), it was found that 95 per cent of the respondents were very concerned about the economy. In contrast, only 60 per cent was concerned about the Covid-19 pandemic itself. This supports our current findings in that economic factors matter more to South Africans happiness levels than Covid-19 itself.

Alcohol-related searches are also found to be negatively related to happiness (p-value<0.001). Considering the close correlation between alcohol and tobacco products, we can assume that what holds for alcohol products, also holds for tobacco products. As a robustness test, we excluded the alcohol variable and included searches for tobacco variable and found very similar results (see Table 5 in S1 Appendix ). South Africa is one of the very few countries globally that have banned alcohol and tobacco sales during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is argued that these products contribute to the negative effects of the virus. The banning of these products had severe implications on different levels of society. Individuals see this as a major infringement of their human rights, negatively affecting their happiness. Furthermore, research done by Sommer et al. [ 38 ] proved that because of the presence of hordenine in beer, it significantly contributes to mood-elevation. In South Africa, which is well-known for its high per capita beer and alcohol consumption (Statistics South Africa [ 39 ]), also related to 'socialising', the ban on these products had a severe negative effect on happiness. Even in level 3, when the ban on alcohol sales was lifted, but still restricted, we found this negative relationship.

The restricted sale of alcohol and tobacco has indirect consequences for South Africans happiness via the economic impact since these industries are two of the largest industries in South Africa. They employ people across the whole supply chain from production to retail. Due to the ban on these industries, people can potentially lose their jobs. Lastly, the government sector forgoes all taxes on these products. This is against the backdrop of the recent downgrade of South Africa's debt rating to junk status in an already very uncertain fiscal environment. If all of these factors are aggregated, we can understand that the cumulative effect of the banning and restriction of sales of these products severely decreases the happiness levels. In Table 5 in S1 Appendix , we use tobacco searches instead of alcohol to estimate the determinants of happiness, which gives us results that are qualitatively similar to Table 3 .

The number of tweets is negatively related to happiness (p-value<0.001). Previous research has shown that increases in the use of social media are negatively related to happiness (Rolland et al., Chae and Wilson et al. [ 34 , 40 , 41 ]). Noteworthy is that the number of tweets during the lockdown period increased significantly from an average of 60,708 per day before the lockdown to 80,000 per day after the lockdown indicating that more people used social media during the lockdown period.

Interesting is the result of the stay-at-home orders being positively related to happiness (p-value<0.001). On analysing the contents of the tweets, we find the following. South Africans are wary of contracting Covid-19, and therefore, they abide by the stay-at-home orders and social distancing regulations to minimise the risk. That means that the stay-at-home orders in itself increase happiness; it is only once the other lockdown regulations are added that a total decrease in happiness levels are experienced.

Additional benefits revealed from analysing the tweets show that being at home provides a more peaceful and calmer environment compared to the rushed experience outside their homes. Also, people in the suburbs seem to be more convivial, with strangers greeting one another as people went for short walks around their neighbourhoods. In general, people have more time to spend with their loved ones. People earning salaries incur major savings, as there is less opportunity to spend money. People also save on commuting to and from workplaces and other destinations. One of the unexpected benefits of the stay-at-home orders is the much lower crime rates experienced in the country. Homes are constantly occupied, limiting the risk of residential robberies (-3.8 per cent). Other types of crimes such as murder (-72 per cent), rape (-87.2 per cent) and carjacking (-80.9 per cent) are much lower as well (Adapted from the speech of Police Minister Cele 2020 [ 42 ]).

In summary, what changed when the lockdown regulations to curb the spread of Covid-19 were implemented? It caused a significant decrease in happiness, and factors related to the lockdown regulations became relevant determinants of happiness.

5. Conclusions

In this paper, we used the Gross National Happiness Index (GNH), a real-time measure of well-being, derived from Big Data, to investigate whether lockdown regulations caused a decrease in happiness. Additionally, we determined which factors matter to happiness under these changed circumstances. We accomplished these aims by using two models: difference-in-difference and ordinary least squares.

We added to the current literature by determining causality between lockdown and happiness and analysing the determinants of happiness after a lockdown in an extreme country case using real-time , Big Data . Subsequently, this was the first study of its kind.

To determine if the decrease in GNH was due to the lockdown, specifically, we considered the estimated coefficient of the interaction variable 'lockdown and year'. We found a negative and statistically significant coefficient on the interaction variable, indicating that the lockdown caused a decline in GNH in 2020 compared to 2019.

As regards to the factors that are related to happiness after the lockdown was implemented, we found searches for alcohol (tobacco), the number of tweets and uncertainty about the future job market to be negatively related to happiness. In contrast, stay-at-home orders are positively related to happiness. Interesting is the negative and statistically significant squared relationship between new Covid-19 deaths and happiness, indicating that this relationship initially was positive but became negative over time.

Considering the results mentioned above, it ultimately means that if policymakers want to increase happiness levels and increase the probability to achieve the happiness levels of 2019, they must consider those factors that matter most to peoples' happiness. These factors include allowing creatures of habits some of their lost comforts by reinstating the sale of alcohol and tobacco. In saying that, we do advocate for responsible alcohol use by all South Africans and note that the significant effect of the ban on the sale of alcohol could be confounded by the restriction on social gatherings as well.

These results are important for countries in similar well-being situations, thus low levels of happiness, a diverse state of the economy and an increasing number of Covid-19 cases to evaluate what the effect of a strict lockdown is.

Additionally, policymakers should assure citizens that there is a credible plan to get the economy, which is currently in dire straits, back on track. Such an economic plan should stimulate growth, create job opportunities and increase employment rates, supply the necessary infrastructure and deal with curbing vast budget deficits and debt burdens. Hopefully, such policies will fuel the dying embers of a dying economy and increase well-being levels.

Lastly, it would be remiss of us not to note the limitations of the study. First, we were restricted in the number of covariates we could add to our difference-in-difference model due to the limited observations and therefore potentially overidentifying the models. Second, regarding the inverted U-shaped relationship between new Covid-19 deaths and happiness, we acknowledge that there might be confounding factors at play, initially seen as ‘positives' of the lockdown, but later turned into negatives. However, using alternative sets of covariates in the regression analyses, the inverted U-shape between new Covid-19 deaths and happiness remained. Therefore we trust that the revealed relationship is robust.

Supporting information

S1 appendix. robustness checks..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.s001

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245546.s002

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our colleagues Professor Emeritus John Knight from Oxford University and Dr Kelsey O'Connor from STATEC Luxembourg, for their generosity in providing feedback on the study.

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• Review Article
• Published: 27 September 2021

Why lockdown and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to increase the social class achievement gap

• Sébastien Goudeau   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7293-0977 1 ,
• Camille Sanrey   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3158-1306 1 ,
• Arnaud Stanczak   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2596-1516 2 ,
• Antony Manstead   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7540-2096 3 &
• Céline Darnon   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2613-689X 2  

Nature Human Behaviour volume  5 ,  pages 1273–1281 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced teachers and parents to quickly adapt to a new educational context: distance learning. Teachers developed online academic material while parents taught the exercises and lessons provided by teachers to their children at home. Considering that the use of digital tools in education has dramatically increased during this crisis, and it is set to continue, there is a pressing need to understand the impact of distance learning. Taking a multidisciplinary view, we argue that by making the learning process rely more than ever on families, rather than on teachers, and by getting students to work predominantly via digital resources, school closures exacerbate social class academic disparities. To address this burning issue, we propose an agenda for future research and outline recommendations to help parents, teachers and policymakers to limit the impact of the lockdown on social-class-based academic inequality.

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The widespread effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that emerged in 2019–2020 have drastically increased health, social and economic inequalities 1 , 2 . For more than 900 million learners around the world, the pandemic led to the closure of schools and universities 3 . This exceptional situation forced teachers, parents and students to quickly adapt to a new educational context: distance learning. Teachers had to develop online academic materials that could be used at home to ensure educational continuity while ensuring the necessary physical distancing. Primary and secondary school students suddenly had to work with various kinds of support, which were usually provided online by their teachers. For college students, lockdown often entailed returning to their hometowns while staying connected with their teachers and classmates via video conferences, email and other digital tools. Despite the best efforts of educational institutions, parents and teachers to keep all children and students engaged in learning activities, ensuring educational continuity during school closure—something that is difficult for everyone—may pose unique material and psychological challenges for working-class families and students.

Not only did the pandemic lead to the closure of schools in many countries, often for several weeks, it also accelerated the digitalization of education and amplified the role of parental involvement in supporting the schoolwork of their children. Thus, beyond the specific circumstances of the COVID-19 lockdown, we believe that studying the effects of the pandemic on academic inequalities provides a way to more broadly examine the consequences of school closure and related effects (for example, digitalization of education) on social class inequalities. Indeed, bearing in mind that (1) the risk of further pandemics is higher than ever (that is, we are in a ‘pandemic era’ 4 , 5 ) and (2) beyond pandemics, the use of digital tools in education (and therefore the influence of parental involvement) has dramatically increased during this crisis, and is set to continue, there is a pressing need for an integrative and comprehensive model that examines the consequences of distance learning. Here, we propose such an integrative model that helps us to understand the extent to which the school closures associated with the pandemic amplify economic, digital and cultural divides that in turn affect the psychological functioning of parents, students and teachers in a way that amplifies academic inequalities. Bringing together research in social sciences, ranging from economics and sociology to social, cultural, cognitive and educational psychology, we argue that by getting students to work predominantly via digital resources rather than direct interactions with their teachers, and by making the learning process rely more than ever on families rather than teachers, school closures exacerbate social class academic disparities.

First, we review research showing that social class is associated with unequal access to digital tools, unequal familiarity with digital skills and unequal uses of such tools for learning purposes 6 , 7 . We then review research documenting how unequal familiarity with school culture, knowledge and skills can also contribute to the accentuation of academic inequalities 8 , 9 . Next, we present the results of surveys conducted during the 2020 lockdown showing that the quality and quantity of pedagogical support received from schools varied according to the social class of families (for examples, see refs. 10 , 11 , 12 ). We then argue that these digital, cultural and structural divides represent barriers to the ability of parents to provide appropriate support for children during distance learning (Fig. 1 ). These divides also alter the levels of self-efficacy of parents and children, thereby affecting their engagement in learning activities 13 , 14 . In the final section, we review preliminary evidence for the hypothesis that distance learning widens the social class achievement gap and we propose an agenda for future research. In addition, we outline recommendations that should help parents, teachers and policymakers to use social science research to limit the impact of school closure and distance learning on the social class achievement gap.

Economic, structural, digital and cultural divides influence the psychological functioning of parents and students in a way that amplify inequalities.

The digital divide

Unequal access to digital resources.

Although the use of digital technologies is almost ubiquitous in developed nations, there is a digital divide such that some people are more likely than others to be numerically excluded 15 (Fig. 1 ). Social class is a strong predictor of digital disparities, including the quality of hardware, software and Internet access 16 , 17 , 18 . For example, in 2019, in France, around 1 in 5 working-class families did not have personal access to the Internet compared with less than 1 in 20 of the most privileged families 19 . Similarly, in 2020, in the United Kingdom, 20% of children who were eligible for free school meals did not have access to a computer at home compared with 7% of other children 20 . In 2021, in the United States, 41% of working-class families do not own a laptop or desktop computer and 43% do not have broadband compared with 8% and 7%, respectively, of upper/middle-class Americans 21 . A similar digital gap is also evident between lower-income and higher-income countries 22 .

