More Than Half of Japanese Youths Feel Stress Due To COVID-19 Restrictions [2021/04/16]

Are you feeling a sense of confinement due to the COVID-19 restrictions?

The prolonged novel coronavirus pandemic has caused Japanese children and youths to feel more anxiety and stress. According to the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the number of suicides among pupils of elementary, and junior and senior high schools in the country in 2020 increased by a sizable 140 to hit an all-time high of 479. This has prompted the ministry’s panel of experts to work out recommendations for enhancing measures to cope with children’s loneliness and isolation.

Against this background, The Nippon Foundation conducted an online survey from February 12 to 16 on “Coronavirus and Stress,” covering 1,000 Japanese aged between 17 and 19 across the country. It came days after the government extended on February 2 its state of emergency for Tokyo, Osaka and eight other prefectures by one month as the nation continued to battle rising COVID-19 cases.

The poll found that more than half of the respondents (50.4%) said they were feeling a sense of confinement as a result of the coronavirus restrictions, while more of them (58.7%) said they sensed people around them felt confined.

The respondents gave many reasons for feeling confined: They could not go outside as they wished; they had no idea when in-person classes would resume; they worried about whether they would be able to have jobs in the future; and they could not pay tuition as it was hard to find parttime jobs amid the pandemic.

When asked how COVID-19 affected their lives (multiple answers allowed), almost half of them (48.3%) said that they were unable to spend free time as they wished because of the government’s request to stay home. Of these, more than 9 in 10 (91.1%) reported they felt stressed. The survey also found that the pandemic was affecting young people’s lives in concrete ways with their pursuit of higher education or employment (23.2%) and their family and personal incomes (17.7%) being impacted negatively.

Asked to select what they experienced during the preceding month (multiple answers allowed), the most cited was a “continued sense of uneasiness and irritation” (36.8%), followed by “continued fatigue” (33.8%), “continued difficulty thinking and concentrating” (25.0%), “a feeling of wanting to die,” (16.0%) and “continued overeating or not eating” (12.4). Most seriously, 2.4% said they “attempted suicide.”

By sex, the survey found that more young females (43.2%) experienced a continued sense of uneasiness and irritation than their male counterparts (30.4%). This was attributable to the decreased amount of time women spent with friends or on going out or doing outdoor hobbies.

Queried about relationships that relieved stress and improved their spirits, a great majority (85.1%) picked boyfriend/girlfriend, as compared with friends, excluding school friends (70.2%), and school friends, including friends from school days (69.9%). These rated above mother (55.8%) and father (42.9%).

Asked whether there is a positive side to the coronavirus, only a few answered “yes” with one in five (23.4%) saying they had spent more time with family due to the government’s request to refrain from going out for non-essential or non-urgent purposes.

I believe that young people grow up and develop through their interactions with other people. To that extent, the COVID-19 pandemic must have caused them to feel much greater stress than people middle-aged and older. Analyzing the poll results, I feel anew the need to keep an eye out for changes in the attitudes of young Japanese.

Do you sense that people around you are feeling a sense of confinement due to the COVID-19 restrictions?

Please select all of the above that you have experienced over the past month (multiple answers allowed).