ECDC: "Individuals living with young children appear to have suffered more from the stay-at-home policies and school closures, while benefiting less from teleworking"
ECDC and Eurofound technical report explored the impact of pandemic NPIs on work-life balance in the European Union.
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, anecdotal evidence suggested that parents of young children — forced to manage virtual instruction alongside remote work — suffered the most from pandemic restrictions. A new technical report from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and Eurofound — a European Union agency focused on social and employment policies — confirms that this was true.
Blending data from Eurofound surveys on the experience of living and working in Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic with ECDC data on non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) implemented across EU member states, the report analyzed the impact of NPIs on the work-life balance of EU citizens, accounting for variables such as gender, age, education, living arrangements, and the presence of children. It also proposed recommendations so that, in the event NPIs are necessary in the future, they can be optimized to have less of a negative impact on vulnerable populations.
The report found that “individuals living with young children [under 12] appear to have suffered more from the stay-at-home policies and school closures, while benefitting less from teleworking.” In contrast, “those aged <35 years, those without children at home, those living in the countryside and those living in northern EU countries perceived a positive impact from teleworking policies in terms of their [work-life balance].” It is, of course, entirely unsurprising that work-life balance deteriorated for parents of young children forced to balance Zoom school and remote work while it improved for people under 35 liberated from their offices. Documenting this, however, provides proof that pandemic NPIs had an inequitable impact on diverse populations.
Pandemic response NPIs should be, according to the ECDC and Eurofound, approached with a more holistic understanding of the potential impact of restrictions on populations. Slowing the spread should be balanced against potential negative consequences of the NPIs themselves.
When planning implementation of NPIs at population level, the scientific community and policy makers should consider not only their effectiveness in curbing disease and improve the population adherence to NPIs, but also other aspects related to their impact on the general community and on those groups who proved to be more vulnerable to the negative effects. One example of other aspects to consider could be the broader public health spectrum, including health indicators not directly linked to infectious diseases.
The report goes on to note that it will be even more important to ensure future pandemic measures don’t disproportionately impact one segment of society (e.g. parents with young children), given the Covid-19 pandemic and associated NPIs “widened existing social inequalities.”
Policies to balance the burden of any future NPIs may be of even greater importance now that the COVID-19 pandemic has widened existing societal inequalities, making some already disadvantaged groups even more vulnerable.
A cross-disciplinary research agenda is then proposed by the ECDC and Eurofound authors in order to develop an even richer understanding on the impact of NPIs on a variety of social indicators and demographic groups. Notably, they call for additional research into the impact of NPIs on gender-based violence and mental health across populations.
The current research efforts to understand the societal impact of pandemic response measures should be expanded, not only to fully appreciate the NPIs’ impact on societal indicators (e.g. WLB, mental health, gender-based violence, etc.) and population groups, but also to discern their long-term effects on different population groups. Cross-disciplinary collaborations involving the research community, public health authorities and international organizations, and the use of information sourced from different sectors, should be encouraged to increase scientific evidence on the impact of NPIs and the lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was undoubtedly a shortcoming of the pandemic responses in many countries that policy decisions were dominated by public health experts and epidemiologists — sidelining, say, gender, education, and immigration experts. Norway was a notable exception with a special committee organized to protect children from the negative consequences of restrictions.
Of course, one way to limit the negative consequences of pandemic NPIs is by making them strong recommendations rather than mandatory, which allows individuals — for example, a mother fleeing domestic violence or a teenager experiencing a mental health crisis — the freedom to make the choices that are best for them without fear of policing and punishment. (One might even read the following as vindicating Sweden’s pandemic strategy, which privileged recommendations over mandates and nonetheless achieved some of the lowest excess mortality in Europe.)
Studies on adherence to NPIs during the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that, at least in some areas, non-mandatory NPIs had a similar level of adherence, and therefore effectiveness, as mandatory measures. Our study, shows how legally-enforced orders have a deeper negative impact than recommended measures. Implementation of an NPI should be accompanied by monitoring of its effectiveness, adherence and impact to the population. Non-mandatory measures are preferable to legally-enforced orders when effectiveness of and adherence to the two approaches are similar. Transparency in decision-making and adjustment of measures depending on monitoring results are important ways in which to build trust in the population.
At a time when assessing the impact of pandemic-era restrictions remains a salient issue in many countries, ECDC and Eurofound’s remarkable technical report on pandemic NPIs and work-life balance adds significant value. For Americans, it’s a reminder of what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — one of the world’s most generously funded public health bodies — could almost certainly produce in collaboration with other federal agencies. But was CDC collecting data on pandemic NPIs across the U.S. like ECDC? Was any federal agency surveying Americans on their experience living through the pandemic like Eurofound? If not, why not?
In the absence of reports from CDC and the U.S. federal government assessing the impact of pandemic NPIs on the daily lives of Americans, this European report could be a starting point for academics, civil society, and politicians interested in a richer discourse about the social consequences of Covid-19 restrictions, particularly on the most vulnerable demographics.