Second, simply having access to a computer and an Internet connection does not ensure effective distance learning. For example, many of the educational resources sent by teachers need to be printed, thereby requiring access to printers. Moreover, distance learning is more difficult in households with only one shared computer compared with those where each family member has their own 23 . Furthermore, upper/middle-class families are more likely to be able to guarantee a suitable workspace for each child than their working-class counterparts 24 .

In the context of school closures, such disparities are likely to have important consequences for educational continuity. In line with this idea, a survey of approximately 4,000 parents in the United Kingdom confirmed that during lockdown, more than half of primary school children from the poorest families did not have access to their own study space and were less well equipped for distance learning than higher-income families 10 . Similarly, a survey of around 1,300 parents in the Netherlands found that during lockdown, children from working-class families had fewer computers at home and less room to study than upper/middle-class children 11 .

Data from non-Western countries highlight a more general digital divide, showing that developing countries have poorer access to digital equipment. For example, in India in 2018, only 10.7% of households possessed a digital device 25 , while in Pakistan in 2020, 31% of higher-education teachers did not have Internet access and 68.4% did not have a laptop 26 . In general, developing countries lack access to digital technologies 27 , 28 , and these difficulties of access are even greater in rural areas (for example, see ref. 29 ). Consequently, school closures have huge repercussions for the continuity of learning in these countries. For example, in India in 2018, only 11% of the rural and 40% of the urban population above 14 years old could use a computer and access the Internet 25 . Time spent on education during school closure decreased by 80% in Bangladesh 30 . A similar trend was observed in other countries 31 , with only 22% of children engaging in remote learning in Kenya 32 and 50% in Burkina Faso 33 . In Ghana, 26–32% of children spent no time at all on learning during the pandemic 34 . Beyond the overall digital divide, social class disparities are also evident in developing countries, with lower access to digital resources among households in which parental educational levels were low (versus households in which parental educational levels were high; for example, see ref. 35 for Nigeria and ref. 31 for Ecuador).

Unequal digital skills

In addition to unequal access to digital tools, there are also systematic variations in digital skills 36 , 37 (Fig. 1 ). Upper/middle-class families are more familiar with digital tools and resources and are therefore more likely to have the digital skills needed for distance learning 38 , 39 , 40 . These digital skills are particularly useful during school closures, both for students and for parents, for organizing, retrieving and correctly using the resources provided by the teachers (for example, sending or receiving documents by email, printing documents or using word processors).

Social class disparities in digital skills can be explained in part by the fact that children from upper/middle-class families have the opportunity to develop digital skills earlier than working-class families 41 . In member countries of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), only 23% of working-class children had started using a computer at the age of 6 years or earlier compared with 43% of upper/middle-class children 42 . Moreover, because working-class people tend to persist less than upper/middle-class people when confronted with digital difficulties 23 , the use of digital tools and resources for distance learning may interfere with the ability of parents to help children with their schoolwork.

Unequal use of digital tools

A third level of digital divide concerns variations in digital tool use 18 , 43 (Fig. 1 ). Upper/middle-class families are more likely to use digital resources for work and education 6 , 41 , 44 , whereas working-class families are more likely to use these resources for entertainment, such as electronic games or social media 6 , 45 . This divide is also observed among students, whereby working-class students tend to use digital technologies for leisure activities, whereas their upper/middle-class peers are more likely to use them for academic activities 46 and to consider that computers and the Internet provide an opportunity for education and training 23 . Furthermore, working-class families appear to regulate the digital practices of their children less 47 and are more likely to allow screens in the bedrooms of children and teenagers without setting limits on times or practices 48 .

In sum, inequalities in terms of digital resources, skills and use have strong implications for distance learning. This is because they make working-class students and parents particularly vulnerable when learning relies on extensive use of digital devices rather than on face-to-face interaction with teachers.

The cultural divide

Even if all three levels of digital divide were closed, upper/middle-class families would still be better prepared than working-class families to ensure educational continuity for their children. Upper/middle-class families are more familiar with the academic knowledge and skills that are expected and valued in educational settings, as well as with the independent, autonomous way of learning that is valued in the school culture and becomes even more important during school closure (Fig. 1 ).

Unequal familiarity with academic knowledge and skills

According to classical social reproduction theory 8 , 49 , school is not a neutral place in which all forms of language and knowledge are equally valued. Academic contexts expect and value culture-specific and taken-for-granted forms of knowledge, skills and ways of being, thinking and speaking that are more in tune with those developed through upper/middle-class socialization (that is, ‘cultural capital’ 8 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ). For instance, academic contexts value interest in the arts, museums and literature 54 , 55 , a type of interest that is more likely to develop through socialization in upper/middle-class families than in working-class socialization 54 , 56 . Indeed, upper/middle-class parents are more likely than working-class parents to engage in activities that develop this cultural capital. For example, they possess more books and cultural objects at home, read more stories to their children and visit museums and libraries more often (for examples, see refs. 51 , 54 , 55 ). Upper/middle-class children are also more involved in extra-curricular activities (for example, playing a musical instrument) than working-class children 55 , 56 , 57 .

Beyond this implicit familiarization with the school curriculum, upper/middle-class parents more often organize educational activities that are explicitly designed to develop academic skills of their children 57 , 58 , 59 . For example, they are more likely to monitor and re-explain lessons or use games and textbooks to develop and reinforce academic skills (for example, labelling numbers, letters or colours 57 , 60 ). Upper/middle-class parents also provide higher levels of support and spend more time helping children with homework than working-class parents (for examples, see refs. 61 , 62 ). Thus, even if all parents are committed to the academic success of their children, working-class parents have fewer chances to provide the help that children need to complete homework 63 , and homework is more beneficial for children from upper-middle class families than for children from working-class families 64 , 65 .

School closures amplify the impact of cultural inequalities

The trends described above have been observed in ‘normal’ times when schools are open. School closures, by making learning rely more strongly on practices implemented at home (rather than at school), are likely to amplify the impact of these disparities. Consistent with this idea, research has shown that the social class achievement gap usually greatly widens during school breaks—a phenomenon described as ‘summer learning loss’ or ‘summer setback’ 66 , 67 , 68 . During holidays, the learning by children tends to decline, and this is particularly pronounced in children from working-class families. Consequently, the social class achievement gap grows more rapidly during the summer months than it does in the rest of the year. This phenomenon is partly explained by the fact that during the break from school, social class disparities in investment in activities that are beneficial for academic achievement (for example, reading, travelling to a foreign country or museum visits) are more pronounced.

Therefore, when they are out of school, children from upper/middle-class backgrounds may continue to develop academic skills unlike their working-class counterparts, who may stagnate or even regress. Research also indicates that learning loss during school breaks tends to be cumulative 66 . Thus, repeated episodes of school closure are likely to have profound consequences for the social class achievement gap. Consistent with the idea that school closures could lead to similar processes as those identified during summer breaks, a recent survey indicated that during the COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom, children from upper/middle-class families spent more time on educational activities (5.8 h per day) than those from working-class families (4.5 h per day) 7 , 69 .

Unequal dispositions for autonomy and self-regulation

School closures have encouraged autonomous work among students. This ‘independent’ way of studying is compatible with the family socialization of upper/middle-class students, but does not match the interdependent norms more commonly associated with working-class contexts 9 . Upper/middle-class contexts tend to promote cultural norms of independence whereby individuals perceive themselves as autonomous actors, independent of other individuals and of the social context, able to pursue their own goals 70 . For example, upper/middle-class parents tend to invite children to express their interests, preferences and opinions during the various activities of everyday life 54 , 55 . Conversely, in working-class contexts characterized by low economic resources and where life is more uncertain, individuals tend to perceive themselves as interdependent, connected to others and members of social groups 53 , 70 , 71 . This interdependent self-construal fits less well with the independent culture of academic contexts. This cultural mismatch between interdependent self-construal common in working-class students and the independent norms of the educational institution has negative consequences for academic performance 9 .

Once again, the impact of these differences is likely to be amplified during school closures, when being able to work alone and autonomously is especially useful. The requirement to work alone is more likely to match the independent self-construal of upper/middle-class students than the interdependent self-construal of working-class students. In the case of working-class students, this mismatch is likely to increase their difficulties in working alone at home. Supporting our argument, recent research has shown that working-class students tend to underachieve in contexts where students work individually compared with contexts where students work with others 72 . Similarly, during school closures, high self-regulation skills (for example, setting goals, selecting appropriate learning strategies and maintaining motivation 73 ) are required to maintain study activities and are likely to be especially useful for using digital resources efficiently. Research has shown that students from working-class backgrounds typically develop their self-regulation skills to a lesser extent than those from upper/middle-class backgrounds 74 , 75 , 76 .

Interestingly, some authors have suggested that independent (versus interdependent) self-construal may also affect communication with teachers 77 . Indeed, in the context of distance learning, working-class families are less likely to respond to the communication of teachers because their ‘interdependent’ self leads them to respect hierarchies, and thus perceive teachers as an expert who ‘can be trusted to make the right decisions for learning’. Upper/middle class families, relying on ‘independent’ self-construal, are more inclined to seek individualized feedback, and therefore tend to participate to a greater extent in exchanges with teachers. Such cultural differences are important because they can also contribute to the difficulties encountered by working-class families.

The structural divide: unequal support from schools

The issues reviewed thus far all increase the vulnerability of children and students from underprivileged backgrounds when schools are closed. To offset these disadvantages, it might be expected that the school should increase its support by providing additional resources for working-class students. However, recent data suggest that differences in the material and human resources invested in providing educational support for children during periods of school closure were—paradoxically—in favour of upper/middle-class students (Fig. 1 ). In England, for example, upper/middle-class parents reported benefiting from online classes and video-conferencing with teachers more often than working-class parents 10 . Furthermore, active help from school (for example, online teaching, private tutoring or chats with teachers) occurred more frequently in the richest households (64% of the richest households declared having received help from school) than in the poorest households (47%). Another survey found that in the United Kingdom, upper/middle-class children were more likely to take online lessons every day (30%) than working-class students (16%) 12 . This substantial difference might be due, at least in part, to the fact that private schools are better equipped in terms of online platforms (60% of schools have at least one online platform) than state schools (37%, and 23% in the most deprived schools) and were more likely to organize daily online lessons. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, in schools with a high proportion of students eligible for free school meals, teachers were less inclined to broadcast an online lesson for their pupils 78 . Interestingly, 58% of teachers in the wealthiest areas reported having messaged their students or their students’ parents during lockdown compared with 47% in the most deprived schools. In addition, the probability of children receiving technical support from the school (for example, by providing pupils with laptops or other devices) is, surprisingly, higher in the most advantaged schools than in the most deprived 78 .

In addition to social class disparities, there has been less support from schools for African-American and Latinx students. During school closures in the United States, 40% of African-American students and 30% of Latinx students received no online teaching compared with 10% of white students 79 . Another source of inequality is that the probability of school closure was correlated with social class and race. In the United States, for example, school closures from September to December 2020 were more common in schools with a high proportion of racial/ethnic minority students, who experience homelessness and are eligible for free/discounted school meals 80 .

Similarly, access to educational resources and support was lower in poorer (compared with richer) countries 81 . In sub-Saharan Africa, during lockdown, 45% of children had no exposure at all to any type of remote learning. Of those who did, the medium was mostly radio, television or paper rather than digital. In African countries, at most 10% of children received some material through the Internet. In Latin America, 90% of children received some remote learning, but less than half of that was through the internet—the remainder being via radio and television 81 . In Ecuador, high-school students from the lowest wealth quartile had fewer remote-learning opportunities, such as Google class/Zoom, than students from the highest wealth quartile 31 .

