Two pandemic years greatly reduced young people's life satisfaction: evidence from a comparison with pre-COVID-19 panel data

Abstract

"How much did young people suffer from the COVID-19 pandemic? A growing number of studies address this question, but they often lack a comparison group that was unaffected by the pandemic, and the observation window is usually short. Here, we compared the 2-year development of life satisfaction of German high school students during COVID-19 (N = 2,698) with the development in prepandemic cohorts (N = 4,834) with a difference-in-differences design. We found a decline in life satisfaction in winter 2020/2021 (Cohen’s d = -0.40) that was approximately three times stronger than that in the general population and persisted until winter 2021/2022. Young people found some restrictions particularly burdensome, especially travel restrictions, bans on cultural events, and the closure of bars/clubs." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, © Oxford University Press) ((en))

Cite article

Neugebauer, M., Patzina, A., Dietrich, H. & Sandner, M. (2024): Two pandemic years greatly reduced young people's life satisfaction: evidence from a comparison with pre-COVID-19 panel data. In: European Sociological Review, Vol. 40, No. 5, p. 872-886. DOI:10.1093/esr/jcad077