One and a half years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the polarization of society in economically developed countries is significantly greater than it was before the crisis, according to a wide-ranging public opinion poll.
The crisis caused by the pandemic has exacerbated and deepened social discord almost everywhere. As demonstrated by the US Pew Research Center in 17 developed countries survey, an average of 61% of respondents said they now feel that society is more divided than it was before the pandemic. Only 24% of respondents said that people in their country now feel more cohesive.
The survey was conducted from 1 February to 26 May 2021. It was attended by 18,850 adult respondents from the United States, Canada, Europe (Netherlands, Germany, Spain, France, Belgium, Italy, Greece, the United Kingdom, Sweden) and the Asia-Pacific region (Australia, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan, Singapore). .
Respondents in the United States feel the most polarizing of society, where 88% of respondents believe that the pandemic has divided society. The situation looks best in Singapore, where 86% of respondents think that disaster has united the country.
On average, respondents in Europe feel more than twice as much polarization due to Covid-19 as in Asia (66% and 31% respectively).
The researchers found it natural that respondents who were convinced that the economic situation in their country was now bad due to the pandemic also considered that society was more divided than in the “pre-Covenant” period. Those who answered that everything was normal with the economy did not feel any social discord. Many respondents also attributed the polarization of society to the severity of the restrictions imposed by the epidemic: the stricter they were, the more they felt it had divided society. At the same time, in some countries, more than half of the respondents thought that there could have been more measures to limit social activity (62% in Japan and 52% in the US).
It is also interesting how the answers were distributed in correlation with political sympathies: respondents with right-wing views were significantly more likely than those with left-wing views to support the view that so many strict restrictions are not necessary.
Another significant result of this survey is that in many countries the assessment of the government’s response to the pandemic has dropped significantly. The most radical decline was observed in Germany (in the summer of 2020, 88% of respondents thought that the country had given an appropriate response to the pandemic, while in the spring of 2021, 51% of respondents thought so). Only in the UK has confidence in correctness increased from 46% to 64%.
How and why Covid-19 divides society
Evaluating the results of the Pew Research Center survey, Willis Spārks, an analyst at the GZERO Media portal of the research and consulting company Eurasia Group, puts forward several possible reasonswhy social divisions are increasing against the background of a pandemic.
Polarization is caused by fear. For someone, the virus has caused an increased fear of illness and death. Others are very concerned that the government will use the virus to control citizens and restrict their freedoms. These fears often “raise the temperature” in debates such as whether to close schools and businesses and for how long. Or whether, in principle, only vaccinated persons should be allowed to attend public events.
The pandemic has put a lot of pressure on people. People became ill and died, lost their livelihoods. The children could not attend school and stayed only at home, which created new problems for their parents. Conflicting information and overly emotional opinions heightened the tension. Uncertainty about how long the pandemic would last caused fear. All these factors swarmed in the “boiler” of society, increasing people’s dissatisfaction and intolerance of other views.
The pandemic has exacerbated social tensions, further splitting the rich and the poor. Coping with the hardships of the Covid-19 pandemic was most difficult for those who could not work remotely and even in “peacetime” with difficulty made ends meet.
The pandemic has given governments more power restrict movement, close businesses, organize vaccinations and redistribute large financial resources at will. Such powers are causing controversy even in normal times, but now, in the heat of the crisis, governments, which are under strong pressure from various quarters, have themselves become the center of polarization of society. Proponents of those in power, in spite of everything, defended their actions, while opponents found more and more reasons to criticize their actions.
Covid-19 has given us reason to fear each other. Will a person standing next to me who doesn’t have a mask infect me? An unfamiliar person in a mask looking at me on the street doesn’t see me because I refuse to wear a mask? Probably such and similar issues have arisen many and many times in the last year and a half.
The problem of the “information bubble” has deepened. Even before the pandemic, people were accustomed to looking for information in the media or Internet resources that best matched their views and sympathies. The pandemic exacerbated this trend, with people looking for information on coronaviruses in sources they trusted. The media and popular bloggers sometimes used the pandemic to “play” on the already existing prejudices of their audience in order to achieve their political and commercial goals.
The pandemic has exacerbated the controversial attitude towards “experts”. For some people, recognized scientists became the most important source of vital everyday information. At the same time, however, scientists changed their minds as information about these new threats was constantly updated. Changes in information about the use of masks, the spread of the virus, the possibilities and deadlines for achieving collective immunity – all this contributes to cynicism about the credibility of experts’ opinions, and the fact that someone continued to believe them further divided society.
Apparently, in addition to the devastating effects on the global economy, a pandemic will also cause gigantic social damage that the world will have to deal with for years to come.
–