Thus, the achievement gap and its accentuation during lockdown are due not only to the cultural and digital disadvantages of working-class families but also to unequal support from schools. This inequality in school support is not due to teachers being indifferent to or even supportive of social stratification. Rather, we believe that these effects are fundamentally structural. In many countries, schools located in upper/middle-class neighbourhoods have more money than those in the poorest neighbourhoods. Moreover, upper/middle-class parents invest more in the schools of their children than working-class parents (for example, see ref. 82 ), and schools have an interest in catering more for upper/middle-class families than for working-class families 83 . Additionally, the expectation of teachers may be lower for working-class children 84 . For example, they tend to estimate that working-class students invest less effort in learning than their upper/middle-class counterparts 85 . These differences in perception may have influenced the behaviour of teachers during school closure, such that teachers in privileged neighbourhoods provided more information to students because they expected more from them in term of effort and achievement. The fact that upper/middle-class parents are better able than working-class parents to comply with the expectations of teachers (for examples, see refs. 55 , 86 ) may have reinforced this phenomenon. These discrepancies echo data showing that working-class students tend to request less help in their schoolwork than upper/middle-class ones 87 , and they may even avoid asking for help because they believe that such requests could lead to reprimands 88 . During school closures, these students (and their families) may in consequence have been less likely to ask for help and resources. Jointly, these phenomena have resulted in upper/middle-class families receiving more support from schools during lockdown than their working-class counterparts.

Psychological effects of digital, cultural and structural divides

Despite being strongly influenced by social class, differences in academic achievement are often interpreted by parents, teachers and students as reflecting differences in ability 89 . As a result, upper/middle-class students are usually perceived—and perceive themselves—as smarter than working-class students, who are perceived—and perceive themselves—as less intelligent 90 , 91 , 92 or less able to succeed 93 . Working-class students also worry more about the fact that they might perform more poorly than upper/middle-class students 94 , 95 . These fears influence academic learning in important ways. In particular, they can consume cognitive resources when children and students work on academic tasks 96 , 97 . Self-efficacy also plays a key role in engaging in learning and perseverance in the face of difficulties 13 , 98 . In addition, working-class students are those for whom the fear of being outperformed by others is the most negatively related to academic performance 99 .

The fact that working-class children and students are less familiar with the tasks set by teachers, and less well equipped and supported, makes them more likely to experience feelings of incompetence (Fig. 1 ). Working-class parents are also more likely than their upper/middle-class counterparts to feel unable to help their children with schoolwork. Consistent with this, research has shown that both working-class students and parents have lower feelings of academic self-efficacy than their upper/middle-class counterparts 100 , 101 . These differences have been documented under ‘normal’ conditions but are likely to be exacerbated during distance learning. Recent surveys conducted during the school closures have confirmed that upper/middle-class families felt better able to support their children in distance learning than did working-class families 10 and that upper/middle-class parents helped their children more and felt more capable to do so 11 , 12 .

Pandemic disparity, future directions and recommendations

The research reviewed thus far suggests that children and their families are highly unequal with respect to digital access, skills and use. It also shows that upper/middle-class students are more likely to be supported in their homework (by their parents and teachers) than working-class students, and that upper/middle-class students and parents will probably feel better able than working-class ones to adapt to the context of distance learning. For all these reasons, we anticipate that as a result of school closures, the COVID-19 pandemic will substantially increase the social class achievement gap. Because school closures are a recent occurrence, it is too early to measure with precision their effects on the widening of the achievement gap. However, some recent data are consistent with this idea.

Evidence for a widening gap during the pandemic

Comparing academic achievement in 2020 with previous years provides an early indication of the effects of school closures during the pandemic. In France, for example, first and second graders take national evaluations at the beginning of the school year. Initial comparisons of the results for 2020 with those from previous years revealed that the gap between schools classified as ‘priority schools’ (those in low-income urban areas) and schools in higher-income neighbourhoods—a gap observed every year—was particularly pronounced in 2020 in both French and mathematics 102 .

Similarly, in the Netherlands, national assessments take place twice a year. In 2020, they took place both before and after school closures. A recent analysis compared progress during this period in 2020 in mathematics/arithmetic, spelling and reading comprehension for 7–11-year-old students within the same period in the three previous years 103 . Results indicated a general learning loss in 2020. More importantly, for the 8% of working-class children, the losses were 40% greater than they were for upper/middle-class children.

Similar results were observed in Belgium among students attending the final year of primary school. Compared with students from previous cohorts, students affected by school closures experienced a substantial decrease in their mathematics and language scores, with children from more disadvantaged backgrounds experiencing greater learning losses 104 . Likewise, oral reading assessments in more than 100 school districts in the United States showed that the development of this skill among children in second and third grade significantly slowed between Spring and Autumn 2020, but this slowdown was more pronounced in schools from lower-achieving districts 105 .

It is likely that school closures have also amplified racial disparities in learning and achievement. For example, in the United States, after the first lockdown, students of colour lost the equivalent of 3–5 months of learning, whereas white students were about 1–3 months behind. Moreover, in the Autumn, when some students started to return to classrooms, African-American and Latinx students were more likely to continue distance learning, despite being less likely to have access to the digital tools, Internet access and live contact with teachers 106 .

In some African countries (for example, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Tanzania and Uganda), the COVID-19 crisis has resulted in learning loss ranging from 6 months to more 1 year 107 , and this learning loss appears to be greater for working-class children (that is, those attending no-fee schools) than for upper/middle-class children 108 .

These findings show that school closures have exacerbated achievement gaps linked to social class and ethnicity. However, more research is needed to address the question of whether school closures differentially affect the learning of students from working- and upper/middle-class families.

Future directions

First, to assess the specific and unique impact of school closures on student learning, longitudinal research should compare student achievement at different times of the year, before, during and after school closures, as has been done to document the summer learning loss 66 , 109 . In the coming months, alternating periods of school closure and opening may occur, thereby presenting opportunities to do such research. This would also make it possible to examine whether the gap diminishes a few weeks after children return to in-school learning or whether, conversely, it increases with time because the foundations have not been sufficiently acquired to facilitate further learning 110 .

Second, the mechanisms underlying the increase in social class disparities during school closures should be examined. As discussed above, school closures result in situations for which students are unevenly prepared and supported. It would be appropriate to seek to quantify the contribution of each of the factors that might be responsible for accentuating the social class achievement gap. In particular, distinguishing between factors that are relatively ‘controllable’ (for example, resources made available to pupils) and those that are more difficult to control (for example, the self-efficacy of parents in supporting the schoolwork of their children) is essential to inform public policy and teaching practices.

Third, existing studies are based on general comparisons and very few provide insights into the actual practices that took place in families during school closure and how these practices affected the achievement gap. For example, research has documented that parents from working-class backgrounds are likely to find it more difficult to help their children to complete homework and to provide constructive feedback 63 , 111 , something that could in turn have a negative impact on the continuity of learning of their children. In addition, it seems reasonable to assume that during lockdown, parents from upper/middle-class backgrounds encouraged their children to engage in practices that, even if not explicitly requested by teachers, would be beneficial to learning (for example, creative activities or reading). Identifying the practices that best predict the maintenance or decline of educational achievement during school closures would help identify levers for intervention.

Finally, it would be interesting to investigate teaching practices during school closures. The lockdown in the spring of 2020 was sudden and unexpected. Within a few days, teachers had to find a way to compensate for the school closure, which led to highly variable practices. Some teachers posted schoolwork on platforms, others sent it by email, some set work on a weekly basis while others set it day by day. Some teachers also set up live sessions in large or small groups, providing remote meetings for questions and support. There have also been variations in the type of feedback given to students, notably through the monitoring and correcting of work. Future studies should examine in more detail what practices schools and teachers used to compensate for the school closures and their effects on widening, maintaining or even reducing the gap, as has been done for certain specific literacy programmes 112 as well as specific instruction topics (for example, ecology and evolution 113 ).

Practical recommendations

We are aware of the debate about whether social science research on COVID-19 is suitable for making policy decisions 114 , and we draw attention to the fact that some of our recommendations (Table 1 ) are based on evidence from experiments or interventions carried out pre-COVID while others are more speculative. In any case, we emphasize that these suggestions should be viewed with caution and be tested in future research. Some of our recommendations could be implemented in the event of new school closures, others only when schools re-open. We also acknowledge that while these recommendations are intended for parents and teachers, their implementation largely depends on the adoption of structural policies. Importantly, given all the issues discussed above, we emphasize the importance of prioritizing, wherever possible, in-person learning over remote learning 115 and where this is not possible, of implementing strong policies to support distance learning, especially for disadvantaged families.

Where face-to face teaching is not possible and teachers are responsible for implementing distance learning, it will be important to make them aware of the factors that can exacerbate inequalities during lockdown and to provide them with guidance about practices that would reduce these inequalities. Thus, there is an urgent need for interventions aimed at making teachers aware of the impact of the social class of children and families on the following factors: (1) access to, familiarity with and use of digital devices; (2) familiarity with academic knowledge and skills; and (3) preparedness to work autonomously. Increasing awareness of the material, cultural and psychological barriers that working-class children and families face during lockdown should increase the quality and quantity of the support provided by teachers and thereby positively affect the achievements of working-class students.

In addition to increasing the awareness of teachers of these barriers, teachers should be encouraged to adjust the way they communicate with working-class families due to differences in self-construal compared with upper/middle-class families 77 . For example, questions about family (rather than personal) well-being would be congruent with interdependent self-construals. This should contribute to better communication and help keep a better track of the progress of students during distance learning.

It is also necessary to help teachers to engage in practices that have a chance of reducing inequalities 53 , 116 . Particularly important is that teachers and schools ensure that homework can be done by all children, for example, by setting up organizations that would help children whose parents are not in a position to monitor or assist with the homework of their children. Options include homework help groups and tutoring by teachers after class. When schools are open, the growing tendency to set homework through digital media should be resisted as far as possible given the evidence we have reviewed above. Moreover, previous research has underscored the importance of homework feedback provided by teachers, which is positively related to the amount of homework completed and predictive of academic performance 117 . Where homework is web-based, it has also been shown that feedback on web-based homework enhances the learning of students 118 . It therefore seems reasonable to predict that the social class achievement gap will increase more slowly (or even remain constant or be reversed) in schools that establish individualized monitoring of students, by means of regular calls and feedback on homework, compared with schools where the support provided to pupils is more generic.

Given that learning during lockdown has increasingly taken place in family settings, we believe that interventions involving the family are also likely to be effective 119 , 120 , 121 . Simply providing families with suitable material equipment may be insufficient. Families should be given training in the efficient use of digital technology and pedagogical support. This would increase the self-efficacy of parents and students, with positive consequences for achievement. Ideally, such training would be delivered in person to avoid problems arising from the digital divide. Where this is not possible, individualized online tutoring should be provided. For example, studies conducted during the lockdown in Botswana and Italy have shown that individual online tutoring directly targeting either parents or students in middle school has a positive impact on the achievement of students, particularly for working-class students 122 , 123 .

Interventions targeting families should also address the psychological barriers faced by working-class families and children. Some interventions have already been designed and been shown to be effective in reducing the social class achievement gap, particularly in mathematics and language 124 , 125 , 126 . For example, research showed that an intervention designed to train low-income parents in how to support the mathematical development of their pre-kindergarten children (including classes and access to a library of kits to use at home) increased the quality of support provided by the parents, with a corresponding impact on the development of mathematical knowledge of their children. Such interventions should be particularly beneficial in the context of school closure.

