Family Resilience and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A South African Study

Abstract

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic created various challenges for individuals and families across the globe. Many countries went into a state of disaster and applied strict lockdown regulations to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. Although the sudden changes in livelihoods impacted families globally, this research is limited to understanding how families connected and resolved conflict during the pandemic. The current study therefore aimed at exploring how family dynamics and resilience in South African families were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study was conducted qualitatively in the Western Cape, South Africa, with 31 participants. The results indicated that families in the Western Cape had trouble adjusting to the imposed restrictions; however, some of these families used the time they had together to adapt and find new ways of building their relationships and strengthening their bonds. The main themes indicated that the most difficult challenges were the children’s schooling, financial impact from job losses, and separation from extended family members due to restrictions on movement. Furthermore, familial support and connecting as a family through open and honest communication helped the families remain resilient and fostered positive relationships.

Mindful parenting, parenting self-efficacy, and marital satisfaction of mother with toddler on family resilience during pandemic

“…Specifically, marital satisfaction has the biggest role. This is consistent with previous research, that marital satisfaction felt by mothers gives a big boost in creating a resilient family because communication with partners as parents or primary caregivers for toddlers goes well even in a pandemic situation (Pănoi et al, 2018;Rich et al, 2022;Wong et al, 2022). Then, parenting self-efficacy is proven to provide the second biggest role in creating a resilient family for mothers with toddlers.…”

Strategies adopted by Not in Education, Employment, or Training Youth in dealing with the psychological and emotional stress caused by COVID-19

“…Family support that people received from one another during COVID-19 helped them overcome many of the hardships brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, family support also strengthened their familial resilience (Rich et al 2022).…”

Resilience and vulnerability of Ukrainians: The role of family during the war

“…If analyzing resilience to COVID-19, its spawn was thoroughly studied in China as a place of origin (He et al, 2022). Later, people from other countries got epidemic resistance, and researchers focused on regional peculiarities, e.g., in Southeast Asia (Gala et al, 2022) or Africa (Rich et al, 2022). In Europe, it is Italy where the COVID-19 effects were most severe, although population resilience put the situation under control (Ren, 2020).…”