Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/282763 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 16636
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
How much did young people suffer from the COVID-19 pandemic? A growing number of studies address this question, but they often lack a comparison group that was unaffected by the pandemic, and the observation window is usually short. Here, we compared the 2-year development of life satisfaction of German high school students during COVID-19 (N = 2,698) with the development in prepandemic cohorts (N = 4,834) with a difference-in-differences design. We found a decline in life satisfaction in winter 2020/2021 (Cohen's d = -0.40) that was approximately three times stronger than that in the general population and persisted until winter 2021/2022. Young people found some restrictions particularly burdensome, especially travel restrictions, bans on cultural events, and the closure of bars/clubs.
Subjects: 
COVID-19
well-being
causal analysis
pandemic
adolescents
Germany
JEL: 
I31
I18
J24
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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