Beyond its impact on academic performance and inequalities, the COVID-19 crisis has shaken the economies of countries around the world, casting millions of families around the world into poverty 127 , 128 , 129 . As noted earlier, there has been a marked increase in economic inequalities, bringing with it all the psychological and social problems that such inequalities create 130 , 131 , especially for people who live in scarcity 132 . The increase in educational inequalities is just one facet of the many difficulties that working-class families will encounter in the coming years, but it is one that could seriously limit the chances of their children escaping from poverty by reducing their opportunities for upward mobility. In this context, it should be a priority to concentrate resources on the most deprived students. A large proportion of the poorest households do not own a computer and do not have personal access to the Internet, which has important consequences for distance learning. During school closures, it is therefore imperative to provide such families with adequate equipment and Internet service, as was done in some countries in spring 2020. Even if the provision of such equipment is not in itself sufficient, it is a necessary condition for ensuring pedagogical continuity during lockdown.

Finally, after prolonged periods of school closure, many students may not have acquired the skills needed to pursue their education. A possible consequence would be an increase in the number of students for whom teachers recommend class repetitions. Class repetitions are contentious. On the one hand, class repetition more frequently affects working-class children and is not efficient in terms of learning improvement 133 . On the other hand, accepting lower standards of academic achievement or even suspending the practice of repeating a class could lead to pupils pursuing their education without mastering the key abilities needed at higher grades. This could create difficulties in subsequent years and, in this sense, be counterproductive. We therefore believe that the most appropriate way to limit the damage of the pandemic would be to help children catch up rather than allowing them to continue without mastering the necessary skills. As is being done in some countries, systematic remedial courses (for example, summer learning programmes) should be organized and financially supported following periods of school closure, with priority given to pupils from working-class families. Such interventions have genuine potential in that research has shown that participation in remedial summer programmes is effective in reducing learning loss during the summer break 134 , 135 , 136 . For example, in one study 137 , 438 students from high-poverty schools were offered a multiyear summer school programme that included various pedagogical and enrichment activities (for example, science investigation and music) and were compared with a ‘no-treatment’ control group. Students who participated in the summer programme progressed more than students in the control group. A meta-analysis 138 of 41 summer learning programmes (that is, classroom- and home-based summer interventions) involving children from kindergarten to grade 8 showed that these programmes had significantly larger benefits for children from working-class families. Although such measures are costly, the cost is small compared to the price of failing to fulfil the academic potential of many students simply because they were not born into upper/middle-class families.

The unprecedented nature of the current pandemic means that we lack strong data on what the school closure period is likely to produce in terms of learning deficits and the reproduction of social inequalities. However, the research discussed in this article suggests that there are good reasons to predict that this period of school closures will accelerate the reproduction of social inequalities in educational achievement.

By making school learning less dependent on teachers and more dependent on families and digital tools and resources, school closures are likely to greatly amplify social class inequalities. At a time when many countries are experiencing second, third or fourth waves of the pandemic, resulting in fresh periods of local or general lockdowns, systematic efforts to test these predictions are urgently needed along with steps to reduce the impact of school closures on the social class achievement gap.

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Acknowledgements

We thank G. Reis for editing the figure. The writing of this manuscript was supported by grant ANR-19-CE28-0007–PRESCHOOL from the French National Research Agency (S.G.).

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Goudeau, S., Sanrey, C., Stanczak, A. et al. Why lockdown and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to increase the social class achievement gap. Nat Hum Behav 5 , 1273–1281 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01212-7

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Read these 12 moving essays about life during coronavirus

Artists, novelists, critics, and essayists are writing the first draft of history.

by Alissa Wilkinson

The world is grappling with an invisible, deadly enemy, trying to understand how to live with the threat posed by a virus . For some writers, the only way forward is to put pen to paper, trying to conceptualize and document what it feels like to continue living as countries are under lockdown and regular life seems to have ground to a halt.

So as the coronavirus pandemic has stretched around the world, it’s sparked a crop of diary entries and essays that describe how life has changed. Novelists, critics, artists, and journalists have put words to the feelings many are experiencing. The result is a first draft of how we’ll someday remember this time, filled with uncertainty and pain and fear as well as small moments of hope and humanity.

• The Vox guide to navigating the coronavirus crisis

At the New York Review of Books, Ali Bhutto writes that in Karachi, Pakistan, the government-imposed curfew due to the virus is “eerily reminiscent of past military clampdowns”:

Beneath the quiet calm lies a sense that society has been unhinged and that the usual rules no longer apply. Small groups of pedestrians look on from the shadows, like an audience watching a spectacle slowly unfolding. People pause on street corners and in the shade of trees, under the watchful gaze of the paramilitary forces and the police.

His essay concludes with the sobering note that “in the minds of many, Covid-19 is just another life-threatening hazard in a city that stumbles from one crisis to another.”

Writing from Chattanooga, novelist Jamie Quatro documents the mixed ways her neighbors have been responding to the threat, and the frustration of conflicting direction, or no direction at all, from local, state, and federal leaders:

Whiplash, trying to keep up with who’s ordering what. We’re already experiencing enough chaos without this back-and-forth. Why didn’t the federal government issue a nationwide shelter-in-place at the get-go, the way other countries did? What happens when one state’s shelter-in-place ends, while others continue? Do states still under quarantine close their borders? We are still one nation, not fifty individual countries. Right?

• A syllabus for the end of the world

Award-winning photojournalist Alessio Mamo, quarantined with his partner Marta in Sicily after she tested positive for the virus, accompanies his photographs in the Guardian of their confinement with a reflection on being confined :

The doctors asked me to take a second test, but again I tested negative. Perhaps I’m immune? The days dragged on in my apartment, in black and white, like my photos. Sometimes we tried to smile, imagining that I was asymptomatic, because I was the virus. Our smiles seemed to bring good news. My mother left hospital, but I won’t be able to see her for weeks. Marta started breathing well again, and so did I. I would have liked to photograph my country in the midst of this emergency, the battles that the doctors wage on the frontline, the hospitals pushed to their limits, Italy on its knees fighting an invisible enemy. That enemy, a day in March, knocked on my door instead.

In the New York Times Magazine, deputy editor Jessica Lustig writes with devastating clarity about her family’s life in Brooklyn while her husband battled the virus, weeks before most people began taking the threat seriously:

At the door of the clinic, we stand looking out at two older women chatting outside the doorway, oblivious. Do I wave them away? Call out that they should get far away, go home, wash their hands, stay inside? Instead we just stand there, awkwardly, until they move on. Only then do we step outside to begin the long three-block walk home. I point out the early magnolia, the forsythia. T says he is cold. The untrimmed hairs on his neck, under his beard, are white. The few people walking past us on the sidewalk don’t know that we are visitors from the future. A vision, a premonition, a walking visitation. This will be them: Either T, in the mask, or — if they’re lucky — me, tending to him.

Essayist Leslie Jamison writes in the New York Review of Books about being shut away alone in her New York City apartment with her 2-year-old daughter since she became sick:

The virus. Its sinewy, intimate name. What does it feel like in my body today? Shivering under blankets. A hot itch behind the eyes. Three sweatshirts in the middle of the day. My daughter trying to pull another blanket over my body with her tiny arms. An ache in the muscles that somehow makes it hard to lie still. This loss of taste has become a kind of sensory quarantine. It’s as if the quarantine keeps inching closer and closer to my insides. First I lost the touch of other bodies; then I lost the air; now I’ve lost the taste of bananas. Nothing about any of these losses is particularly unique. I’ve made a schedule so I won’t go insane with the toddler. Five days ago, I wrote Walk/Adventure! on it, next to a cut-out illustration of a tiger—as if we’d see tigers on our walks. It was good to keep possibility alive.

At Literary Hub, novelist Heidi Pitlor writes about the elastic nature of time during her family’s quarantine in Massachusetts:

During a shutdown, the things that mark our days—commuting to work, sending our kids to school, having a drink with friends—vanish and time takes on a flat, seamless quality. Without some self-imposed structure, it’s easy to feel a little untethered. A friend recently posted on Facebook: “For those who have lost track, today is Blursday the fortyteenth of Maprilay.” ... Giving shape to time is especially important now, when the future is so shapeless. We do not know whether the virus will continue to rage for weeks or months or, lord help us, on and off for years. We do not know when we will feel safe again. And so many of us, minus those who are gifted at compartmentalization or denial, remain largely captive to fear. We may stay this way if we do not create at least the illusion of movement in our lives, our long days spent with ourselves or partners or families.

• What day is it today?

Novelist Lauren Groff writes at the New York Review of Books about trying to escape the prison of her fears while sequestered at home in Gainesville, Florida:

Some people have imaginations sparked only by what they can see; I blame this blinkered empiricism for the parks overwhelmed with people, the bars, until a few nights ago, thickly thronged. My imagination is the opposite. I fear everything invisible to me. From the enclosure of my house, I am afraid of the suffering that isn’t present before me, the people running out of money and food or drowning in the fluid in their lungs, the deaths of health-care workers now growing ill while performing their duties. I fear the federal government, which the right wing has so—intentionally—weakened that not only is it insufficient to help its people, it is actively standing in help’s way. I fear we won’t sufficiently punish the right. I fear leaving the house and spreading the disease. I fear what this time of fear is doing to my children, their imaginations, and their souls.

At ArtForum , Berlin-based critic and writer Kristian Vistrup Madsen reflects on martinis, melancholia, and Finnish artist Jaakko Pallasvuo’s 2018 graphic novel Retreat , in which three young people exile themselves in the woods:

In melancholia, the shape of what is ending, and its temporality, is sprawling and incomprehensible. The ambivalence makes it hard to bear. The world of Retreat is rendered in lush pink and purple watercolors, which dissolve into wild and messy abstractions. In apocalypse, the divisions established in genesis bleed back out. My own Corona-retreat is similarly soft, color-field like, each day a blurred succession of quarantinis, YouTube–yoga, and televized press conferences. As restrictions mount, so does abstraction. For now, I’m still rooting for love to save the world.

At the Paris Review , Matt Levin writes about reading Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves during quarantine:

A retreat, a quarantine, a sickness—they simultaneously distort and clarify, curtail and expand. It is an ideal state in which to read literature with a reputation for difficulty and inaccessibility, those hermetic books shorn of the handholds of conventional plot or characterization or description. A novel like Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is perfect for the state of interiority induced by quarantine—a story of three men and three women, meeting after the death of a mutual friend, told entirely in the overlapping internal monologues of the six, interspersed only with sections of pure, achingly beautiful descriptions of the natural world, a day’s procession and recession of light and waves. The novel is, in my mind’s eye, a perfectly spherical object. It is translucent and shimmering and infinitely fragile, prone to shatter at the slightest disturbance. It is not a book that can be read in snatches on the subway—it demands total absorption. Though it revels in a stark emotional nakedness, the book remains aloof, remote in its own deep self-absorption.

• Vox is starting a book club. Come read with us!

In an essay for the Financial Times, novelist Arundhati Roy writes with anger about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anemic response to the threat, but also offers a glimmer of hope for the future:

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

From Boston, Nora Caplan-Bricker writes in The Point about the strange contraction of space under quarantine, in which a friend in Beirut is as close as the one around the corner in the same city:

It’s a nice illusion—nice to feel like we’re in it together, even if my real world has shrunk to one person, my husband, who sits with his laptop in the other room. It’s nice in the same way as reading those essays that reframe social distancing as solidarity. “We must begin to see the negative space as clearly as the positive, to know what we don’t do is also brilliant and full of love,” the poet Anne Boyer wrote on March 10th, the day that Massachusetts declared a state of emergency. If you squint, you could almost make sense of this quarantine as an effort to flatten, along with the curve, the distinctions we make between our bonds with others. Right now, I care for my neighbor in the same way I demonstrate love for my mother: in all instances, I stay away. And in moments this month, I have loved strangers with an intensity that is new to me. On March 14th, the Saturday night after the end of life as we knew it, I went out with my dog and found the street silent: no lines for restaurants, no children on bicycles, no couples strolling with little cups of ice cream. It had taken the combined will of thousands of people to deliver such a sudden and complete emptiness. I felt so grateful, and so bereft.

