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Social contacts are only possible to a limited extent in the pandemic
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Adults in Germany became somewhat more dissatisfied at the beginning of the corona pandemic - regardless of age to a similar extent.
This emerges from an evaluation by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories in Bamberg, which was presented on Thursday.
"We were surprised that the decline in satisfaction was roughly the same for all age groups," said Philipp Handschuh, lead author of the report.
"We had suspected that the satisfaction of the elderly suffers particularly due to the reduction in social contacts."
In May and June 2020 - i.e. during the first lockdown or shortly afterwards - 2,273 men and women in Germany between the ages of 33 and 76 were asked about their subjectively assessed satisfaction with health, standard of living or family life.
Similar results in the different age groups
This resulted in average values of 6.8 to 7.6 points on a scale from 0 to 10.
That is just under a point less than before the pandemic.
Only the average satisfaction with one's own health hardly changed.
All age groups were similarly worried about an overload of the health system or a long, severe economic crisis.
The greatest concern was that the pandemic would widen the gap between rich and poor.
On the other hand, there were differences in terms of future expectations - the older generation were much more optimistic here.
Respondents over 65 believed, for example, money problems, restrictions in living standards and financial emergencies or a corona infection of relatives to be significantly less likely than younger people.
One must restrict the fact that the online survey mainly reached older people with access to digital technology, who were able to partially compensate for missing contacts, said Handschuh.
It could also be, the authors write in their evaluation, that people who are particularly bad may have participated less in the survey.
mar / dpa