The effect of the pandemic on adolescent wellbeing in Ireland

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions brought significant disruption to the financial situation of families, largely in the form of job loss. This disruption might be expected to impact on adolescent wellbeing in two ways. First, reduced income might have a direct impact, making it more difficult for young people to access the resources (such as a computer or a quiet place to study) available to those in more advantaged families. School closures are likely to have made the absence of such resources more acute. Second, more indirectly, income loss can lead to stress among parents which, in turn, impacts on the wellbeing of young people. Our research looks at these two processes and at whether measures put in place to support families during the pandemic (principally, the Pandemic Unemployment Payment) helped reduce the negative consequences for adolescent wellbeing.