The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on different facets of the well-being of employed and unemployed workers - an interdisciplinary study based on real-time data

自2017年以来，柏林自由Universität和就业研究所（IAB）进行了一项纵向研究，调查失业对各种幸福指标（主观、心理、身体）的影响。该项目由DFG资助。通过一款调查应用程序收集了相同工人的丰富月度面板数据。由于采用了创新的对照组设计，这些数据有助于全面检查失业对不同福祉方面的影响。此外，研究人员还确定了人们头发中的皮质醇水平，以便将主观调查数据与客观测量的习惯性压力生物标志物进行比较。本申请项目资金的扩展有三个目标：首先，我们希望回答那些在最初的资金提案中概述的研究问题，这些问题由于招募调查参与者的意外延迟而无法解决。其次，我们旨在研究宏观经济环境如何影响失业对福祉的影响。到目前为止，我们已经招募了参与者，并观察了在经济繁荣时期进入失业状态的情况。与此同时，这种情况发生了巨大变化。从理论角度来看，由于冠状病毒危机，未来就业前景的不确定性增加，可能导致失业对福祉的负面影响比以前更大。然而，相反的效果也是可以想象的，因为当失业非常普遍时，它可能不那么污名化。为了研究这两种影响中哪一种占主导地位，我们从2020年7月开始招募了一组新的求职者。这将使我们能够比较冠状病毒危机前后失业对福祉的影响。第三，我们想分析Covid-19大流行如何影响最初研究队列中仍参与研究的就业受试者的幸福感和压力。我们纵向收集的数据提供了一个独特的机会，可以比较同一个人在危机前后的幸福感的各种创新指标（例如毛发皮质醇，经验抽样）。其他调查对这些分析没有帮助，因为它们要么是在大流行爆发之后开始的，要么没有采用同样复杂的评估方法。因此，我们可以全面调查冠状病毒危机对各个福祉方面的影响，同时考虑潜在的调节变量（例如，工作保障、应对策略）。

Since 2017, Freie Universität Berlin and the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) have conducted a longitudinal study investigating the effects of unemployment on various indicators of well-being (subjective, psychological, physical). The project has been funded by the DFG. Rich monthly panel data of the same workers have been collected using a survey app. Thanks to an innovative control group design, the data facilitate examining the effects of unemployment on different well-being facets comprehensively. Moreover, the level of cortisol in people’s hair is ascertained to compare the subjective survey data with an objectively measured biomarker of habitual stress. This application for an extension of the project funding pursues three goals: First, we want to answer those research questions outlined in the initial funding proposal that could not be addressed yet due to an unanticipated delay in recruiting participants for the survey. Second, we aim to study how the macroeconomic environment influences the effect of unemployment on well-being. So far, we have recruited participants and observed entries into unemployment during a boom. This has changed dramatically in the meantime. From a theoretical perspective, increased uncertainty about future employment prospects due to the corona crisis may lead to more negative effects of unemployment on well-being than before. However, the opposite effect is also conceivable as unemployment might be less stigmatizing when it is highly prevalent. To investigate which of these two effects dominates, we have recruited a new study cohort of jobseekers since July 2020. It will enable us to compare the well-being effects of unemployment before and after the corona crisis. Third, we want to analyze how the Covid-19 pandemic affects the well-being and stress of employed subjects from the initial study cohort who still participate. Our longitudinally collected data offer the unique opportunity of comparing various innovative measures of the same people’s well-being before and after the crisis (e.g. hair cortisol, experience sampling). Other surveys do not facilitate these analyses as they either started after the outbreak of the pandemic or do not include similarly sophisticated assessment methods. Thus, we can comprehensively investigate the effects of the corona crisis on various well-being facets while also considering potential moderator variables (e.g., job security, coping strategies).