Does living with children link to unequal impacts of the pandemic on mental health and emotional experiences?

Purpose: The Covid-19 pandemic and associated restrictions created a range of potential additional stressors for families, particularly for parents living with children. This article explored: (1) whether there were any differences in the mental health and emotional experiences of those living with children, and those who were not, during the pandemic and related lockdowns; (2) whether there were any specific risk factors associated with these mental health outcomes and emotional experiences.
Methodology: Regression analyses of ten-wave repeated cross-sectional surveys between May 2020 and November 2021 on a total sample of 42,529 UK adults, which measured mental health with a range of pleasant and unpleasant emotional experiences. The interaction effects of living with children and age as well as marital status were tested.
Findings: During the pandemic, individuals who were living with children were more likely to feel hopeful (OR: 1.1) and grateful (OR: 1.163), less likely to feel hopeless (OR: 0.918) and lonely (OR: 0.799), while more likely to feel guilty (OR: 1.185), unprepared (OR: 1.195), and pressurised (OR: 1.14), compared with those not living with children. More nuanced findings and diverse emotional experiences were also found in people of different age groups and marital statuses.
Originality: This study has highlighted that being parents and living with children could be important factors of emotional distress, especially during the special circumstances of the pandemic and lockdowns, drawing on the large-scale national data.