Household crowding during the COVID-19 lockdown fosters anti-democracy even after 17 months: A 5-wave latent growth curve study

Abstract

In an earlier cross-sectional study, Roccato et al. (2021) showed that household crowding during the COVID-19 lockdown was positively related to support for anti-democratic political systems. However, little is known about the persistence of these effect over time. In this study, we examined its duration in a longitudinal study structured in five waves, the first in May–June 2019 (before the COVID-19 outbreak, N = 1504) and the others during the pandemic, in April 2020 (during the lockdown, N = 1199), October 2020 (N = 1156), April 2021 (N = 1148), and October 2021 (N = 1151). The increase in support for anti-democratic systems associated with household overcrowding in the initial phase of the lockdown (Wave 2) did not change over the subsequent 17 months. Moreover, the effect was stronger among those who had high (compared with low) trust in democratic political institutions before the pandemic. Strengths, limitations, and potential developments of the study are discussed.