2023 Volume 5 Pages 66-
Over the past two years, COVID-19 has spread rapidly throughout the world and made a significant impact on people’s lives. This study focused on the initial influence on families with young children in 2020. We investigated the family environment of Japanese and Chinese families with young children during COVID-19 via a questionnaire survey in 2020. We examined the relationship between the changes in family life environment and the QOL (Quality of Life) of mothers in the two societies. The findings suggest that both in Japan and in China, families with young children met a lot of negative changes (e.g., unable to go outside or meet friends as usual, decrease in income) in the family environment during COVID-19, especially during the confinement period, which challenged the well-being of mothers. Meanwhile, they also perceived some positive changes, such as increased family time. In particular, the increased couple time or father-child time had a positive correlation to a mother’s sense of life fulfillment, and consequently, it is the sense of life fulfillment that predicted mothers’ QOL. The findings of this study suggest that the difficulties/concerns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including economic disadvantages were risk factors, whereas the life-fulfillment and good family relationships might play a positive role for mothers’QOL during such a challenging period. The differences in effect of these factors on mothers’well-being between the two societies were also discussed.
