Coronavirus | Covid-19 | Investigation | Household consumption
How has consumption changed during Covid-19? What happened to social relationships, families and people? What future awaits us? These are some of the questions answered by the “Third report of the Observatory on household consumption. Consumption and consumers at the time of Covid-19”. The volume, published in October 2021 by FrancoAngeli, was edited by Luigi Tronca, full professor of general sociology, and Domenico Secondulfo, former full professor of general sociology at the University of Verona.
The volume contains the results obtained from the analysis of the data collected in December 2020 during the survey of the Observatory on household consumption (research center, directed by Luigi Tronca, of the university’s human sciences department) which involved 2,054 adults residing in Italy.
“We are living in a particularly complex and dramatic period – explains Tronca in the introduction of the volume – The Covid-19 pandemic constitutes, according to a number of scholars, a watershed for a large number of social phenomena”.
The study highlights, among other things, that 39.3% of the participants consider the family economic situation sufficient, therefore, to be able to meet the main needs but with sacrifices, 37.1% consider it good, that is all the needs they are satisfied but unable to save, while 13.2% consider it excellent, even managing to save. Finally, 10.4% consider it precarious, always having to give up on purchases.
The Northwest is the geographic area of the country where the excellent economic situation is most affected, which concerns 16.9% of the participants, while the islands have the lowest percentage value, equal to 8%. In the islands, however, there is the greatest incidence of the precarious situation, which concerns 14.4% of the participants, while the Northeast, with a percentage value of 5.3%, has the lowest incidence of this condition.
The relationship between food choices and well-being seems to lose relevance in the transition from 2016 to 2018 and, then again, to 2020. In fact, those who declare that they are careful enough or very careful in their food consumption choices, believing that these affect their well-being, it is equal to 85% of people in 2020, compared to 86.4% in 2018 and 87.6% in 2016.
The survey, which also used the tools of Social Network Analysis, made it possible to identify the average quantity of subjects on whom one can count to receive support or help in case of need during the course of daily life, equal to 3.29, against 2.99 in 2018 and 3.20 in 2016. This growth in the size of the personal support network, which marks a point of discontinuity with respect to the previous trend, is recorded, however, together with the continuation of the negative trend relating to ego density -centric average of personal support networks, which allows to obtain the level of validity among those who form the personal support network of people. In essence, the survey made it possible to discover the phenomenon of pandemic brokerage, for which, concurrently with the Covid-19 pandemic, the size of the support networks tends to grow again but their own internal size continues to decline. .
The survey also made it possible to record the percentage of those who had a perception of the regulatory provisions regarding Covid-19 of residence and, in particular, 5.8% indicated a less restrictive condition than the one in force, while 4.6% indicated a more restrictive one.
Luca Mori, Sandro Stanzani, Francesca Setiffi, Debora Viviani, Lorenzo Migliorati, Paola Di Nicola and The survey was funded by the humanities department of the University of Verona, which also contributed to the publication of the volume, in which they participated Marco Carradore, together with Luigi Tronca and Domenico Secondulfo.
The “Third report of the Observatory on household consumption. Consumption and consumers at the time of COVID-19”, is published in open access and can be found here.