COVID-19 Lockdown and Social Capital Changes Among Youths in China.

Miyang Luo,Yun Yin,Peng Jia,Shujuan Yang,Pengyue Shen,Dong Zhang

doi:10.34172/ijhpm.2021.17

Abstract

Social capital refers to the effective functioning of social groups through networks of relationships. The lockdown measures due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may change the social capital among youths. This study aimed to evaluate changes in social capital before and during COVID-19 lockdown among Chinese youths. It was based on the online COVID-19 Impact on Lifestyle Change Survey (COINLICS) conducted among 10 540 youths at three educational levels, including high/vocational school, undergraduate, and graduate, before and during COVID-19 lockdown. Measures of perceptions of social capital were adapted from a validated Chinese version of Health-related Social Capital Measurement based on youths' characteristics of living and studying environment. Social capital was measured at four dimensions, including individual social capital (ISC), family social capital (FSC), community social capital (CSC), and society social capital (SSC). Overall, compared to before lockdown, ISC and CSC scores decreased, while FSC and SSC scores increased during lockdown. When stratified by educational levels, the trends for each dimension of social capital were consistent with the overall population. There were 43.9%, 5.7%, 32.1%, and 3.7% of the participants showing decreased scores during lockdown for ISC, FSC, CSC, and SSC, respectively, while 7.2%, 24.0%, 15.3%, and 10.7% of participants showed increased scores for ISC, FSC, CSC, and SSC, respectively. Our timely, large-scale study showed decreased social capital in individual and community dimensions and increased social capital in family and society dimensions during lockdown.

Highlights

Social capital is defined as the access to and use of resources embedded in one’s social networks,[1] which describes trust, solidarity, cooperation, and reciprocity.[2,3,4] The social networks and interpersonal relationships in social capital provide a useful framework for building a health-supporting and healthenhancing environment.[5]
In China, the lockdown was implemented in most provinces since February 2020 after the COVID-19 outbreak in January 2020.14,15 The lockdown measures may change the social capital among youths in at least three aspects
We found that the adjusted mean social capital scores decreased slightly from 15.14 (SD = 0.64) to 14.01 (SD = 0.64) in individual dimension and from 13.36 (SD = 0.42) to 12.92 (SD = 0.42) in community dimension, and increased slightly from 12.70 (SD = 0.24) to 13.11 (SD = 0.24) in family dimension and from 7.11 (SD = 0.13) to 7.20 (SD = 0.13) in society dimension

Summary

Introduction

Social capital is defined as the access to and use of resources embedded in one’s social networks,[1] which describes trust, solidarity, cooperation, and reciprocity.[2,3,4] The social networks and interpersonal relationships in social capital provide a useful framework for building a health-supporting and healthenhancing environment.[5]. To curb the spread of the pandemic, many countries have taken strict controlling measures, such as lockdown, which requires people to stay at home and reduce interactions with other people. In China, the lockdown was implemented in most provinces since February 2020 after the COVID-19 outbreak in January 2020.14,15 The lockdown measures may change the social capital among youths in at least three aspects. Face-to-face interactions with people not living together were greatly reduced owing to the social distancing and stay at home recommendations. As people were very concerned about the pandemic, their emotions and feelings may be greatly influenced by pandemic-related information shared on various media platforms.[16,17]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion