The 'Eye of the Hurricane' Paradox: An Unexpected and Unequal Rise of Well-Being During the Covid-19 Lockdown in France"

Ettore Recchi, Emanuele Ferragina, Emily Helmeid, Stefan Pauly, Mirna Safi,
Nicolas Sauger & Jen Schradie

Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, vol. 68, Online 26 May

ScienceDirect link, Resarch in Social Stratification and Mobility Journal (PDF available)

Panel data covering the French population before and after the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic reveal that self-reported health and well-being have improved during the lockdown in comparison to previous years. We name this counterintuitive phenomenon the “eye of the hurricane” paradox: the large majority of individuals who are not infected by the virus may be seeing their current condition in a more positive light than they normally would. There are, however, divergences across social groups that reflect socioeconomic inequalities. In particular, blue-collar workers deviate from the prevailing trend as their level of self-reported health declines over the lockdown period, Parisian residents experience a sudden drop in their subjective well-being, and people working long hours at home exhibit higher le els of stress during the quarantine.

Changes in lockdown-related stress levels among mainland French residents by respondents’ main site of work.

Reading: The horizontal axis indicates the average number of hours worked per day, the vertical axis the position of respondents on a 0 to 10 scale in answer to the question: “Does the lockdown take a toll on you?”.

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CoCo Project - Coping with Covid-19. Social distancing, cohesion and inequality in 2020 France