Mental health and trust decline across EU
2021
Mental health and trust decline across EU
The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions has released a report including essential statistics on the effect of COVID-19 on mental health and everyday living and working practices across the EU. It is an update on research that started back in April 2020.
The key findings are the following:
Mental well-being has reached its lowest level across all age groups since the onset of the pandemic over a year ago. This is especially prominent among young people and those who have lost their job.
Existing inequalities are widening because of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on vulnerable groups. The findings show that difficulties in making ends meet increased significantly among those already in a precarious situation.
Eurofound: Living, working and COVID-19 (Update April 2021): Mental health and trust decline across EU as pandemic enters another year.
Citizens’ satisfaction with crisis support measures has declined dramatically, with only 12% now feeling support measures are fair, down from 22% in summer 2020. Those who felt obtaining support was easy and efficient also fell from 16% in summer 2020 to 10% in spring 2021. Close to one in ten respondents have had a request for financial support rejected.
Trust in institutions has plummeted, especially trust in national governments , which fell from 4.6 in summer 2020 to 3.9 in spring 2021. Trust in national governments across all Member States sank below levels recorded at the start of the pandemic. Trust in the EU also fell but remains higher than trust in national governments.
Over a quarter of people living in Europe indicate hesitancy toward the COVID-19 vaccine, with men revealing themselves more hesitant (29%) than women (25%). Vaccine hesitancy is also associated strongly with low levels of trust and social media use, with countries that register low levels of trust in government registering higher levels of vaccine hesitancy.
The report also shows a number of interesting statistics to back up the key findings. Other than the key findings mentioned above, the report mentions the impact of working from home, especially on parents that are homeschooling, and the disruptions to essential health services.
Read the complete study here.
