Discussion
The present research asked Japanese individuals to report daily behaviors they often engage in before and after the COIVD-19 outbreak to examine how behavioral changes differ by people’s demography. Eating out, going shopping, doing housework, and engaging in leisure activities were the most frequently mentioned actions. The frequency of people performing them seems to be significantly changed by the pandemic. Those changes are, however, mediated by the people’s demography. Examination by age showed that younger people generally go out more than older people while having to experience a greater reduction of those activities since the outbreak. This implies that the decrease (or restriction) of going out maybe more psychologically detrimental for younger people [18,19]. Independence and financial capability can open broader possibilities of substitutional behaviors or solutions for the problems, but those options are also limited for the younger generations.
Housework is highlighted by all the demography-based examinations, indicating that housework is a major part of people’s lives and its increase due to the pandemic has a significant impact. Unbalanced distribution of housework between men and women has been a significant social problem in Japan, reflecting the country’s low level of gender equality [20]. The present results showed that women reported a greater number of housework-related activities than men. Although the extent of increase in this activity was equivalent for both genders, the psychological stress must be much more notable for women, which may contribute to the pandemic-induced mental problems among them [21-23].
Interestingly, activities related to internet use and sedentary behaviors (e.g., watching TV), which have been reported to be increased by the pandemic [7], were not mentioned very often in the present study. No significant change between the two conditions was also observed. Although the present results do not strictly reflect the actual frequency of activity performance, it can be said that the participants were not conscious of the changes in those activities. This suggests that the impact of the increased internet use on mental health might not be so significant compared to other causes, at least in Japan, despite an established direct relationship between the two factors.
The limitation of this study is that the appearance rates in the current results do not directly reflect how often those behaviors are performed. However, the appearance rate must reflect the subjective significance of those behaviors for the participants, and this must correlate with frequency in occurrence.