Why families came through the pandemic remarkably well despite the heavy burden

It is a major scientific project that the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB) launched two years ago. In other words: a huge family psychological seismograph. More than 30,000 people between the ages of 18 and 49 are asked twice a year about their partnership and family situation in the “FReDA – The Family Demographic Panel” study. Of these, 52.2 percent are in a relationship and 40.1 percent have children.

The aim of the new large-scale study, in which the Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences Gesis and the University of Cologne are also involved, is a precise and, above all, representative picture of the life situation of people in the phase of starting a family.

The first data from spring 2021, with which the researchers are now going public, deal primarily with how citizens have mastered the Corona crisis, what burdens they have had to face and how their life satisfaction has changed. The researchers came to an astonishingly clear conclusion: Although families had a hard time with contact restrictions, homeschooling and the associated psychological stress during the Corona crisis, their life satisfaction was still significantly higher than that of people without family ties.

The researchers found that the FReda data clearly showed that the factors partnership and having children each have a significantly positive influence on life satisfaction. The existence of a stable relationship even has a “very big” influence. "I find it very remarkable that family has such a strong connection with life satisfaction despite all the stress," said BiB research director Martin Bujard WELT. "That may not come as a surprise, but it has now been clearly demonstrated for Germany for the first time."

The researchers found that not even the contact restrictions, which are generally considered to be stressful, had a significant effect on life satisfaction among people in stable partnerships. "This shows how important families and relationships are for people's well-being, even and especially during the pandemic," the report says.

The decisive factor for life satisfaction is the perceived quality of relationships - both in the partnership and in dealing with one's own children. According to the study, parenthood per se does not make you happier in the pandemic, but only if the emotional ties and everyday communication are assessed positively. Conversely, the researchers emphasize that psychological stress in children and diseases such as anxiety disorders and depression could have a negative impact on the relationship with the parents. "On average, however, parents have a higher level of life satisfaction across the board," says Bujard.

In addition to the marital status, the scientists also evaluated the data depending on the level of education. Here, too, there were significant differences in the perception of fears and stress. At the time of the survey in spring 2021, when most young people had not yet been vaccinated and extensive contact restrictions still existed, 57 percent of the highly educated and even 64 percent of the less educated felt heavily burdened by the pandemic.

The differences in the fear of financial losses were particularly clear: while less than a quarter of the highly educated had this concern, it was 33 percent in the middle educated group and even 37 percent among the less educated.

The difficulties in limiting personal contacts, on the other hand, were about the same for all educational groups (68 percent). On the other hand, highly educated people were much more likely to be able to see the good sides of the crisis than other educated groups. Positive aspects include, for example, less stress in your free time, the possibility of working from home or more time for the family.

"It sounds trivial, but it makes a huge difference in life satisfaction whether you work your way into a crisis or whether you manage to get something positive out of it and thus increase your resilience," said Bujard. "This factor was very dominant." Also dominant, but in the opposite direction, was the fear of financial losses. It is associated with significantly lower life satisfaction. "This shows how right and important it was to alleviate these concerns through short-time work benefits and other social measures," says Bujard.

Overall, however, life satisfaction has fallen during the pandemic. In spring 2021, it was well below the values ​​that are normally measured in Germany. On average, women experienced the pandemic as a greater burden than men – especially when there were children to look after. For women, the perceived stress increased with the age of the youngest child and reached its peak when the offspring reached primary school. Men, on the other hand, felt more burdened by caring for small children.

The home office was also experienced differently by women and men. Both men without children and fathers tended to feel less burdened than women and mothers. “This may be related to gender patterns, as women tend to be expected to increase their involvement in the home and family when they work from home. Men, on the other hand, concentrate more on their gainful employment when working from home,” says the study.

The data from the FReDA panel was supplemented by the current Compass survey of 1,600 parents with children under the age of 16 from August 2022. According to this, other fears have come to the fore in addition to the pandemic. "In August 2022, 35 percent of all mothers and fathers with children under the age of 16 are very worried about their own economic situation - the highest value of all surveys since the outbreak of the corona pandemic," explained BiB director C. Katharina Spieß. It is becoming clear how much concerns have shifted since the Ukraine war and the energy crisis.

However, despite the gloomy economic forecast, in August 2022 the general life satisfaction of parents was at the highest level since the outbreak of the pandemic. Spieß said that unlike the daycare and school restrictions or the contact restrictions during the corona pandemic, the current crises have not yet had an impact on everyone's everyday life.

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