Living through Lockdown: Social Inequalities and Transformations during the COVID-19 Crisis in France

Ettore Recchi (1) , Emanuele Ferragina (1) , Olivier Godechot (1) , Emily Helmeid (1) , Stefan Pauly (2) , Mirna Safi (1) , Nicolas Sauger (3) , Jen Schradie (1) , Katharina Tittel (1) , Andrew Zola (1)

1 OSC - Observatoire sociologique du changement (Sciences Po, CNRS)
2 ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po)
3 CEE - Centre d'études européennes et de politique comparée (Sciences Po, CNRS)

This working paper offers an overview of the first stage of the Coping with Covid (CoCo) project, which tracks the behaviors and attitudes of a representative panel of the French metropolitan population during the COVID-19 lockdown. We conducted five survey waves and administered daily journals of open-ended responses between April and June 2020 among a sample of 1,216 people from a pre-existing panel (ELIPSS). Earlier surveys of this sample allowed us to better contextualize changes that may have occurred during this unusual period. We outline four experiential dimensions during the lockdown period: relation to work, everyday activities and time use, self-assessed health and well-being, and the framing of the pandemic crisis. What we found follows traditional inequality patterns and also reveals some unexpected changes in social practices and attitudes.

Keywords: Santé; Well-being; Social inequality; France; Lockdown; COVID-19

Domains: Sociology

Ettore Recchi, Emanuele Ferragina, Olivier Godechot, Emily Helmeid, Stefan Pauly, et al.. Living through Lockdown: Social Inequalities and Transformations during the COVID-19 Crisis in France. 2020. ⟨hal-03203721⟩