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Household Diversity and the Impacts of COVID-19 on Families in Portugal
Throughout the world, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted family routines, relationships, projects and sociability, threatening the health, income, social cohesion, and well-being of individuals and their families. Lockdown restrictions imposed during the first wave of the pandemic challenged the theori...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8570185/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34746295 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.736714 |
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author | Gouveia, Rita Ramos, Vasco Wall, Karin |
author_facet | Gouveia, Rita Ramos, Vasco Wall, Karin |
author_sort | Gouveia, Rita |
collection | PubMed |
description | Throughout the world, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted family routines, relationships, projects and sociability, threatening the health, income, social cohesion, and well-being of individuals and their families. Lockdown restrictions imposed during the first wave of the pandemic challenged the theories, concepts, and methods used by family sociologists and the intersecting fields of gender and social inequality. By restricting physical interactions to co-resident family members, the household regained a privileged role as a crucial social laboratory for studying the impact of COVID-19 on family life. The difficulties encountered by individuals in maintaining and dealing with close relationships across households and geographical borders, in a context in which relational proximity was discouraged by the public authorities, exposed the linked nature of family and personal relationships beyond the limits of co-residence. The main aim of this article is to investigate the social impacts of the pandemic on different types of households during the first lockdown at an early stage of the pandemic in Portugal. Drawing on an online survey applied to a non-probabilistic sample of 11,508 households between 25 and 29 March 2020, the authors combined quantitative and qualitative methods, including bi-variate inferential statistics, cluster analysis and in-depth case studies. The article distinguishes between different household types: solo, couple with and without children, extended, friendship, lone-parent families, and intermittent arrangements, such as shared custody. A cross-tabulation of the quantitative data with open-ended responses was carried out to provide a refined analysis of the household reconfigurations brought about during lockdown. The analysis showed how pre-existing unequal structural living conditions shaped the pathways leading to household reconfiguration as families sought to cope with restrictions on mobility, social distancing norms, and other lockdown measures. The findings stress that, in dealing with a crisis, multilevel welfare interventions need to be considered if governments are to cater to the differentiated social needs and vulnerabilities faced by individuals and families. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8570185 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85701852021-11-06 Household Diversity and the Impacts of COVID-19 on Families in Portugal Gouveia, Rita Ramos, Vasco Wall, Karin Front Sociol Sociology Throughout the world, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted family routines, relationships, projects and sociability, threatening the health, income, social cohesion, and well-being of individuals and their families. Lockdown restrictions imposed during the first wave of the pandemic challenged the theories, concepts, and methods used by family sociologists and the intersecting fields of gender and social inequality. By restricting physical interactions to co-resident family members, the household regained a privileged role as a crucial social laboratory for studying the impact of COVID-19 on family life. The difficulties encountered by individuals in maintaining and dealing with close relationships across households and geographical borders, in a context in which relational proximity was discouraged by the public authorities, exposed the linked nature of family and personal relationships beyond the limits of co-residence. The main aim of this article is to investigate the social impacts of the pandemic on different types of households during the first lockdown at an early stage of the pandemic in Portugal. Drawing on an online survey applied to a non-probabilistic sample of 11,508 households between 25 and 29 March 2020, the authors combined quantitative and qualitative methods, including bi-variate inferential statistics, cluster analysis and in-depth case studies. The article distinguishes between different household types: solo, couple with and without children, extended, friendship, lone-parent families, and intermittent arrangements, such as shared custody. A cross-tabulation of the quantitative data with open-ended responses was carried out to provide a refined analysis of the household reconfigurations brought about during lockdown. The analysis showed how pre-existing unequal structural living conditions shaped the pathways leading to household reconfiguration as families sought to cope with restrictions on mobility, social distancing norms, and other lockdown measures. The findings stress that, in dealing with a crisis, multilevel welfare interventions need to be considered if governments are to cater to the differentiated social needs and vulnerabilities faced by individuals and families. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-10-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8570185/ /pubmed/34746295 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.736714 Text en Copyright © 2021 Gouveia, Ramos and Wall. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Sociology Gouveia, Rita Ramos, Vasco Wall, Karin Household Diversity and the Impacts of COVID-19 on Families in Portugal |
title | Household Diversity and the Impacts of COVID-19 on Families in Portugal |
title_full | Household Diversity and the Impacts of COVID-19 on Families in Portugal |
title_fullStr | Household Diversity and the Impacts of COVID-19 on Families in Portugal |
title_full_unstemmed | Household Diversity and the Impacts of COVID-19 on Families in Portugal |
title_short | Household Diversity and the Impacts of COVID-19 on Families in Portugal |
title_sort | household diversity and the impacts of covid-19 on families in portugal |
topic | Sociology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8570185/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34746295 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.736714 |
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