Gender, Loneliness and Happiness during COVID-19
We analyse a measure of loneliness from a representative sample of German individuals interviewed in both 2017 and at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Both men and women felt lonelier during the COVID-19 pandemic than they did in 2017. The pandemic more than doubled the gender loneliness gap: women were lonelier than men in 2017, and the 2017-2020 rise in loneliness was far larger for women. This rise is mirrored in life-satisfaction scores. Men’s life satisfaction changed only little between 2017 and 2020; yet that of women fell dramatically, and sufficiently so to produce a female penalty in life satisfaction. We estimate that almost all of this female penalty is explained by the disproportionate rise in loneliness for women during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Title: | Gender, Loneliness and Happiness during COVID-19/ Anthony Lepinteur, Andrew E. Clark, Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Alan Piper, Carsten Schröder, Conchita D'Ambrosio |
Abstract: | We analyse a measure of loneliness from a representative sample of German individuals interviewed in both 2017 and at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Both men and women felt lonelier during the COVID-19 pandemic than they did in 2017. The pandemic more than doubled the gender loneliness gap: women were lonelier than men in 2017, and the 2017-2020 rise in loneliness was far larger for women. This rise is mirrored in life-satisfaction scores. Men’s life satisfaction changed only little between 2017 and 2020; yet that of women fell dramatically, and sufficiently so to produce a female penalty in life satisfaction. We estimate that almost all of this female penalty is explained by the disproportionate rise in loneliness for women during the COVID-19 pandemic. |
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Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung: SOEP papers on multidisciplinary panel data research ; 1178 (2022)
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Type of Resource: | E-Book |
Language: | English |
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Codevelopment of life goals and the big five personality traits across adulthood and old age (2024)
Published in Gender, Loneliness and Happiness during COVID-19 (2024)
In collection: Lepinteur, Anthony: Gender, Loneliness and Happiness during COVID-19
In collection: Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung: SOEP papers on multidisciplinary panel data researchE-Book