We are all aware that in the first half of 2020, the way we buy both staple foods and for personal use has changed. Gradually, we ended up giving up cash payments and opting for credit card or even phone payments. For this reason, we wanted to analyze the situation in several countries of the European Union.
In the last blog post we talked about the same subject. Today though, we return with the second part of the study organized by our DataDiggers experts.
During May 22nd and June 9th, we ran the fieldwork for our research, LIVING IN THE AGE OF COVID-19.
The study was run in Romania, Greece, Hungary and Czech Republic.
The survey took 8 minutes to complete and our respondents were females and males between 18-65 years old. We archived 800 completed surveys in every country, following the national representative profile, with a sampling error of ±3.46%. We applied quotas on age, gender and region and the sample has been weighted to ensure accordance with every country's specificity. Weighting efficiency was above 80%.
Here are some interesting insights and findings, while we finish our analysis:
5) Please try to think about the recreational activities you carry out during this period and distribute a number of 100 points depending on the time you allocate to them. A higher number of points corresponds to the allocation of a higher time to the respective activity.
Watching TV shows and movies (including online) and spending time with family are the main recreational activities carried out during pandemic, almost 50% of the spare time being allocated to these.
Other recreational activities considered by the population in a higher measure are relaxing physically, reading books and using social media platforms.
"Watching TV shows and movies" seems to be the main recreational activity for Czech Republic citizens, while "watching movies online" was mentioned in a higher number by the respondents from Romania and Greece.
6) Which of the following recreational activities do you consider to be spending more time on, in this period, than in the previous period (before the COVID-19 crisis)? Please indicate a maximum number of 3.
Almost 50% of the respondents indicated "spending time with family" as the main recreational activity that happened more than before pandemic.
Watching shows and movies, TV and online, were also mentioned by 1 out of 3 respondents.
"Watching movies online" is a recreational activity that Romanian and Greek citizens seem to currently allocate more time than before.
Romanian respondents also mentioned in a significantly higher proportion compared to the other countries "using social media platforms" as recreational activity to which they allocate more time than before pandemic.
7) To what extent do you agree with the following statements? Please indicate this on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 means "To a very small extent" and 5 means "To a large extent".
More than half of the respondents, regardless the country, agree to a large and a very large extent to having "the European Parliament support member countries through capital infusion" and "the government of own country support the private sector through funding programs".
Looking at the other side more than 50% of the respondents did not agree to having "the isolation restrictions maintained until a vaccine becomes widely available" (bottom 2 - 54%).
Country level results show that Greek respondents see in a significantly higher proportion, compared to the others, the need of having the European Parliament (71%) and own Government (58%) directly involved in supporting the economy and private sector. They also feel in a higher measure that "the relaxation of isolation restrictions should happen immediately, for the good of the national economy".
8) Considering the period after the COVID-19 pandemic, please order the following possible threats given by the current situation depending on the impact you perceive, from 1 - the strongest threat to 7 - the lowest threat.
The main perceived threats given by COVID-19 pandemic are "lack of money", "rising prices for products and services" and "lack of jobs".
As a summary of these mentions, the estimated economic crisis and its effects is the main concern among the respondents from all countries.
"Rising prices for products and services" is a perceived threat that was put as 1st or 2nd in the order of importance by half of the CZ respondents, a significantly higher number comparing to the other countries.
Similarly, respondents from Hungary and Greece perceive "lack of jobs" as one of the most important threats of this period.
Our study consisted of 13 questions, as we have previously mentioned in our last article. We will be back with the rest of this study, but we considered it’s best to split them into parts, rather than put all the information into one article.
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