And on his own website, musician and artist David Byrne writes about rediscovering the value of working for collective good , saying that “what is happening now is an opportunity to learn how to change our behavior”:

In emergencies, citizens can suddenly cooperate and collaborate. Change can happen. We’re going to need to work together as the effects of climate change ramp up. In order for capitalism to survive in any form, we will have to be a little more socialist. Here is an opportunity for us to see things differently — to see that we really are all connected — and adjust our behavior accordingly. Are we willing to do this? Is this moment an opportunity to see how truly interdependent we all are? To live in a world that is different and better than the one we live in now? We might be too far down the road to test every asymptomatic person, but a change in our mindsets, in how we view our neighbors, could lay the groundwork for the collective action we’ll need to deal with other global crises. The time to see how connected we all are is now.

The portrait these writers paint of a world under quarantine is multifaceted. Our worlds have contracted to the confines of our homes, and yet in some ways we’re more connected than ever to one another. We feel fear and boredom, anger and gratitude, frustration and strange peace. Uncertainty drives us to find metaphors and images that will let us wrap our minds around what is happening.

Yet there’s no single “what” that is happening. Everyone is contending with the pandemic and its effects from different places and in different ways. Reading others’ experiences — even the most frightening ones — can help alleviate the loneliness and dread, a little, and remind us that what we’re going through is both unique and shared by all.

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• Our experts

Lockdown: A Final Assessment

Economy wide COVID-19 lockdown policies, which included stay-at-home orders, school and business closures, along with mask and other non-pharmaceutical interventions, were a radical and untried social policy. Over the two years that followed the initial declaration of a pandemic an exceptional amount of research was done on all things related to COVID-19, and this included the costs and benefits of lockdowns.

The benefits of lockdowns were originally expressed in terms of mitigating the rush to hospitals and preventing the health system from being overrun. Later many thought that the virus might actually be eliminated by lockdowns (so-called “zero-COVID”). Initial benefit estimates were based on simple models that predicted the number of hospitalizations and deaths without lockdowns. Initial estimates of the costs of the lockdowns were based only on lost GDP from reduced labor-force participation. This led to grossly inaccurate cost/benefit estimates.

Examining the research over the past two years reveals several robust and clear findings:

• Epidemiological models that do not include human behaviour changes in response to a novel virus drastically over-estimate the number of hospitalizations and deaths. All of the early models made death predictions that were off by factors of 10 or more. The infamous Imperial College of London model, led by Neil Ferguson, predicted that with full lockdowns in place there would be 132,687 COVID-19 deaths in Canada by July 30, 2020; in fact, by that date there were 9,019 actual deaths.
• Changes in people’s behaviour in response to the arrival of the virus were immediate, and around the world and in every country infected by COVID-19 changes in behaviour meant that an endemic state was reached in the spring of 2020.
• Behaviour effects were not limited to acting cautiously. Other behaviour changes including incomplete compliance with mandates—and compliance levels varied over the course of the pandemic. These changes in behaviour meant that deaths and hospitalizations were not substantially different in jurisdictions with different degrees of lockdown when other factors were controlled for.
• Ultimately, estimates of the benefit of lockdowns in terms of lives saved were made based on data. Analysts used many different procedures in an attempt to identify the causal effect of lockdowns. Over and over, findings showed only small positive effects on death rates. The most recent and thorough meta-analysis found that after combining all lockdown effects there was only an average reduction in mortality of 3.2 percent. All of the lockdown efforts amounted to almost nothing.
• The costs of lockdown go far beyond the lost GDP. In areas like worldwide food insecurity, international trade reductions, reduced travel, increased domestic violence, increased drug/alcohol/mental health issues, and employment disruptions, we are only aware of the costs and no estimates have yet been made of the level of these costs.  Much work has been done on the effect lockdowns have had on children’s physical well-being, lost education, early development, IQ, and social abilities. Again, no widespread estimates of the actual size of these losses have been made, but it is generally acknowledged that children and youth have suffered under the lockdowns.
• Lockdowns created collateral deaths. Behaviour changes in the face of COVID-19 and lockdowns included forms of self-protection that often ended up increasing mortality. These behaviour changes included missing regular medical checkups out of fear of contracting the disease. Estimates in the US show that there were 171,000 excess non-COVID-19 deaths through to the end of 2021. By that time the US had recorded 825,929 COVID-19 deaths. However, if lockdowns only reduce deaths by 3.2 percent, then only 27,303 lives were saved by lockdowns. Just on collateral deaths alone the cost/benefit ratio of lockdown is 171,000/27,303 = 6.26.

Widespread, economy-wide lockdown policies were a disaster. They had only marginal effects on the ultimate number of deaths, but imposed enormous costs.

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Coronavirus Disease 2019

How the pandemic changed family dynamics, the potential impact of covid-19 on adolescents’ social development..

Posted August 2, 2021 | Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

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• The social effects of quarantine hit younger adolescents particularly hard, derailing typical development.
• During COVID-19, family was more influential than friends during a developmental period when the opposite would normally be true.
• Siblings may have functioned as a buffer against the social effects of quarantine for older adolescents.

The social landscape has looked wildly different over the past year and a half. Because of the quarantines and social restrictions made necessary by the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person social interactions were greatly reduced in 2020 as many found themselves spending the majority of their time at home with family, and away from friends and colleagues. Previous research has already connected quarantine and increased mental health issues that have been observed during the pandemic (e.g., Chahal et al., 2020; Ghebreyesus et al., 2020).

Adolescence is a time of social exploration where peers begin to play a greater role than parents as teens move toward independence, so the disruption of this normative timeline, and particularly interactions with friends, is cause for concern (Ellis et al., 2020; Orben, Tomova, Blakemore, 2020). Cross-sectional studies on the effects of COVID-19 have shown that maintaining friendships is something children and adolescents were bothered by and that while online social connections can be beneficial, in-person interactions are more effective (Ellis et al., 2020; Orben et al., 2020).

A recent study led by Dr. Reuma Gadassi-Polack in our lab expanded what is known about the effects of COVID-19 quarantine by looking at adolescents’ social interactions and depressive symptoms before and during the pandemic (Gadassi Polack et al., in press). Researchers collected data from kids using short questionnaires completed daily, a year before COVID and again at the beginning of the pandemic. Each day, participants reported both positive and negative interactions with family members and peers and their depressive symptoms.

The study looked at 112 participants (age 8-15) who completed daily questionnaires in both the initial pre-COVID data collection (Wave 1) and the data collection during COVID (Wave 2). Researchers were able to capture information about both individual relationships and how they affect one another via “spillover,” a concept that will be discussed further below.

COVID Had Greater Negative Effects on Younger Adolescents

In typical development, we would expect to see uniform increases in interactions with peers alongside decreases in interactions with parents (e.g., Lam et al., 2012; Larson et al., 1991; Larson et al., 1996). Instead, younger (but not older) participants had significantly fewer positive interactions with peers during COVID compared to pre-COVID. For participants 13 and older, significantly more positive interactions with siblings were seen during COVID vs. before. This led to a greater negative impact on younger adolescents, who lost positive interactions with peers without gaining any positive interactions with siblings like older adolescents. In fact, younger adolescents had more negative interactions with siblings than friends or parents.

For both age groups, negative interactions with friends significantly decreased while there were no other significant decreases in other relationships. This finding presents a different facet of the move to online school: for some, this was an opportunity to escape a negative environment.

Altogether, the lack of the expected increase in interactions with friends suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has derailed the typical trajectory of social development. The larger effect can potentially be credited to less social development as younger adolescents are experiencing the same effects earlier in development, with less social skills in place. A further implication of these results is that in-person interactions cannot be neatly substituted with virtual interaction.

Family Members Were More Influential than Friends During the Early Stages of COVID-19

Looking at a process named “spillover” allowed researchers to understand the connections within the family, family subsystems, and peer relationships. The concept of spillover is grounded in the idea that our social world is made up of subsystems, including those within the family: the mother and father is a subsystem, as is the parent and child, or the siblings. These subsystems are of course connected (e.g., the mother-father relationship is related to the mother-child relationship), but not without some boundaries . When these boundaries become weaker, interactions in one subsystem can affect interactions in other subsystems via spillover (e.g., Chung et al., 2011; Flook & Fuligni, 2008; Kaufman et al., 2020; Krishnakumar & Buehler, 2000; Mastrotheodoros et al., 2020).

For example, an argument between parents can cause each parent to be more likely to argue with their child. What began as a negative interaction in the mother-father relationship has then spilled over into the parent-child relationship. This example would be considered negative spillover, where negative occurrences in one subsystem lead to negative interactions or feelings in another. Positive spillover occurs when the same thing happens with positive occurrences. For example, being praised by their mother might cause a child to be kinder to their sibling . Then, a positive interaction in the mother-child relationship has spilled over into the sibling relationship.

COVID-19 appeared to create a more closed family system, with fewer spillover effects from outside and more inside. In other words, interactions with family members impacted interactions with friends to a lesser degree during COVID. Separate interactions with family and friends are expected to affect each other less as adolescents develop typically. However, in the context of the pandemic, this was particularly detrimental for those who already had more negative family relationships prior to COVID as there was less day-level positive spillover and increased negative spillover on the individual level.

Increase in Depressive Symptoms Related to Family Interactions

Changes were not only seen in interactions, but also in levels of depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms increased significantly by almost 40 percent during COVID-19, regardless of age. This signifies the severity of COVID-19’s impact on adolescent mental health, above and beyond any increase in depression typically seen in development (e.g., Salk et al., 2016). The occurrence of less positive and more negative interactions with family members significantly predicted depressive symptoms during COVID-19.

More Positive than Negative Interactions and a New Role for Siblings

The effects of the social changes wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic were not wholly negative, however. Overall, most kids reported five times more positive interactions than negative interactions. Importantly, having more positive interactions with family members was associated with smaller increases in depressive symptoms during COVID.

The effect of the pandemic on sibling relationships was also more positive. Few would be surprised to hear siblings had a high number of negative interactions – much higher compared to any other relationship. However, increased positive interactions without an increase in negative interactions with siblings was seen in older adolescents, suggesting that siblings can compensate at least somewhat for the decrease in in-person peer interactions.

Combined with prior research on siblings’ positive effects on mental health and loneliness (McHale, Updegraff, & Whiteman, 2012; Wikle, Ackert, & Jenson, 2019), these results suggest that the presence of siblings is beneficial during a time of social isolation .

In general, this research shines a light on how important peer interactions are for normative development and the necessity of ensuring children and adolescents are given opportunities to spend time, especially in-person, with peers.

Take-Home Points

• Family negativity predicted the increase in depressive symptoms during COVID-19. In families with more positive interactions, there was less of an increase.
• Siblings potentially functioned as a buffer for the social effects of quarantine for older adolescents.

Anna Leah Davis, a Yale undergraduate, contributed to the writing of this blog post.

