Mapping the Well-Being of Norwegian Mothers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had negative effects on people’s well-being and quality of life. In order to extend existing research, we focused on Norwegian mothers with children in elementary schools, and investigated whether the pandemic influenced their well-being, stress, and worries. Our sample consisted of 231 mothers responding in the first data collection that took place June 2020, 97 mothers who also responded in November 2020, and 51 who also responded in May 2021. Results showed that mothers well-being declined throughout 2020 and was lowest in November. Furthermore, age of youngest child was the strongest and most consistent predictor of mothers’ well-being across all timepoints during the pandemic. In addition, we found that stress during the national lockdown in March 2020 was strongly associated with mothers’ well-being during lockdown. Implications and suggestions for future research and for how to cope with health-related crises in the future are discussed.