Perception of the crisis: the experience of the COVID-2019 pandemic

About the authors:

Gulnara F. Romashkina, Dr. Sci. (Soc.), Professor, Department of Economic Security, System Analysis and Control, University of Tyumen, Tyumen, Russia, g.f.romashkina@utmn.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7764-5566, Scopus Author ID: 16437113600, WoS ResearcherID: O-7221-2017

Marina V. Khudyakova, Cand. Sci. (Soc.), Associate Professor, Department of General and Economic Sociology, Institute of Finance and Economics, University of Tyumen; m.v.khudyakova@utmn.ru; ORCID: 0000-0001-5280-2935

Abstract:

Research purpose of this article is to identify the impact of the crisis phenomena associated with the pandemic on people’s evaluation of the current and future periods of their lives. The scientific novelty is due to the receipt of unique empirical data to characterize the current trends in social optimism in society (using the example of the population of the Tyumen Region) and in understanding of how people reacted to the processes associated with the pandemic.

The empirical base consists of the results of sociocultural monitoring in the Tyumen Region for the period from 2006 to 2021. The research sampling is stratified, random within quotas based on sex and age structure and territory that represent the population of the Tyumen region. The authors studied the main socio-demographic characteristics — components of social optimism: comparison of the results of the current year with the previous one, and the evaluation of the near and distant future. The article demonstrates that public opinion reacts to crisis phenomena in the evaluation of the present moment, but the depth and duration of the crisis influence the evaluation of the future. Over the period from 2006 to 2017, two-thirds of residents of the Tyumen Region maintained strategic optimism — the hope that everything would be fine in the future, but in the last three years their share began to decline. The socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic remained the dominant pattern for the residents of the Tyumen Region even in the spring of 2021. Indicators that are statistically consistently related to the perception of consequences and behavior during the pandemic are associated with social optimism (primarily in the evaluation of the current year), age, work experience, type of settlement. When compared with urban residents, rural residents answer that nothing has changed in their lives much more often, they also note the decrease in income and earnings more rarely. But the most significant differences take place on the optimism/pessimism axis. Optimists choose a proactive strategy, rely on their own capabilities; they are twice as less likely to lose their jobs, experience a decrease in income and earnings; they take on additional work more than twice as often. Meanwhile, pessimists expect further deterioration of their lives. The study showed that people who have been ill or whose relatives have been ill during the pandemic, are significantly less likely to be in the group of optimists. Among them, the frequency of responses of the active-achievement type decreases sharply. The direction of the revealed connection remains unclear since qualitative research is needed.

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