engleski

In culture we are all equal? Leisure activities and social inequalities in nine European countries in the times of Covid-19

Covid-19 pandemic has radically restricted the possibilities for cultural and leisure activities outside of the home. As research so far has shown, it has also exacerbated the existing social inequalities, including those connected to leisure and cultural participation. In this paper, based on survey data from nine European countries (UK, France, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, Serbia, Croatia, Switzerland), collected in Spring 2021, we attempt to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the cross-national differences in leisure activities the respondents indicated they missed the most during the Covid-19 pandemic? ; (2) What is the place of cultural activities (defined as those activities usually in the focus of cultural policies) among the most missed leisure activities? ; (3) How are the most missed cultural activities (as defined above) connected to selected indicators of social inequality and life satisfaction? Unlike the steady stream of articles dealing with ongoing changes in the patterns of cultural participation, “enforced leisure” and “adaptation strategies”, or specific policies aimed at alleviating the precarious situation of the cultural and creative workers, we focus on what we see as long-term trends merely made more visible by the current pandemic. The results of our descriptive analysis indicate cross-national differences in the patterns of participation in leisure activities and cultural activities (in the narrow sense of the word). A regression analysis shows that selected indicators of social inequality are related to the types of leisure and cultural activities missed the most in pandemic conditions.

COVID-19 ; culture ; leisure ; social inequalities ; Europe

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