Covid-19: the contribution of demography

Research Projects
To answer a number of the many questions on the impact of the coronavirus on populations and societies in France and across the world, INED has brought together the entire range of its disciplines and resources. This involves coordinating and supporting a number of projects, including an internet platform dedicated to the daily tracking of deaths due to Covid-19, the conducting of new surveys, participation in several international research projects, and wide diffusion of scientific publications. INED began designing and running a number of major, innovative research projects of its own and jointly with other institutions as early as March 2020. The projects encompass all stages in the life cycles and investigate a variety of lockdown-related issues, including home schooling and children’s behavior, housing and living conditions, family solidarity, remote working, the quality and resilience of maternal and neonatal care services, and end-of-life and death in nursing homes.
Publication
The research projects on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have produced a considerable amount of scientific findings. INED has compiled a selection of articles to help you understand certain phenomena better; for example, the impact of the health crisis on life expectancy and excess mortality in France; its repercussions on the health of essential and low-wage workers; the worsening of social inequalities due to the pandemic by family origin and minority “invisibility,” particularly in the département of Seine-Saint-Denis immediately outside Paris; and ethno-racial inequality in the United States in connection with the pandemic.
Video
ZOOM ON

Research Projects
Cocovi

Lockdown, living conditions, and inequalities - COCOVI

Housing situation has once again become a crucial dimension of our living conditions since much of our social activities are currently taking place in our living spaces.

Starting in March 2020, the COCOVI project (Confinement, Conditions de vie et Inégalités) will analyze housing conditions and household life in France during the COVID-19 pandemic, measuring disparities before and during lockdown (confinement) between households of different social milieus, located in different geographical environments (rural, peri-urban, city center, single-family suburban, dense housing projects, etc.). Situational disparities may be due to changes in household composition and arrangements and/or temporary or definitive changes in residence and housing.

The project will be run by researchers of INED’s “Housing, Spatial inequalities and Trajectories” research unit and will draw on three complementary types of data:

in-depth interviews with households confined in different types of areas that are also sites of former ethnographic field studies;
secondary processing of public statistics general population surveys (notably the “Logement” [Housing] survey);
an ad hoc questionnaire to be taken by approximately 1000 persons constituting a representative sample of France’s adult population. The questionnaire survey will be conducted jointly with a group of researchers from COCONEL (Coronavirus et confinement: Enquête Longitudinal), INSERM (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale), IRD (Institut de Recherche sur le Développement), the ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche) and the IFOP opinion poll institute: Patrick Peretti-Watel (scientific coordinator), Valérie Seror, Sébastien Cortaredona, Odile Launay, Jocelyn Raude, Pierre Verger (research consortium), François Beck, Stéphane Legleye, Olivier L’Haridon, Jeremy Ward (Steering Committee).

First Results

This project includes a survey questionnaire (the COCONEL-1 “Housing and living conditions” survey) of the adult French population designed for the purpose of a first overall assessment of the effects of lockdown in France (confinement). The survey inquired into living spaces and places, income, work and working at home, children and family relations, social contacts and the feeling of isolation, young people’s experience, and family solidarity during the pandemic. The first findings have revealed major changes in daily living conditions and housing uses and inhabiting modes. The survey has also shown how confinement widened existing social gaps in French society, to the detriment of women, young people, and people of relatively modest material and financial means. Interruption or loss of paid work, fall in income, fear for the future, feeling of isolation—all these indicators worsened cumulatively, deepening a range of existing inequalities.

Funders: Fonds de Crise de l’Institut de Recherche pour le Développement et l’appel à projets Flash COVID-19 de l’Agence Nationale de la Recherche.

Consult the results of the survey, click here [FR]

Contact: Anne Lambert - anne.lambert @ ined.fr

Online June 2021

Read the two issues of Population and Societies dedicated to the survey :

Population and Societies n° 578

Population and Societies n° 579