Working Paper: NBER ID: w28803
Authors: Christine Logel; Philip Oreopoulos; Uros Petronijevic
Abstract: An emerging literature documents the many challenges faced by college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Little is known, however, about how students responded to the adversity. Focusing on two large Canadian universities, we provide some of the first evidence on the coping strategies students reported and the relationships between their endorsement of specific coping strategies and their subsequent well-being. Students focused on compensating for a lack of structure by creating new routines, maintaining social connections, and trying new activities. Conditional on baseline problems indexes, students who initially endorsed social connectedness as a strategy score significantly higher on a comprehensive well-being index five to twelve weeks later.
Keywords: COVID-19; college students; coping strategies; wellbeing
JEL Codes: I23; I31; J24
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| maintaining social connections (Z13) | improved wellbeing outcomes (I31) |
| maintaining social connections (Z13) | higher scores on wellbeing index (I31) |
| baseline problems and background variables (C29) | improved wellbeing outcomes (I31) |