[Intro]
00:00:34 Mary McCaughey
Welcome to this edition of Eurofound Talks. I am delighted to be joined this morning by Daphne Ahrendt, who is our expert on our unique Living, working with COVID-19 e-survey. This is something that we launched back in 2020 with the onset of COVID as it overtook Europe and indeed the world and Europe and was one of the first out of the stops to launch a survey to ask Europeans how this was impacting their lives, impacting their work and how they were experiencing this monstrous, huge, major change in their lives. We now have the fifth wave of Eurofound’s survey, which is just coming on stream. It’s an exciting time for us in Eurofound. Welcome, Daphne.
00:01:31 Daphne Ahrendt
Good morning.
00:01:32 Mary McCaughey
This morning and we want to get into a little bit of a deep dive on the results, but perhaps before we do that, can you talk to me briefly just about the survey and how it was conducted and what makes it so unique?
00:01:48 Daphne Ahrendt
Well, I always like to begin with the story that it started as an idea in the Social Policies Unit of Eurofound where we knew COVID was there and we thought how about we do a little survey to see how it’s affecting people. We thought we would get a thousand responses maybe and we would have been super excited with a thousand responses and then, with the first round, which was in April 2020, we ended up getting like over 60,000 respondents. So it was a great success and I think what helped a lot is that we have experience in carrying out surveys so we knew which questions to use from the EQLS and from the EWCS so these were tried and tested questions that we…
00:02:37 Mary McCaughey
That’s the European Quality of Life Survey and the European Working Conditions Survey.
00:02:40 Daphne Ahrendt
Yes, absolutely. Thanks. So that was one part of the development. But obviously, as you know, with these two surveys, they require a lot to organise and this needed to be done quickly. So one way of doing that was to actually use convenience sampling. We used our contacts, our stakeholders and we sent the link of the survey to them and asked them to fill in the questionnaire. And then we used social media. So we used Facebook. Initially, I think it was only Facebook. Later on, I think we may have gone to Instagram, but with great help, I think this is what also makes it unique that it was a combined effort. So we used different skills. So the skills of the researchers combined with the skills of I&C – information and communication – to reach out even further through Facebook.
Well, here we are, the fifth round resulting in close to 200,000 respondents I think, roughly 160,000 from the EU and this allows us to do a great amount of work. And I think you asked why is it so unique? Well, I think it was really the only source of data within the EU that tracked over time the development. I think the jewel of it is, and we need to use that even more, is that it’s actually a panel survey. We asked respondents whether we could interview them again. And well, I think that’s super unique because from these people you can really see where they unemployed at the beginning of the pandemic. Did they get their job back? And what did that then mean for their well-being, for their financial situation, for their outlook on life.
00:04:38 Mary McCaughey
And absolutely what you’re talking about there is a sort of trajectory that is something which is unique to what we are able to tell the world about the experience of Europeans during that time. And as you said, we’ve gone from 60,000 in the first round to more than 200,000 people across Europe responding to this survey. So that’s a good sample across all EU Member States as you said and a little bit beyond but if we concentrate just on the EU Member States. We talked there about that link in collaboration between the research methodology and if you like the communication platforms and outreach. I think that’s important. Maybe just to highlight here, should our users and readers be concerned in any way? Should they have a fear that what we’re giving them in terms of these results is not sound, is not evidence based in the same way as the previous or other surveys that we operate?
00:05:32 Daphne Ahrendt
I think that they shouldn’t be concerned as long as we do our job well. It is our job to make sure that we don’t make generalisations. I think that’s important. So even if we had interviewed 500,000 people it would be different than a random probability sample like we use on the European Quality of Life Survey and the European Working Conditions Survey because that allows us to make statements about what the population thinks. What we can do very well with this survey is that we can compare the groups that have taken part within our survey. So I always use the example that we can look at the situation of unemployed respondents versus employed respondents. We can look at the situation of women compared to men that have taken part in our survey. What I like about the survey is that it allows us to see developments and trends. It’s very good also to see that many of these trends are then later on also found on the bigger surveys, but they come with a time lapse. And the nice thing about this survey is that we were always quick.
