Official Statistics

Executive Summary - Community Life COVID-19 Re-contact Survey 2020

Published 8 December 2020

Applies to England

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) commissioned the Community Life COVID-19 Re-contact Survey (CLRS) to provide data on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected volunteering, charitable giving, social cohesion, wellbeing and loneliness in England.

Methodology

The re-contact survey (CLRS) is a follow-up to the Community Life Survey (CLS), an annual household self-completion survey of adults aged 16+ in England. This report compares survey data from the same respondents over two time periods. The two waves of data are based on the 2,812 respondents^{[footnote 1]} who participated in both waves of the research:

Wave 1 (pre-pandemic) survey: respondents who participated in the CLS from July 2018 through to February 2020. Wave 1 data was mainly collected online, with some respondents completing the survey by paper self-completion.

Wave 2 (during the pandemic) survey: respondents who took part in a follow-up survey from 7th July to 26th July 2020. The majority (88%) completed the survey online, and 12% completed by telephone interview.

The ability to compare data from the two time points provides an insight into the dynamics of change between the pre COVID-19 pandemic period and July 2020. In this report we refer to two measures of change over time:

Net change: The difference in overall prevalence of a measure at wave 1 and wave 2 at the aggregate level.

Gross change: Change or movement at the individual level.

For example, the net number of volunteers in the population may be the same at two time points but could be compositionally different. Gross change analysis would tell us whether, in this situation, it is the same set of respondents who volunteered on both occasions or whether there are equal and opposite flows into and out of volunteering.

Interpretation and limitations

The survey findings are based on a sample of UK adults, rather than the entire population, and therefore findings are subject to a margin of error.^{[footnote 2]} In addition, although the findings at wave 1 and wave 2 are broadly comparable, there are some limitations which mean that not all measures can be compared on a like-for-like basis.^{[footnote 3]} These limitations include: i) some respondents completed wave 1 and wave 2 using different modes which could have introduced measurement effects; ii) in a small number of questions there were some minor wording changes between wave 1 and wave 2 to reflect the specific circumstances of the pandemic; iii) the recall period for the volunteering measures was amended from 12 months at wave 1 to 4 months at wave 2, so as to limit recall at wave 2 to the post-pandemic period.^{[footnote 4]}

Formal volunteering

Formal volunteering is defined as giving unpaid help to formally organised groups or clubs; regular formal volunteering is defined as volunteering at least once a month.

• Overall (net change), there were similar rates of regular formal volunteering at wave 1 (23%) and wave 2 (21%).

• However, this stability masks change at the individual level (gross change). Overall, 23% had done less formal volunteering at wave 2 while 15% had done more formal volunteering.

• About half (48%) of wave 2 respondents who had formally volunteered since the pandemic were helping people affected by COVID-19 or associated restrictions (‘COVID-19 formal volunteers’).

• Overall, 56% of COVID-19 formal volunteers started at least some of these volunteering activities after the pandemic began, while 44% continued to help in the same ways as before the pandemic (for example, volunteering at a food bank).

  • COVID-19 formal volunteers were more likely than non-COVID formal volunteers to be female (59% vs. 43%), to have key worker status (33% vs. 24%), and to have switched to home working during the pandemic (29% vs. 20%).

• Wave 2 regular formal volunteers were less likely to take part in many traditional forms of volunteering activity than at wave 1 (net change), including helping to run an event (49% at wave 1 vs. 21% at wave 2) and fundraising or sponsoring (42% at wave 2 vs. 19% at wave 1).

Informal volunteering

Informal volunteering is defined as giving unpaid help as an individual to people who are not a relative; regular informal volunteering is defined as volunteering at least once a month.

• Overall (net change), there was an increase in regular informal volunteering (28 % at wave 1 vs. 47% of wave 2).

• At the individual level (gross change), 39% had done more informal volunteering at wave 2 compared to wave 1, while 22% had done less.

• Wave 2 regular informal volunteers were less likely to provide help with tasks that take place in or from other people’s homes than at wave 1 (net change), including looking after property or pets for someone who is away (24% at wave 1 vs. 7% at wave 2) and transporting/escorting someone (23% vs. 8%). Instead this group were more likely to keep in touch with someone who has difficulty getting out (43% at wave 1 vs. 58% at wave 2) and help people with shopping, collecting medicines etc. (23% vs. 49%).

• About half (52%) of wave 2 respondents who had informally volunteered since the pandemic were helping people affected by COVID-19 or associated restrictions (‘COVID-19 informal volunteers’).

• Overall, 72% of COVID-19 informal volunteers started their activities after the pandemic, while 28% were already helping people in this way before the pandemic (e.g. collecting groceries for neighbours).

Charitable giving

Charitable giving is defined as donating money to charity excluding donating goods or prizes.

