Young people's quality of life, worries, and sense of social isolation during the corona crisis

The research project Standing together at a distance has teamed up with the Danish National Birth Cohort (DNBC) to investigate how young people in Denmark are experiencing and managing the corona crisis; i.e., the lockdown initiated in Denmark to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

From 30 March to 2 April 2020, participants in the DNBC research project who provided either their mobile number and/or private email address were invited to answer an online questionnaire. A total of 53,323 individuals aged 16–24 were invited, and 13,002 answered the questionnaire within a week. These young people were subsequently invited to answer follow-up questionnaires each week until mid-May 2020.

The questionnaires asked about young people’s quality of life, their degree of worry about the corona crisis, as well as their feelings of social isolation. The results indicate that, during the third week of the lockdown, young women were less satisfied with their quality of life, had a higher degree of worry, and felt more socially isolated than young men.

Figure 1: Quality of life, worries, and social isolation during the corona crisis among young men and women participants in the DNBC

Quality of life was lowest amongst adolescents under age 18 and highest amongst young adults aged 22–24. Of the four age groups, adolescents under age 18 were the least worried about the corona crisis, and the level of worries seemed to increase with age. In contrast, feelings of social isolation were highest amongst adolescents under age 18, and decreased with age.

Figure 2: Quality of life, worries, and social isolation during the corona crisis amongst young people in the DNBC measured within four age groups