00:06:48 Mary McCaughey
And it was more timely.
00:06:50 Daphne Ahrendt
It was very timely.
00:06:52 Mary McCaughey
And also just to highlight that across the Member States, on each occasion there was a sample size which was required for each Member State for you to be in a position to be able to analyse and use that as the basis. Do you want to just talk a little bit about how you managed to ensure that that sort of comparability was there?
00:07:12 Daphne Ahrendt
So what we did is we worked very closely with this media campaign company, but we gave very clear instructions on the breakdown of the sample in each Member State. So we were doing what you could call quota sampling. So we were saying we want this many men, we want this one many women, we want this many in this age group. And actually very importantly, we want people of different educational attainment backgrounds because that was a bit the risk. And what’s also important to remember is that we can weigh the data so we can correct the data to reflect the population structure of the European Union and, in fact, of the Member States. The only thing that we can’t do is we can’t control for social media use. And that’s where we, not necessarily have to be careful, but we have to be aware that it’s an online survey. So it attracts people that have access to online and then possibly it attracts people that are slightly more pro-European to our stakeholders on the one hand, and then people that perhaps use social media to voice their frustrations. But that’s fine because it allows us to also compare and analyse these different groups and I think that’s what makes this survey so valuable and insightful.
00:08:38 Mary McCaughey
I think we’ve established that it is a good reflection and a fair reflection of the feelings, experiences of Europeans at this critical moment. So if we can, can we look a little bit here before we deep dive into the more granular aspects of the findings? Can you tell me what the main findings from this round where compared perhaps to previous rounds? Have you seen an evolution across the main domains that we have surveyed?
00:09:08 Daphne Ahrendt
Yes, I’ll begin with young people. Young people have really been our concern. We saw very early on that they were the group that was hit hardest, that they were the group that was suffering most in terms of a mental well-being. That makes a lot of sense considering that the restrictions from the non-pharmaceutical interventions that were put in place by the governments had an impact on them; they couldn’t go out, they couldn’t go to school. So I think they paid a huge price in terms of human capital, in terms of being able to develop themselves, in terms of social capital skills, to learn how to meet other people, to develop your social skills. So it’s not surprising that they were the ones that were suffering the most. And now that the restrictions were lifted, we see an improvement. So we see that the mental well-being of young people is ‘less bad’ than it was throughout the pandemic but it’s still pretty bad, so it’s still worse than it was at the beginning of the pandemic.
And that just goes to show how big the impact has been. I think it also shows that it’s been very difficult to provide support. So we need a provision for young people to be able to talk about their problems. And then at the moment, we’re not particularly offering them a future. So with the war in Ukraine going on, I think it’s very distressing for young people to cope. So I think partially the reason why we didn’t find the expected upsurge of well-being amongst this group along the lines of saying “Yay! Finally I’m free again!” is this new dark cloud that’s hanging above them.
00:11:13 Mary McCaughey
Clearly they had, depending on their age group, the experience of the Great Recession. Either they lived through it or they had the impact of that which followed them through just in advance of the emergence of COVID, followed then by the war in Ukraine. So yes, for young people particularly, it’s probably not surprising that their mental well-being is still not at the levels it was prior to the onset of COVID.
00:11:42 Daphne Ahrendt
Yeah. And so the second point that kind of leads nicely is the development of trust. So our survey started in April 2020 and trust, compared to later on, was relatively high and what we think we captured there was still this ‘rally round the flag’ effect that you see, so when there’s a crisis you find people really strongly supporting their leaders or their institutions. We didn’t look so much at political leadership but we looked at trust in institutions, in the various institutions and government, but also in health and in the media. So very important. And in the EU. What we saw at the beginning was the trust was relatively good, let’s say, not great but good. And then it started really dropping throughout.
