FAmily Response and WELL-being effects of Covid-19

Lockdowns and the economic crisis induced by Covid-19 are imposing unprecedented constraints on families in terms of freedom of choice, consumption opportunities, time use, and social interactions. The “Farewell-to-C19” project focuses on the role of the family as a place that can both buffer and amplify the shockwave. For example, a spouse that already had a higher earnings before the crisis will (in most cases) continue to work more, and absorb less of the increase in the unpaid workload due to childcare, likely amplifying gender-specific sharing rules and inequalities within the household - a factor that has been shown to affect the well-being of its members (Peluso and
Trannoy 2007, Couprie et al. 2010). However, compared to singles, the family plays a natural inequality-reducing role due to the insurance possibilities offered by multiple income sources or consumption and time sharing. Looking across households, people most likely to be working from home were already better off, and children of already better-off households suffer less in terms of loss of human capital during the lockdown and are less exposed to material deprivation.
To investigate how these interlaced effects will impact Luxemburgish households, the Farewell-to C19 project will be developed by a team of researchers belonging to the Living Conditions, Labor Market and Urban Development and Mobility Departments of LISER, in collaboration with the University of Glasgow and the AMSE Marseille. This project is organized in three work packages (WP): The first WP compares different types of households to identify how individual preferences can be affected by family ties in the circumstances induced by the Covid-19 crisis. The second WP analyses several effects of the Covid-19 crisis on children conditions. The third WP focuses on preferences towards redistribution, their development within the family, and their transmission to children.