• Overall (net change), the percentage of respondents who reported that they had given money to charitable causes in the past four weeks decreased from 73% at wave 1 to 62% at wave 2. However, among those who had given to charity in the past four weeks, the mean amount given increased from £24 at wave 1 to £33 at wave 2.^{[footnote 5]}

• At the individual level (gross change), 11% were new or renewed donors, who had not donated at wave 1 but had donated at wave 2; while 24% were lapsed or intermittent donors, who had donated at wave 1 but had not donated at wave 2.Those aged 16-24 were more likely than any other age group to be new or renewed donors (20%, compared with a low of 5% among those aged 70+).

• Many of the previously most common means of charitable giving were much less widely used at wave 2 than at wave 1 (net change). The largest percentage point change was for the proportion of respondents giving money to collection tins, which fell from 30% at wave 1 to 8% at wave 2.

• There were falls in the proportion of respondents reporting that they had donated to almost all of the prompted causes between wave 1 and wave 2 (net change). The largest percentage point fall was respondents donating to medical research (22% at wave 1 vs. 14% at wave 2).

Social cohesion

• The proportion of wave 1 respondents who reported that they met up in person with family or friends more than once a week fell from 48% to 38% (net change).

• There was however an increase in the use of telephone, video or audio calls (an increase from 55% at wave 1 to 65% at wave 2) and exchanging text messages or instant messages (an increase from 73% at wave 1 to 80% at wave 2) (net change).

• At the individual level (gross change), 38% reported that they had met up with friends and family in person less often at wave 2 than at wave 1, while a quarter (27%) had met up more often.

  • Around half of those aged 16-24 reported less frequent in-person contact (47%) at wave 2 than at wave 1, a higher proportion than was seen amongst those aged 25+ (gross change).

• The proportion of respondents reporting that they chatted to their neighbours more than just to say hello, at least weekly, increased from 49% at wave 1 to 54% at wave 2 (net change).

• Between wave 1 and wave 2, 31% had become more comfortable asking their neighbours to help if they were ill and needed someone to collect a few shopping essentials, while 18% had become less comfortable asking their neighbours for such support (gross change).

Wellbeing and loneliness

These measures are based on the Government Statistical Service (GSS) harmonised principles.^{[footnote 6][footnote 7]} The personal wellbeing scores cover life satisfaction, happiness, self-worth and anxiety and are measured using a 0-10 scale, where zero is low and 10 is high.

• Average wellbeing scores have deteriorated across all four measures of personal wellbeing between wave 1 and wave 2 (net change). For example, average feelings of life satisfaction decreased from an average score of 7.00 in wave 1 to 6.78 in wave 2; while feelings of happiness decreased from 7.00 in wave 1 to 6.83 in wave 2.

• At the individual level (gross change), feelings of life satisfaction, happiness, and self-worth were more likely to have deteriorated than improved at wave 2. For example, 39% reported a decrease in life satisfaction and 29% reported an increase (similar gross change was observed for happiness and self-worth).

• Overall (net change), levels of loneliness remained similar or unchanged. At wave 2, 8% of respondents said they felt lonely “often or always” (vs. 8% at wave 1), 13% reported that they lacked companionship often (vs. 12% at wave 1), 11% reported feeling left out often (vs. 11% at wave 1), and 15% reported feeling isolated from others often (vs. 12% at wave 1).

• At the individual level (gross change), compared with other measures of loneliness, there was more change in how often people reported they felt lonely: 28% of respondents felt lonelier and 25% felt less lonely at wave 2, during the pandemic.

  • Certain groups within the population were more likely than others to report a change in levels of loneliness at wave 2 (gross change). Respondents with a higher propensity to feel lonelier at wave 2, during the pandemic, included young people aged 16-24 and those without a long-term limiting illness.

  • Conversely, respondents with a higher propensity to feel less lonely included those with a long-term limiting illness, those living in more deprived areas and those living in urban areas. However, people from urban areas had a higher propensity to report that they lacked companionship more often and that they felt isolated more often.

1. A conversion rate between the waves of 43% calculated as: number of completed interviews/number of cases issued. ↩

2. Throughout this report, only differences that are statistically significant at the 95% level of confidence are commented on. ↩

3. Further information about how these limitations affect specific measures have been detailed in the relevant chapters of this report. Further information can be also be found in Appendix B. ↩

4. The recall period is the length of time respondents are asked to consider in a question. For example, ‘In the last four months, have you given unpaid help to a group, club or organisation?’, The four month recall period would have been within the period of 7th March to the 26th July. ↩

5. Those who donated £300 or more are excluded from the mean scores to avoid the risk of a small number of large donors skewing the data. ↩

6. The harmonised questions for personal wellbeing can be found at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/methodologies/surveysusingthe4officefornationalstatisticspersonalwellbeingquestions ↩

7. The harmonised questions for measuring loneliness can be found at https://gss.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/loneliness-indicators/ ↩