And there are two theories here. So on the one hand, it's basically the rally round the flag effect just fading off and trust returning to its normal levels because we need to remember that trust was never that high. It had been already shaken up by the recession. Then it kind of got back to a relatively stable period and then we see this. But what I think the other part of the story is that there’s obviously a greater divide now so that we see more trusting citizens and we see less trusting citizens. And from that the survey I think has been particularly useful by including some of these questions. We’ve learned that those that were heavy users of social media or that preferred social media as their source of information had far lower trust than those who use more traditional forms of media. And I think you see that gap kind of growing between the two. So we see within our respondents, we see a more and more polarised Europe than we did at the beginning of the survey.
00:13:56 Mary McCaughey
So in fact, if I was to ask you a little bit more about trust here, and we can come back to the other losers if there are any winners, I’m not sure, but the losers, those who have been most impacted later. But in terms of this trust, it is fundamental. So when we look at this declining trust, despite the fact that we’re seeing employment levels rise, despite the fact that we're seeing the restrictions being lifted, what are the drivers of this declining trust? What do you think are the main elements that are still at play?
00:14:32 Daphne Ahrendt
Yeah, I think this is such an important question and it’s also a little bit of a “million-dollar question” in the sense that we do need to follow up. So the fifth round was taken at a particular tense time again. So on the one hand, Corona restrictions were lifted but I don’t think people had recuperated yet. So yes employment levels were picking up and that’s one of the successes of course of how politicians handled it this time, but then there was this dark cloud of Ukraine. There was insecurity about the cost of living, so really rising costs of living. The energy drama had already been… it’s not like it came all of a sudden, it just got worse, but it was already on people’s minds. So to me, it seems like there was just one problem after the next. And what I found rather worrying is that, on the one hand, I talk about polarisation so I say social media and traditional media: those groups are very different. But what we used to find is that people that were worse off were the ones that had least trust. And it’s still the case and there’s still really a significant gap between people that are better off. But what we found this time is that it’s the group that is better off that actually had a larger drop in trust compared to the previous round. And to me that says that even amongst this group, you’re starting to see a bit of unrest or a bit of discomfort or discontent, and that would be worrying.
00:16:19 Mary McCaughey
But Daphne, I’m fascinated by that because in previous research that Eurofound has carried out, we’ve seen some link between access to public services, quality public services: education, transport, health, etc. And that where that’s good and where that’s well functioning in an organisation or in a society, the impact is that you see increase in trust in the institutions that are available. Here, what you’re talking about is that these people who are better off, if you like, in our societies, they’re less directly impacted by these things, by the nature of the beast. So what is it that’s driving this, this decline in their trust? And are they becoming vocal and engaged with respect to how they manifest this?
00:17:03 Daphne Ahrendt
I think this is a first result. So we need to follow this trend. We need to see are we going to see this further developing or is this a one-off blip? So I think a little bit of care is required, but it does seem to fit into the overall picture that people are worried about the provision of healthcare, for instance, or access to public services. We’re hearing a lot of issues around labour shortages, that things are not functioning. And so it may well be, and this is what where we need to study this much more carefully, that in the countries where public service provision has been very good, these are also the countries where probably you have more people that have less difficulties making ends meet, that in these countries you see some shifts in the provision. These are citizens that are very used to things working very well. So it could be a sign of discontent in that regard. But allow us to monitor this further and, as you know, one of our programmes is to keep monitoring trust over time and to look at social cohesion. But again, if we use the e-survey as sort of a pointer of where we see initial evidence, this could be an example of that. And, and it’s good for us to then pay attention to it and to pick it up.
