Young people's subjective wellbeing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from a representative cohort study in England

Jake Anders and Erica Holt-White ()
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Erica Holt-White: The Sutton Trust

No 24-05, CEPEO Working Paper Series from UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic and the disruption it has caused had substantial short-term effects on young people. These effects have been found to be highly unequal, exacerbating existing inequalities in society, including those associated with socio-economic status, gender and ethnicity. But, just as importantly, it is believed that they continue to cast a long shadow over some young people's lives. In this paper we use data from the COVID Social Mobility & Opportunities study (COSMO) --- a representative cohort study of over 13,000 young people in England aged 14-15 at pandemic onset whose education and post-16 transitions were acutely affected by the pandemic's disruption through their remaining education and subsequent transitions --- to highlight ongoing inequalities in young people's subjective wellbeing and mental health in the wake of the pandemic. We document the substantial differences in subjective wellbeing --- especially highlighting differences by gender --- after adjusting for other demographic characteristics, self-reported levels of social support, and experience of adverse life events. We estimate how wellbeing differs by young people's own perceptions of the ongoing impact of the pandemic: those who indicate an ongoing negative impact in their lives have substantially lower subjective wellbeing scores. Finally, we find a link between adverse life experiences during the pandemic and lower post-pandemic wellbeing, but do not find evidence that this is mediated by demographic characteristics or social support.

Keywords: COVID-19; young people; subjective wellbeing; inequalities; adverse life events; social support (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I24 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 88 pages
Date: 2024-10, Revised 2024-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap and nep-hea
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http://repec-cepeo.ucl.ac.uk/cepeow/cepeowp24-05.pdf First version, 2024 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucl:cepeow:24-05

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