Chahal, R., Kirshenbaum, J. S., Miller, J. G., Ho, T. C., & Gotlib, I. H. (2020). Higher executive control network coherence buffers against puberty-related increases in internalizing symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Biological Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2020.08.010

Chung, G. H., Flook, L., & Fuligni, A. J. (2011). Reciprocal associations between family and peer conflict in adolescents' daily lives. Child Development, 82, 1390–1396. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01625.x

Ellis, W. E., Dumas, T. M., & Forbes, L. M. (2020). Physically isolated but socially connected: Psychological adjustment and stress among adolescents during the initial COVID-19 crisis. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 52, 177-187. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cbs0000215

Flook, L., & Fuligni, A. J. (2008). Family and school spillover in adolescents’ daily lives. Child Development, 79, 776-787. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01157.x

Gadassi Polack, R. Sened, H., Aubé, S., Zhang, A., Joormann, J., & Kober, H. (in press) Connections during Crisis: Adolescents’ social dynamics and mental health during COVID-19. Developmental Psychology.

Ghebreyesus, T.A. (2020). Addressing mental health needs: an integral part of COVID-19 response. World Psychiatry, 19, 129–130. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20768

Hankin, B. L., Stone, L., & Wright, P. A. (2010). Corumination, interpersonal stress generation, and internalizing symptoms: accumulating effects and transactional influences in a multiwave study of adolescents. Development and Psychopathology, 22, 217–235. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579409990368

Kaufman, T. M., Kretschmer, T., Huitsing, G., & Veenstra, R. (2020). Caught in a vicious cycle? Explaining bidirectional spillover between parent-child relationships and peer victimization. Development and Psychopathology, 32, 11-20. doi: 10.1017/S0954579418001360.

Krishnakumar, A., & Buehler, C. (2000). Interparental conflict and parenting behaviors: A meta‐analytic review. Family Relations, 49, 25-44. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2000.00025.x

Lam, C. B., McHale, S. M., & Crouter, A. C. (2012). Parent–child shared time from middle childhood to late adolescence: Developmental course and adjustment correlates. Child Development, 83, 2089-2103. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01826.x

Larson, R., & Richards, M. H. (1991). Daily companionship in late childhood and early adolescence: Changing developmental contexts. Child Development, 62, 284-300. https://doi.org/10.2307/1131003

Larson, R. W., Richards, M. H., Moneta, G., Holmbeck, G., & Duckett, E. (1996). Changes in adolescents' daily interactions with their families from ages 10 to 18: Disengagement and transformation. Developmental Psychology, 32, 744–754. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.32.4.744

Mastrotheodoros, S., Van Lissa, C. J., Van der Graaff, J., Deković, M., Meeus, W. H., & Branje, S. J. (2020). Day-to-day spillover and long-term transmission of interparental conflict to adolescent–mother conflict: The role of mood. Journal of Family Psychology. doi: 10.1037/fam0000649.

McHale, S. M., Updegraff, K. A., & Whiteman, S. D. (2012). Sibling Relationships and Influences in Childhood and Adolescence. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 74, 913–930. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2012.01011.x

Orben, A., Tomova, L., & Blakemore, S. J. (2020). The effects of social deprivation on adolescent development and mental health. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S2352-4642(20)30186-3

Salk, R. H., Petersen, J. L., Abramson, L. Y., & Hyde, J. S. (2016). The contemporary face of gender differences and similarities in depression throughout adolescence: Development and chronicity. Journal of Affective Disorders, 205, 28-35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2016.03.071

Wikle, J. S., Ackert, E., & Jensen, A. C. (2019). Companionship patterns and emotional states during social interactions for adolescents with and without siblings. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 48, 2190–2206. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01121-z

Jutta Joormann, Ph.D ., is a professor of psychology at Yale University who studies risk factors for depression and anxiety disorders.

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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Consequences of lockdown during covid-19 pandemic in lifestyle and emotional state of children in argentina.

• 1 Instituto de Desarrollo e Investigaciones Pediátricas, Hospital de Niños de La Plata - Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas-Provincia de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• 2 Centro de Matemática La Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• 3 Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The implications of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) lockdown measurements and social isolation in children and their parents are still unknown. The aims of this study were to examine the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on emotional state, feelings and lifestyle of children and their parents, to explore the association between parental characteristics and child well-being and to examine whether the impact of lockdown depends on socio-economic status. Parents completed an online survey including data about socio-demographic information, parent and child feelings and lifestyle during lockdown. Logistic regression and correlation analysis were used to establish associations between variables. In total, 814 parents with children between 4 and 11 were included in the study. According to parents, 69.5% of the children showed changes in their emotional state, 55.3% altered their routine and 62.6% showed sleep disorders. Families with lower socio-economic status were more worried about health, shortage of food and household income ( p < 0.01). Parent and children concern about food/essential items were highly associated [OR (CI 95%) 13.0 (6.81, 26.5), p < 0.01]. Adverse children's emotional state was associated with parental feeling of loneliness ( r = 0.35) and inversely associated with keeping a routine ( r = −0.11). Sleep changes were inversely associated with keeping a routine and having a balcony/garden ( r = −0.53 and −0.16). We conclude that lockdown affected emotional state and lifestyle of children and parents, which were strongly related. Routine and positive parental attitude supported children's well-being. Economic issues were an important concern in families with lower socio-economic status. Our findings can help to promote child health during lockdown.

Introduction

The health, social and economic implications of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are still difficult to estimate. To contain and mitigate the spread of COVID-19, in March 2020 the Argentinean Government decided for strong lockdown measurements such as the cessation of school programs for children who consequently needed to remain at home. Although some restrictions started to ease over time, by November 2020 most of the schools still remained closed ( 1 ).

COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measurements led to social isolation that affected severely the mental health of the general population all over the world, causing an increase in mental distress ( 2 ), depression and anxiety through the lockdown ( 3 – 7 ), sometimes associated with changes in feelings and lifestyle that include reduced physical activity, unhealthy eating habits, inadequate sleep quality and feeling of loneliness ( 2 , 4 , 7 , 8 ). Family lifestyle was also drastically affected: parents suffered psychological distress due to unstable financial circumstances, school closures, and suspended educational services ( 9 , 10 ). Children and adolescents also started to experience adverse emotional responses (stress, worry, helplessness, social and risky behavioral problems, anxiety, and depression) ( 11 – 16 ) and changes in lifestyle such as sleeping problems, increased screen exposure, reduced physical activity and unhealthy eating habits ( 17 – 20 ).

The lockdown measurements affected household finances with stronger implications for families with children living in poverty and/or crowded housing conditions ( 21 – 23 ). In the first half of 2020 Argentina's poverty rate rose to 40.9%, as reported by the country's official INDEC statistics agency ( 24 ), underscoring the devastating impact of the pandemic on the country's population. The lockdown presumably affected to a different extent people from different socio-economic status, and precise estimation of such impact is extremely valuable to decide future Government measures to address the consequences of the unprecedented crisis.

As mentioned above, several studies reported the effects of pandemic lockdown in adults ( 3 , 4 , 8 , 25 ) and children ( 18 , 19 , 26 – 29 ) mainly in Asia and Europe, to our knowledge only one of these studies was conducted in toddlers and pre-schoolers from Latin America ( 26 ). In addition, few studies focused on parent-child dyads ( 10 , 21 , 22 , 30 ). Thus, this study aimed to examine the impact of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on emotional state, feelings and lifestyle of children and their parents in Argentina, focusing on their emotions, emotional stability, worries, routine, sleep, and daily activities. Also, the study explored the association between parental feelings and worries and child well-being. Furthermore, the study examined whether the impact of social isolation during the pandemics depends on the socio-economic status of the family.

Materials and Methods

Sample selection.

Parents filled out an anonymous online survey, after reading the written consent form and explicitly agreeing to take part of the study. The survey was conducted from May 26th to June 17th 2020, targeting parents of children aged 4–11 years-old. This age range was chosen to include children receiving pre-school and primary education. In case of multiple children, parents were asked to report on one child only. All questions were answered by the parent. The survey was conducted using an online platform, accessible through any device with an Internet connection. The survey was disseminated through institutional and private social networks (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram), and institutional mailing lists. This method of administration provides a sample whose population parameters cannot be controlled as it is the case for probabilistic sampling. Such strategy was effective for the research objectives, because it facilitated the wide dissemination of the survey during a period with territorial restrictions due to the pandemic. The final sample included 814 families because respondents with missing or implausible data ( n = 302, e.g., child age out of range) were excluded from the analyses. Inclusion criteria: adult (>18 years old) mothers and fathers with children 4–11 years-old. Exclusion criteria: adults who did not have children or whose children were out of the age range.

The survey was specifically built using Google Form by the Institute of Development and Paediatric Research (IDIP), La Plata's Children Hospital, Buenos Aires, Argentina. For this, scientific literature related to the impact of lockdown on emotional state, feelings and lifestyle was reviewed ( 3 , 4 , 8 , 12 , 18 , 28 ) and questionnaires applied in previous studies were considered for creating our survey. The survey was first tested in a small number of parents who were asked whether the questions were clear. The survey ( Supplementary Table 1 ) included 43 closed questions, for each a list of acceptable responses was provided. Questions were divided into three different sections: (1) parent and family socio-demographic data (age, educational level, hometown, employment, telework, public health assistance, social welfare benefits, number of rooms in the house, number of persons living in the house, having a balcony/garden in the house, presence of pets), (2) children's data, feelings and lifestyle during lockdown (gender, age, worries about COVID-19, feelings and worries during lockdown, emotional state, routine, time spent in different activities, sleep, virtual contact with family/friends), (3) parent's feelings and worries during lockdown (worries about COVID-19 and feelings and worries during lockdown).

Statistical Analyses

Statistical analyses were performed using the R software version 3.6.0. Quantitative variables are presented as median (interquartile range, IQR) and categorical data are summarized as frequency counts and percentages. Chi-squared test or Fisher's exact test were used to test for associations between categorical variables. Pairwise comparisons between multiple groups were adjusted by the Benjamini and Hochberg (BH) method ( 31 ). Logistic regression models were used to estimate the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) between children's and parent's feelings and worries. Associations between children's emotional state, sleep and daily activities and parent's feelings and socio-demographic factors were assessed by polyserial or polychoric correlations according to the nature of the variables. To identify possible socioeconomic status (SES) subgroups, we conducted a cluster analysis on the educational levels of parents, social welfare benefits, public health assistance, number of rooms in the house and number of persons living in the household. All statistical tests were two tailed/bilateral, and the significance level was set at p < 0.01.

Ethics Approval

The study was approved by the Institutional Committee for the Revision of Research Protocols (CIRPI) of the Institute of Development and Paediatric Research (IDIP), La Plata Children's Hospital, and conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki guidelines and Argentinian legal provisions governing clinical research on humans. We obtained informed consent from the participants included in this study.

Family Features and Clustering Based on the Socio-Economic Status (SES)

Respondents were between 21 and 56 years-old (median: 39), primarily college or university students/graduates (87.17%), employees (62.9%) that during lockdown were working part-time (42.8%) and from home (68.9%). More than 13% reported receiving social welfare benefits and 12.3% were assisted in the public health system. Home residences predominantly had 2–3 rooms and 88.8% housed between 3 and 5 people. Based on this, the median for the ratio between the number of persons living in the household and the number of rooms in the house was 1.5. Children were uniformly distributed by gender and age ( Supplementary Table 2 ). To assess if the impact of the lockdown depended on SES, we generated a 2-group partitioning of the families by conducting a cluster analysis including the following categorical variables: (1) public health assistance, (2) employment, (3) education, (4) reception of social welfare benefits, and (5) ratio between the number of persons living in the household and the number of rooms in the house (above or below 1.5). As a result, 378 parents (46.4%) were attributed to a high SES cluster, which included parents with high educational levels (university), low reception of social welfare benefits, low use of public health assistance and a number of persons living in the household/number of rooms in the house ratio <1.5, while 436 parents (53.6%) were attributed to a low SES cluster.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown on Children

Emotional state.