00:18:36 Mary McCaughey
It seems to be signposting certain issues, some of them which are slightly more philosophical in a way, is how do you communicate better with the citizen to ensure that they understand exactly what is at play, how to combat disinformation, misinformation at the highest level, but also at the lowest level. But then you’re looking also at how do policymakers address the issues of better-quality public services, access to those public services in a situation where there is a cost-of-living crisis and where inflation is rising and where the war in Ukraine is going to have a knock-on effect, which will be for a period that we can’t even determine, unfortunately, at this stage. And maybe, if I can move on to that a little bit, because there is a link there between what you’ve just been talking about and how it impacts on the trust levels and the impact of the war in Ukraine. And on this particular round, the survey did look at how Europeans experienced this. Now, of course, Ukrainians are also Europeans, but here we were specifically asking EU citizens to a large degree, what do they feel about the response of policymakers to the war in Ukraine. And perhaps you can speak a little bit about that?
00:19:57 Daphne Ahrendt
Yeah, it was really nice that we were able to add just a few questions at the end of the questionnaire on this topic. So again, it was very timely because the e-survey was fielded at the end of March, went into the field at the end of March and I believe the Ukraine war started at the end of February. What we found when we asked whether respondents supported the actions, that there was really strong support for the economic sanctions; I think it was like 70 % of the respondents that agreed. And then there was also very strong support for humanitarian aid to Ukraine and there was good support for providing housing and assistance to the Ukrainian refugees that had then left and come to the EU Member States. There was somewhat less support but that’s also not surprising for any military action. That was one side of the story that we found. The other side that we found is that citizens themselves or respondents themselves had actually done things. So we found that they had already donated money to support Ukraine. That was one of the questions that we asked. I think that was around a third of respondents that had done that and also goods, clothes and medical supplies with more of the respondents planning to do so. So overall early days when we asked these questions and I think very useful if we could repeat some of this at a future stage.
00:21:43 Mary McCaughey
Absolutely, Daphne. It’s an issue which is an unpleasant side of society, but one that we will need to respond to if we want to avoid this breakup and this sort of polarisation that you discussed earlier and that we don’t start seeing a representation of our US-style political and societal system at play. But we also had a quick look at the energy costs at a time when we’re seeing huge increases, and there was also some feedback on that and how that was impacting the lives of Europeans.
00:22:17 Daphne Ahrendt
It’s good that you say that because that’s another one of the overall trends is that despite the fact that the economy was picking up, we saw actually an increase in the proportion of respondents that said they had difficulties making ends meet. If I’m correct, it’s actually the first time it had gone back up again. That’s worrying. And then the other thing we saw is that there was in terms of people not being able to pay their utility bills, that had increased. So that had increased by three percentage points. It went from 13 % to 16 % so we really see an increase there. And the other thing we saw is that there were a lot of people that were actually worried that in the future they wouldn’t be able to pay these bills. So even if at the moment they were still able to in the future, they would be concerned. And then the group that already has difficulties paying these bills is even more worried or they’re even larger numbers that are worried that they won’t be able to pay. So, the perception among people, and I think that brings us back to the earlier group of better off citizens, is that there are difficult times ahead financially. And I mean, you open up any newspaper, any social media platform. That’s the thing. You see rising energy costs. Gas at the gas station has never been as high as I think since the oil crisis in ’73. So it’s not surprising that you see this concern. And we also asked the little question among the people that had cars, whether they thought you know it would be more difficult to maintain or keep up their car costs and there as well you see a third sort of saying “Yes, I’m worried about that.”
00:24:20 Mary McCaughey
So in fact, what I’m hearing from you is that whereas in previous rounds and on an ongoing basis, we always know that young people take a hit, that people further from the labour market take a hit, those who are less well-off take a hit. But on this occasion, we’re also seeing that those who are perhaps better off are also experiencing negative impacts, both of the pandemic, but also now of the implications of the war in Ukraine.
Can I come back a little bit also then to women? We talked about women at an earlier stage in the survey and we saw the impact on women was quite considerable, not least because of the work–life balance issues of trying to manage the children and the young people who were staying at home and the restrictions that were at play. But also because of their jobs and the fact that they are more often in part-time employment, etc. Would you take me through what they have experienced or how you see the evolution for women?
