Elementary Children’s Well-Being and The Effect of Siblings During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparison of Four European Countries
Year: 2024
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Late in 2019, the world changed due to the spreading of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus. As a consequence of this virus, governments decided to implement lockdowns and school closures, as a measure to reduce the spreading of the deadly virus. In the present work, we aimed to investigate the impact these lockdowns and school closures had on children’s well-being. We used a cross-country approach with data from four European countries (Germany, Norway, Sweden and the UK), with retrospective questions from lockdown period and present questions (after lockdown). We asked parents to report their children’s well-being during the COVID pandemic (target group age 6-13). We predicted that children’s well-being was lower in spring 2020 during school closures than in fall 2020 when schools had opened again. In addition, this should not be the case for Swedish children, since Sweden was one of the few countries that did not close down elementary schools. We also investigated whether having siblings in the same household would buffer the negative effect of COVID restrictions. In line with our predictions, we found lower well-being for children during lockdown than after lockdown, as well as lower well-being in countries that implemented school closures, compared to the Sweden sample. However, we did not find support for our hypothesis about the positive effect of siblings. Applied implications of the present results will be discussed.
Author: Ingen, Kornelia van
Language: English
Topic: COVID-19 and Mental Health
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7019022441