According to their parents, 69.5% of the children showed changes in their emotional state. More than half of the children had adverse consequences on their emotional state: 46.1% of the parents reported mood instability in their children, 4.1% reported a nervous or aggressive mood and 3.8% sadness or crying. On the other hand, 10.7% of the children were happy during lockdown. Also 4.8% of the parents reported another type of emotional change in their children. The percentage of children who were happier under lockdown was higher between 4 and 6 years-old (14.4%) than children between 9 and 11 (7.4%, p < 0.001) ( Supplementary Figure 1 ). The percentage of children with no changes in their emotional state was higher between 9 and 11 (41%, p < 0.001). No differences were observed between the low and high SES clusters ( p = 0.574) or between boys and girls ( p = 0.039).

Feelings of children during lockdown are shown in Table 1 . According to the parent's opinion, 27% of the children were worried about getting/transmitting the COVID-19, older children (9–11 years old) being more worried than younger children. More than 16% were afraid to leave the house. Most of the children missed visiting their relatives (90.4%) and attending to school (64.6%), independently of their age but more often among girls than boys (93.6 vs. 87.2%, p = 0.002 and 71.2 vs. 57.3%, p < 0.001, respectively). Children mainly between 6 and 7 years-old missed practicing sports (75.9%, p < 0.001) and their friends (89.1%, p = 0.002), with no significant gender differences. Regarding SES, children belonging to families in the low cluster were more worried about food or money shortage than children in the high SES cluster.

Table 1 . Children's feelings and lifestyle during lockdown [ n (%)].

Lifestyle Changes

As shown in Table 1 , 55.3% of the parents reported that their children altered their routine during lockdown, independently of their age. Around 62% showed sleep disorders, mainly going to sleep at late hours, and this percentage increased with age. Girls showed more sleep disorders than boys (67 vs. 56.7%, p = 0.004). Most of the children communicated with their friends/family outside of the household at least once a day via WhatsApp (65.5%), social media (32.2%), or online gaming (38.1%), and this percentage increased with age. Social media was used by 14.1% of the children and 19.5% played online games constantly or on-and-off throughout the day, especially boys ( p < 0.001 vs. girls). SES did not affect routine, sleep or virtual contact with friends/family.

Daily Activities

As shown in Table 2 , 31.8% of the children spent <30 min/day being outside, and 36.2% spent <30 min doing physical activity (inside or outside), without gender differences. Concerning indoor activities, 57.7% of the children spent 2 h or more playing inside and 36.2% spent <30 min doing handicrafts. Most of the children (62.4%) spent <30 min a day reading. Regarding screen time, 28.1% spent more than 2 h playing screen games and 33.9% spent more than 2 h watching videos and/or TV. Also 21.6% spent more than 2 h playing screen games plus more than 2 h watching videos and/or TV.

Table 2 . Time spent in different activities during lockdown [ n (%)].

Children spent time in different activities depending on their age and gender. Younger children (4–6 years-old) spent less time doing school homework than older children. Besides, younger children spent more time outside, doing physical activity, playing, doing handicrafts and reading than older children (9–11 years-old). On the other hand, older children spent more time playing screen games. Significant gender differences were observed in screen games and handicrafts: boys spent more time playing screen games (36.1% spent more than 2 h/day vs. 22.2% in girls, p < 0.001) and girls spent more time doing handicrafts (73.3% spent more than 30 min/day vs. 53.3% in boys, p < 0.001). Time spent in different activities was not affected by SES.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown on Families and Association to Children's Lifestyle and Emotional State

Parent's feelings.

Almost half (47.1%) of the parents were worried about getting/transmitting COVID-19 and 27.9% were afraid to leave the house for essential activities such as work or essential shopping. Besides, 59.1% reported being worried about their children's use of screen, and 68.4% found it stressful to keep children entertained during lockdown. Also, 16.6% of the parents felt lonely, 18.8% did not feel capable to help their child with school homework and 45.1% did not have time to play with their children. These worries and feelings were not affected by SES. In contrast, preoccupations about health (physical or mental), shortage of food/essential items, total household income and children's future were higher in families in the low SES cluster ( Supplementary Table 3 ).

Associations Between Child and Parent Feelings and Worries During Lockdown

As shown in Table 3 , parental fright to leave the house and concern about accessibility to food/essential items, household income and children's future were highly associated with similar worries in the children. Particularly, children whose parents were concerned about having enough food were more likely to be worried about food shortage during lockdown [OR (CI 95%) 13.0 (6.81, 26.5)].

Table 3 . Odds ratio (CI 95%) between children's and parent's feelings and worries.

Associations Between Children's Emotional State, Sleep and Activities and Routine, Parent's Feelings, and Socio-Demographic Factors

Only selected associations (| r |>0.1, p < 0.01) ( 32 ) were highlighted here. As shown in Table 4 , parental age and part-time working were positively associated with time spent doing school homework. The presence of balcony/garden was inversely associated with changes in child's sleep and positively associated with the amount of time spent outside. Keeping a routine similar to how things were before COVID-19 was inversely associated with adverse emotional state and with changes in sleep, and positively associated with the time spent doing school homework. The feeling of loneliness of parents was associated with adverse emotional state and sleep changes in children, while the feeling of being able to help with school homework was inversely associated with adverse emotional state. Having time to play with children was inversely associated with adverse emotional state and with changes in sleep. Time spent in physical activity, reading, playing videogames or watching a screen did not present association with routine, socio-demographic factors or parent's feelings (data not shown).

Table 4 . Associations between children's emotional state, sleep and daily activities and routine, parent's feelings, and socio-demographic factors.

To our knowledge, this is the first study investigating how COVID-19 pandemic lockdown affects lifestyle and emotional state of children and the links between child and parent well-being in the context of pandemic-associated lockdown in families from Latin America. Our study found that the socio-economic status of the family, the alteration of the routine as a consequence of the pandemic, the parental feelings and the access to a balcony/garden strongly affect children's emotional state and lifestyle.

Current results indicate that 69.5% of the parents reported changes in the emotional state of their children after 2 months of lockdown. Younger children showed more dramatic mood changes. The most frequent feature was mood instability. Feelings of worry, fear and longing for their relatives and friends and school were also frequently reported by most parents. Younger children were also happier to staying at home, which may reflect their interest in spending more time with their parents/caregivers. No gender differences were observed, in agreement with other studies in children ( 20 , 27 ), although some studies in adolescents show higher depression and anxiety levels in females ( 16 ). On the whole, our results are in line with the observations of other authors. In Italian children, a self-reported study ( 20 ) showed frequent mood swings in nearly half of the responders along with anxiety and depression symptoms. Other study in Spanish and Italian children reported that 85.7% of the parents perceived changes in their children's emotional state and behavior during lockdown, mainly difficulty concentrating and boredom ( 15 ). Studies in Chinese children show behavioral and emotional problems (17.6%) ( 29 ) and anxiety and depression rates between 18% ( 27 ) and 24% ( 12 ). Although our study did not assess depressive or anxiety symptoms, the observed changes in the emotional state could precede mental health decline and further evolve into such anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress symptoms.

Our study found important changes in the lifestyle of children, mainly loss of routine and changes in sleep. One of the most reported stressors of parents under pandemic lockdown was the disruption of children's routine ( 33 ), which can be detrimental because routines help children feel safe and contribute to healthy habits ( 33 ). In line with our results, other studies also reported changes in sleep. Sleep time increased in Canadian and Spanish children ( 17 , 18 ), and behavioral health was impaired in American children ( 22 ). Other authors ( 20 ) also showed alterations in routine and sleep in Italian children aged 6 to 14 in a self-reported study conducted through video-calls. Communication with relatives/friends outside the household was mainly sustained on a digital level, which increases screen time, but may be beneficial in lockdown circumstances. Regarding daily activities, we observed commonly found gender and age-related differences ( 18 ): older children were less active than younger children and spent more time with screens, and boys spent more time playing screen games ( 34 ). Sedentary behaviors (<30 min of physical activity, more than 2 h playing screen games and/or watching videos and/or TV) were observed in more than 35% of the children. The high rate of sedentary behaviors is in line with the above referred Spanish and Canadian studies ( 17 , 18 ) that reported decreased physical activity and increased screen exposure during pandemic lockdown. Interestingly, a study performed in 2014 found that 24.5% of Argentinean children between 5 and 10 years-old did not meet the international requirements of physical activity and showed a sedentary behavior in front of screen ( 35 ). Therefore, the proportion of sedentary children during the COVID-19 outbreak was increased in Argentina, exacerbated by a decline in outdoor time. Spending time outdoors has already been associated with more physical activity, less sedentary time and improved sleep ( 18 ). Thus, children should be encouraged to play and be active, engaging in activities compatible with lockdown measures, to minimize the negative consequences of lockdown.

The COVID-19 crisis has particularly affected vulnerable populations, including families with young children, who face dual caregiver and/or breadwinner demands ( 21 ) in a context of increasing poverty rate in Argentina. Although emotional state, lifestyle and activities of the children during lockdown did not depend on the SES, parents with lower SES were more worried about their health and economic issues (income, food/essential items), and these worries were also evident in their children. These findings indicate that 2 months of lockdown have an unfavorable impact on the emotional well-being mostly of vulnerable families, in line with reports from other authors ( 21 ).

Our study also aimed to identify factors that helped to support children's well-being. The key features for children's well-being unmasked by the current study were keeping a routine, a positive attitude from the parents and having a balcony/garden. The latter favors outdoor time and sleep, but does not increase physical activity. Keeping a routine similar to how things were before COVID-19 improves sleep, emotional state and dedication to school homework. These results agree with other authors who reported that mood state is more strongly related to life changes than specific COVID worries ( 36 ). Being an older parent and part-time working also favor dedication to school homework, and parents with positive attitudes such as playing with their children or helping them with school homework have a favorable impact on their emotional state. On the other hand, parents feeling lonely negatively affect the child's emotional state and sleep quality, and parents who feel worried or afraid highly condition the children's fears and worries, especially about shortage of food and money. Other authors reported that the parents' difficulty to deal with lockdown is associated with parent's stress, which impacts on children's behavioral and emotional problems ( 30 ), and distress levels are also mediated by child's behavioral and emotional difficulties ( 10 ). This is in line with our findings that parents feel stressed to keep children entertained and do not find time to play with them, though spending a lot of time in the house. Our results and results from other authors ( 21 , 30 ) highlight the strong links between parental psychological well-being and the well-being of their children. When children do not have a predictable routine and do not have emotional support from their parents, they may show distress evidenced by emotional and behavioral problems.

It was recently reported that school closure due to COVID-19 has adverse consequences on children's physical and mental well-being ( 37 ), and similar disruptions are evident in our study. School closure isolates and socially deprives children from contact with their peers and teachers and is an important element in routine changes. School closure also plays a key role in the increase of sedentary behaviors since schools, and particularly physical education classes, provide an adequate environment to promote active behaviors among children and adolescents ( 17 ). Finally, parents are left alone dealing with children's education and having children at home 24 h/7 d, while also have to manage home-working and childcare ( 30 ). Therefore, the relevance of school closure on children's well-being should be taken into account when adopting preventive COVID-19 measures.