00:25:19 Daphne Ahrendt
I think it’s good to start by saying that prior to the pandemic we saw positive developments in terms of gender equality. And then during the pandemic we saw some worrying trends. So for instance, the division of unpaid labour very much fell on the shoulders of women. So when the schools shut, it was the women that took most responsibility for the care of their children at home. It was the women that were expressing more problems trying to concentrate on their job while working from home. So we think that from the e-survey, you really see that women, and then particularly women with young children, they are the other sort of group of victims that we have identified for whom the pandemic has been particularly difficult. And in fact, one of the things we saw was that in this round, there had been an increase in the number of women that were looking to receive mental healthcare. So I think that’s evidence of the problem.
Now that that there’s this return to school, everything is open again. The question is, are we going to be able to return to that upward trend of more gender equality or have we taken a step back? And do we need to sort of reassert some of these rights, quote unquote, normal rights that allow women to go to work? What kind of choices are being made in households now that childcare isn't necessarily as available as it was pre-pandemic because of labour shortages. I’ve heard stories of people just being told “Sorry, but you can’t bring your child.” So I think it’s very important that we consider women then from an economic point of view. Here we're talking of the nuclear family, the traditional family. But we also shouldn’t forget that there are a lot of women that that bring up their children alone. And young women, for instance, were the ones that often worked in temporary jobs, in less good jobs. So they were also more likely to have lost their employment. And now that’s all well and doable if your partner earns money, but if you’re on your own and you then cannot find childcare, you’re really struggling. So again, I think towards policymakers, that would be an area where I would focus my attention.
00:28:01 Mary McCaughey
Indeed, Daphne. It reminds me – paraphrasing Simone de Beauvoir – who said you only need an economic, political or religious crisis to actually threaten the rights of women that have been well earned over previous centuries. So I think we need to be mindful and careful that that is not the case as we see these various crises rolling out.
And maybe it’s a good time to look there at what does the future hold, not only for women at work, but also in the way that we work because the pandemic brought us into a sort of a telework revolution where everyone, where it was possible, was working from home. And of course, that has continued to a large degree, but there has been a trickle back to the office. Maybe it has been more than a trickle. And I think we’re seeing hybrid work beginning to be sort of the preferred option for many. That being said, what kind of impact, before you go into the actual results from that, what has been the impact for women of that? Because there’s an unseen element to that, isn’t there? In terms of if women are not present in the workplace and they stay at home in their teleworkable jobs, ostensibly that could be seen to be a positive for women and work–life balance. But ultimately, what does that mean for their long-term trajectory in terms of their careers, their visibility, their promotion prospects?
00:29:24 Daphne Ahrendt
Very good question, Mary. I think it just shows how important it is that any policy that we now develop in terms of telework provides equal rights to men and women and takes all these issues into consideration. So in the future, if you’re starting to think about teleworking being a fundamental element of work, then perhaps HR needs to reconsider how you evaluate performance. So consider that you may see people less, but that doesn’t mean that they’re doing their work. So that’s one side of the story.
The other side of the story is that amongst women from, at least from our survey, you see slightly larger preference to work from home because it allows them to combine work with family responsibilities. Now, I suppose, I’m a bit of a feminist, but I think it should be the problem of both men and women, these decisions of the couple. And I’m sure for a lot of people it is. But what we’re seeing is that that preference is slightly higher amongst women. And overall, I was a bit surprised, and I don’t know if this is where our sample is possibly a bit biased because of the higher levels of education, to see how many people had actually returned to work full time. So to me, that shows that this great telework revolution has not really happened. But let’s wait for data from Eurostat to confirm that. But at least on the e-survey, we’re seeing a mismatch; we’re seeing that many respondents had to return to work, but there’s a lot of them that would like to be able to still continue teleworking.
