In particular, adults with children under 12 experienced an increase in their propensity to worry about their jobs outside of working hours and found it difficult to concentrate on and dedicate time to work due to at-home family responsibilities.
“People living with young children suffered more from the stay-at-home policies and school closures, while benefiting less from teleworking”, said Andrea Ammon, Director of the ECDC.
“At the same time, people under the age of 35, those living without children, people in the countryside, and those living in northern EU countries perceived a positive impact from teleworking policies on their private-professional life balance, with limited or non-significant negative impacts”.
Teleworking improved reported work-life balance for many, especially in northern European countries like Sweden where the practice has been longer established.
Sweden recommended teleworking throughout the pandemic but also kept its primary schools open so young children were out of the house being educated.
Lockdowns ‘could happen again’
The study is the latest in a string of reports to have been published on the impact of lockdowns on different aspects of life during the pandemic.
Last week the Royal Society in the UK published a package of six systematic reviews looking at the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on transmission of the Covid virus in the UK and around the world.
It concluded that NPIs, including masks, stay at home orders and border restrictions, were “unequivocally” effective when rolled out in tandem during the Covid pandemic and led to “powerful, effective and prolonged reductions in viral transmission”.
The Royal Society did not consider the downsides of NPIs and said it was making no judgement on the overall merits or otherwise of the policies.
However, it warned they were likely to be used in future pandemics in the absence of vaccines or other pharmaceutical measures as they had been shown to cut transmission.
“There is every reason to think that the application of combinations of NPIs will be important in future pandemics, particularly at early stages with novel pathogens when there are knowledge gaps and when therapeutics and vaccines are not yet available,” it said.