One of the strengths of our study lies in the fact that it was conducted 2 months after the beginning of the lockdown measurements, a very critical moment of the pandemic in Argentina. However, some features of the present study should be considered. First, this is a cross-sectional correlational study, therefore we cannot reach a conclusion about the long-term impact of lockdown or determine a causal relationship between the variables studied, a longitudinal analysis of the effects of lockdown on children and their parents over time would help to better understand the long-lasting consequences of lockdown. Moreover, the answers of the survey were exclusively provided by the parents. This data collection method may provide less information than child reports or direct evaluation by experts. However, it should be kept in mind that self-reports are not adequate for young children and pandemic restrictions limits direct evaluation by experts. Despite these limitations, this study is the first to provide data on the repercussions of COVID-19 lockdown on Argentinean children.

In conclusion, current results show that 2 months of pandemic lockdown in Argentina affected emotional state and lifestyle of children and their parents. During the COVID-19 crisis, strong links between parental psychological status and the well-being of children were observed. Lockdown especially affected the emotional well-being of more vulnerable families. Although the impact of the pandemic lockdown seems inevitable, our results show the importance of keeping a consistent routine during school closure, with enough opportunities to play, read, rest, and engage in physical activity, trying to avoid spending too much time in front of a screen. Besides, support for parents who are facing a stressful experience should also be provided. Our findings can guide efforts to preserve and promote child well-being during lockdown, helping governments to decide the confinement rules to apply to children, especially regarding school closing. Confinement rules should be accompanied by recommendations and guidelines for parents and caregivers to help children (and adults) to cope with the COVID-19 crisis.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Institutional Committee for the Revision of Research Protocols (CIRPI) of the Institute of Development and Paediatric Research (IDIP), La Plata Children's Hospital. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

MFA, MF, and MP designed the study and wrote the manuscript. MF, MP, MÁA, AA, MS, and MFA collected, analyzed, and interpreted the data. MF performed the statistical analysis. All authors approved the submitted versions.

This work was supported by grants from Fondo para la Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (FONCyT) and Gran Logia de la Argentina (PICTO2017-0086), from Fundación Alberto Roemmers and from Fundación Florencio Fiorini to MFA.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We thank the participants for their contribution to the study. We are grateful to Dr. Mario Perello for the supportive comments and careful reading of the manuscript and all the staff of the institute for their help in the dissemination of the survey.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fped.2021.660033/full#supplementary-material

Supplementary Figure 1. Emotional state of children during lockdown. Percentage of children displaying different emotional states during lockdown according to parental report.

Supplementary Table 1. Survey.

Supplementary Table 2. Description of parent and child characteristics ( N = 814).

Supplementary Table 3. Parent's feelings and worries during lockdown [n (%)].

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Keywords: COVID-19, pandemic, lockdown, children, emotional state

Citation: Fasano MV, Padula M, Azrak MÁ, Avico AJ, Sala M and Andreoli MF (2021) Consequences of Lockdown During COVID-19 Pandemic in Lifestyle and Emotional State of Children in Argentina. Front. Pediatr. 9:660033. doi: 10.3389/fped.2021.660033

Received: 28 January 2021; Accepted: 15 June 2021; Published: 14 July 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Fasano, Padula, Azrak, Avico, Sala and Andreoli. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: María F. Andreoli, mfandreoli@fbcb.unl.edu.ar

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Impact of COVID-19 on people's livelihoods, their health and our food systems

Joint statement by ilo, fao, ifad and who.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic loss of human life worldwide and presents an unprecedented challenge to public health, food systems and the world of work. The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating: tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty, while the number of undernourished people, currently estimated at nearly 690 million, could increase by up to 132 million by the end of the year.

Millions of enterprises face an existential threat. Nearly half of the world’s 3.3 billion global workforce are at risk of losing their livelihoods. Informal economy workers are particularly vulnerable because the majority lack social protection and access to quality health care and have lost access to productive assets. Without the means to earn an income during lockdowns, many are unable to feed themselves and their families. For most, no income means no food, or, at best, less food and less nutritious food. 

The pandemic has been affecting the entire food system and has laid bare its fragility. Border closures, trade restrictions and confinement measures have been preventing farmers from accessing markets, including for buying inputs and selling their produce, and agricultural workers from harvesting crops, thus disrupting domestic and international food supply chains and reducing access to healthy, safe and diverse diets. The pandemic has decimated jobs and placed millions of livelihoods at risk. As breadwinners lose jobs, fall ill and die, the food security and nutrition of millions of women and men are under threat, with those in low-income countries, particularly the most marginalized populations, which include small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples, being hardest hit.

Millions of agricultural workers – waged and self-employed – while feeding the world, regularly face high levels of working poverty, malnutrition and poor health, and suffer from a lack of safety and labour protection as well as other types of abuse. With low and irregular incomes and a lack of social support, many of them are spurred to continue working, often in unsafe conditions, thus exposing themselves and their families to additional risks. Further, when experiencing income losses, they may resort to negative coping strategies, such as distress sale of assets, predatory loans or child labour. Migrant agricultural workers are particularly vulnerable, because they face risks in their transport, working and living conditions and struggle to access support measures put in place by governments. Guaranteeing the safety and health of all agri-food workers – from primary producers to those involved in food processing, transport and retail, including street food vendors – as well as better incomes and protection, will be critical to saving lives and protecting public health, people’s livelihoods and food security.

In the COVID-19 crisis food security, public health, and employment and labour issues, in particular workers’ health and safety, converge. Adhering to workplace safety and health practices and ensuring access to decent work and the protection of labour rights in all industries will be crucial in addressing the human dimension of the crisis. Immediate and purposeful action to save lives and livelihoods should include extending social protection towards universal health coverage and income support for those most affected. These include workers in the informal economy and in poorly protected and low-paid jobs, including youth, older workers, and migrants. Particular attention must be paid to the situation of women, who are over-represented in low-paid jobs and care roles. Different forms of support are key, including cash transfers, child allowances and healthy school meals, shelter and food relief initiatives, support for employment retention and recovery, and financial relief for businesses, including micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. In designing and implementing such measures it is essential that governments work closely with employers and workers.

Countries dealing with existing humanitarian crises or emergencies are particularly exposed to the effects of COVID-19. Responding swiftly to the pandemic, while ensuring that humanitarian and recovery assistance reaches those most in need, is critical.

Now is the time for global solidarity and support, especially with the most vulnerable in our societies, particularly in the emerging and developing world. Only together can we overcome the intertwined health and social and economic impacts of the pandemic and prevent its escalation into a protracted humanitarian and food security catastrophe, with the potential loss of already achieved development gains.

We must recognize this opportunity to build back better, as noted in the Policy Brief issued by the United Nations Secretary-General. We are committed to pooling our expertise and experience to support countries in their crisis response measures and efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. We need to develop long-term sustainable strategies to address the challenges facing the health and agri-food sectors. Priority should be given to addressing underlying food security and malnutrition challenges, tackling rural poverty, in particular through more and better jobs in the rural economy, extending social protection to all, facilitating safe migration pathways and promoting the formalization of the informal economy.

We must rethink the future of our environment and tackle climate change and environmental degradation with ambition and urgency. Only then can we protect the health, livelihoods, food security and nutrition of all people, and ensure that our ‘new normal’ is a better one.

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Essay on Lockdown in English for Students and Children

This long essay on lockdown in English is suitable for students of classes 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, 11, 12, and also for competitive exam aspirants. All important information related to how to write an amazing essay about Lockdown.

Long Essay on Lockdown in English 800 Words

Lockdown essay in English – Lockdown is a term that exploded collectively around the world in the year 2020. With the widespread attack of an invisible virus, known as the Novel Coronavirus , the entire world was devastated by the Pandemic of this virus. It occurs during a wide variety of emergencies and it disrupts normal life.

Many words became popular after the arrival of Coronavirus, the term “lockdown” being one of them. A lockdown is a period of time when people have to stay home and are only allowed to travel in an emergency. During this period everything is closed except for some essential services like hospitals, grocery stores, medical stores, etc.

Introduction

Coronavirus has been considered the most contagious virus ever in the history of mankind. Its effects have become catastrophic within a short time. To prevent the spread of this Coronavirus in the country, our government has taken some drastic steps.

One of the most important measures implemented is a lockdown, where all businesses have been closed, all people have been confined to their homes and almost all professional, personal, and economic activities have come to a standstill.

The lockdown was announced and enforced on the 25 th of March, 2020. It has been extended, in phases, to continue till mid-June. The government has issued advisories to all citizens to practice social distancing and stay at home. The purpose of the lockdown is to prevent community transmission of this deadly virus so that the chain of transmission can be broken.

Each and every person faced many difficulties during this period but for the daily wagers, it was much more difficult. Work from home, online education , and online business were some of the options during this period, and the Indian government also helped the people a lot.

Online Education During Lockdown

For the first time, schools in India have moved to online classes. It is a struggle for the teacher as well as the students. School students, children, and their parents felt the impact to close schools and educational institutions.

The lockdown situation prompted people to learn and use digital technology and as a result, increased digital literacy.

The teaching material is easily shared among the students and the doubt questions are solved on Telegram, WhatsApp, E-mail, and various social media. Students need to learn digital skills for their own sake and improve the quality of education as well as changes in syllabus, textbooks, teacher training, and examination systems, but at the very least, the quality of online education must also improve needed.

Advantages of Lockdown

Due to the lockdown, on the one hand, while people have been forced to remain imprisoned in the house, on the other hand, many big benefits are also being seen. Some important benefits of essay on lockdown:-

• The rapidly spreading Coronavirus has been controlled by applying Lockdown.
• Due to the lockdown, the movement of vehicles has been reduced very much, factories have been closed, and the air of the cities has started to clear due to the rein in such activities.
• The impact of the lockdown is also being seen on global warming. In early April, scientists showed a hole of 1,000,000 square kilometers in the ozone layer above the North Pole. According to NASA, it has started filling these holes now.
• Earth’s vibration has been reduced by 30 to 50 percent due to less traffic, machines, and noise pollution.
• Due to Coronavirus, there has been a change in the cleanliness habits of the people. People are being more vigilant. Due to the lockdown, more time is also available for cleaning the house.
• People are learning to live with limited resources and insist on being self-sufficient (or Aatmnirbhar ) in the future so that they can produce themselves.
• During this lockdown period, we have got a lot of time for self-development and self-awareness.
• Most people in Lockdown are cooking at home and eating the same. Health will also be good due to good food.

Disadvantage of Lockdown

Some important disadvantages of the essay on Lockdown:-

• Many migrant laborers got trapped in different cities and they could not return to their homes due to which they had to face many difficulties.
• Many industries like agriculture, education, and entertainment are suffering. It has negatively impacted the world economy.
• Unemployment has increased rapidly due to the lockdown. Because of this many people have lost their jobs.
• All schools and colleges were closed due to the lockdown, due to which the students were not able to study well.

Lockdown 2021

The lockdown was imposed due to Coronavirus in March 2020 last year. The same situation is being seen again. Again in April 2021, Coronavirus is spreading rapidly due to which lockdown is being imposed in all the states one by one.

In view of this spreading Coronavirus, the CBSE board canceled the class 10 examination and postponed the class 12 examination.

Lockdown is something that affects people from all backgrounds and especially the daily wagers. Some of the main problems during a lockdown are employment, poverty, and starvation.

Overall, we should keep in mind that lockdowns are only imposed for our welfare, so it is always our duty to follow the rules of lockdown.

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My Name is Mukesh Kumar. I am a Teacher, Blogger, Educational Content Writer, and Founder of CBSE Digital Education.

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