00:31:17 Mary McCaughey
So there may be some elements that are not quite so voluntary as all that.
00:31:21 Daphne Ahrendt
I suppose that’s what we’re seeing. If people could choose then they would be probably still more at home. And we didn’t really analyse it in detail, but we did ask a question about what the reasons were. So you did see that many people were still a little bit worried about COVID at the time of the survey. So that might change, right? So if we come to a time where there is less COVID, you may see a slight shift here again in this reason why people don’t want to go back to work. But we also saw that there is a group and more women than men that want to stay at home because of childcare responsibilities. And they haven’t been able to sort these out. Presumably, pre-pandemic they were sorted out. I don’t know; people may also have had children during the pandemic and have not yet been able to find solutions. So again, what I like about the e-survey is that it gives us these little hints of where we should be looking. So I think childcare is one of the areas that will deserve a lot of attention for us to see the developments, make sure the profession is a profession that people want to go to, where they want to work in and make it an attractive profession.
00:32:41 Mary McCaughey
But as you say that is also a shared responsibility. Both men and women are looking for childcare for their children. But something also when you talk about the pain points that the survey helps us to identify, I think that’s fundamental and critical, clearly. But at the same time, we need to be mindful of the fact that not all jobs are teleworkable. I think it’s a total of about a third that we’re looking at overall are teleworkable. And the rest, of course, require people to be present in the workplace for the rest of us to be able to live our lives effectively.
So Daphne, we’re coming to the end now of this fascinating discussion. And thank you very much. We’ve looked at the initial results and of course, it really is only just the tip of what you’re telling us here today. But at the end of each of these Eurofound Talks, we do ask you to kind of drill down if you possibly can and really distil it into three main points that if you had a policymaker in an elevator going up in the Berlaymont, that you would say to them, this is what I found and you need to take care of this. So if you wouldn’t mind just closing us off on Eurofound talks to me in three.
00:33:45 Daphne Ahrendt
OK. I’m in the elevator and I have three floors. So first thing, I think they need to use a holistic approach. We’ve learned that from the pandemic that that worked. So now, with the Ukraine crisis, you cannot only think of it as economic or trying to battle inflation. So we need to look at mental health and the concerns that people have and the impacts that that has on their lives. So holistic approach, consider all these elements.
And then I think the second and the third we’ve kind of covered, but I really think we must avoid this growing risk of yet another generation of young people that is disadvantaged. And then always, you know, that group that was already disadvantaged, becoming more disadvantaged. So I really think this needs to be a focus for policymakers and ensure that this intergenerational disadvantage doesn’t grow further.
And the last one that I would say in the elevator, please pay attention to gender equality and make sure that we return to the positive trend that we had pre-pandemic. And I think childcare is key there.
00:35:00 Mary McCaughey
Thank you very much, Daphne. That is important also to highlight again that this is the European Year of Youth. Of course, every year is the year of youth and the future of Europe is in their hands, but it’s also in ours. And so to focus on young people as one of the critical elements, as you’re saying that you see in the survey, worrying trends there. Thank you, Daphne, it’s been a fascinating quick ride through the top-level findings of this unique survey. This is not the end of the survey. Of course, we will be looking into the future. It will have adaptations and changes. And we may, I hope, not be looking only at the results of the impact of COVID, but looking beyond to maybe capture the feelings of Europeans on various issues into the future. But for now, I thank you for joining us this morning on this episode of Eurofound Talks. For you, our listeners, please feel free to access the information that we have been talking about this morning on our website, Eurofound’s main website, where you can find all of the information we have discussed and more. And of course, you can access our other editions of Eurofound Talks, which range from issues on young people, on gender equality, as we talked about earlier, but also include the future of Europe and indeed an interview with European Commissioner Schmit, who has many of these issues as his key priorities. So, until next time, when Eurofound talks to you.
[Outro]
