Coronavirus | People optimistic but cautious about going back to normal life, finds survey across 7 cities

The findings provide take-aways for all stakeholders.

July 18, 2020 11:51 am | Updated July 19, 2020 12:11 am IST

Municipal staff sets up dustbins replicating the novel coronavirus to create awareness about safety measures in Vijayawada on July 17, 2020.

Municipal staff sets up dustbins replicating the novel coronavirus to create awareness about safety measures in Vijayawada on July 17, 2020.

We asked 1100 people in 7 cities what they think, feel, expect, and fear in the Covid situation and its Lockdowns. The cities are Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, and Hyderabad. The findings provide take-aways for all stakeholders — political leadership, government machinery, the healthcare system, the businesses, NGOs, academic and research institutions, and people at large. We have grouped the emerging themes and insights into 5 segments below.

1. My Outlook

Colleges & Schools, Workplace, City, and Economy

The emerging themes...

  • About opening of schools and colleges - Cautious. It’s slightly later than sooner!
  • About going to the office / workplace regularly - Highly Optimistic. It’s sooner than later!
  • About my city becoming Covid free - Going to be hard work. It’s slightly later than sooner!
  • About the economy coming back on track - Cautiously optimistic. It’s later than sooner!

Optimism yet caution seems to be the mood in the cities, which was sustaining till early June (when this survey was done). Amidst the virus scare, the stakeholders shaping this mood are - the political leadership, government machinery, healthcare capability and capacity, and the business leaders. So

far, the stakeholders have collectively managed to secure this perception, but it would not take too much to fall from this cautious optimism into a spiral of pessimism and despondency, which can immensely weaken people’s fight for livelihood and life.

Currently, as the survey shows, only about 4% of the respondents think that their life routine, schools, and workplaces will never come back to normal, and one in five are not optimistic about it either. These numbers can go up very quickly if our stakeholders are not careful enough; they need to exhibit these behaviors as a part of their efforts:

In addition to the actual results of controlling the virus, they must

  • Demonstrate scientific temperament
  • Demonstrate data transparency
  • Communicate frequently
  • Move forth, not go one step forward two steps backward

Behavioral scientists and economists may be able to see a correlation between the confidence felt among people about outcomes, and the actual outcomes when they happen. To put it simply - nation is a sum of individual actions, and each action is shaped by one’s perceptions, accurate or inaccurate. A nation’s progress is strongly linked to its individuals’ perceptions, and hence individual perceptions matter.

2. My Expectations, My Participation

Routine, Malls, and Cinemas

The emerging themes...

  • About getting back to the pre-Covid routine - Cautious. It’s later than sooner!
  • About reopening of Malls and Cinemas - Optimistic about Malls within 3 months, not about Cinemas (the trend continues for 6 months).
  • About revisiting Malls and Cinemas - Half the people will revisit Malls after 6 months. More than a third are not sure about revisiting either.

Extreme caution to the extent of non-participation is the theme here. More than one-third of the surveyed people are not sure when they would want to revisit Malls or Cinemas again. While people are cautiously optimistic about the economy, which is an aggregation, they are more doubtful when it comes to making personal choices. It’s an expression of “I’m unsure about doing what I routinely did”.

Each routine is a means to an end, and it’s alright to reconfigure the means. But having easy access to the new means is also important. With people becoming more mindful of personal health and hygiene, business owners, and the State must quickly offer access to new means that will make reconfiguring easy for people.

Another point-of-view could be that these respondents are not articulating the absence of new means, but an overall apprehension to participate in something that could be detrimental. Businesses and the State must track this apprehension, and address it with thoughtful communication strategies, as otherwise the economy and livelihood around the Malls and Cinemas will be irreversibly affected.

3. Before Covid and After Lockdown

Transportation, Restaurants, and Vacations

The emerging themes...

  • About using public transport and cabs again - Weary and undecided; slightly more confident about cabs and autos than the public transport
  • About eating out in restaurants - More than half of the frequent restaurant goers will reduce eating out
  • About travelling for vacation - More than a third of frequent vacation travellers will reduce the frequency

In this set of questions, we asked the respondents their perceptions before the Covid crisis started, and after the lockdown ends. The activities these people instinctively were indulging in before Covid, were now subjected to high scrutiny and complex risk-benefit calculation to decide if, and when, they would indulge in these activities again. The higher the frequency of doing the activity before, the

lesser was the confidence about doing it afterwards. It seems that for these activities, the benefits must immensely outweigh the risks of indulging in it again.

Sample this - people’s everyday life extensions like commuting, to which their routine is intricately linked, is more in doubt than eating out and vacationing, which are not as much central to their lives. In other words, they are more confident about vacationing and eating in restaurants, than taking public transport when the lockdown ends.

This segment is clearly linked to their threat perception of the virus than to their perception about government machinery or businesses. This threat perception will reduce dramatically only with discoveries of a reliable cure or a vaccine, or we reach a state of pandemic recession.

4. My Spending Patterns

Groceries, Clothing, Personal Grooming, and Entertainment

The emerging themes…

  • Spending patterns are changing drastically
  • About spending on food / groceries and health - A vast majority will spend more or the same. About half of the people will spend more on medical care, fitness, and wellness.
  • About spending on clothing and appearance - A critical mass of people think they will now spend less on clothes, skincare, and haircare.
  • About spending on entertainment - Two-thirds of people will spend lesser on movies, OTT etc. than before

There seems to be a mental pivot in the way people want to spend their money in near future. A healthy lifestyle is the new focus, even if it means spending more for it. ‘Cut the frills’ is another mood people are in. However, this may not be a long-term phenomenon. Once the Covid situation seems to be cooling down, and there’s stability for a reasonable period, the frill expenditures may return or even increase for the better. ‘Value for my family and me’ is the perception that is rooted here. In this set of questions, being value- and family-anchored is the core driver.

5. My Take on Lockdown

Duration, and Career Goals

The emerging themes...

  • About the necessity of the lockdown - Totally necessary; some say it could be longer.
  • About career aspirations after lockdown - Half of the people have reset their career aspirations.

There’s unanimity in the utility of the lockdowns. People are feeling secure and sure that the lockdown has protected their family, neighbourhood, and city from a grave anticipated situation. Like many changes that the lockdown has triggered in people’s lives, it has also reset their career aspirations. In an interesting toss up, 25% of the respondents have reset their career aspirations lower, while the other 25% have turned it up.

6. Wrapping it up

Polling eleven hundred people in seven cities may not be a big sample size for a survey in our large country, yet it is sufficient and heterogenous enough to offer us some thought-worthy pointers.

At a personal level, everyone is anchored on ‘value for family and me’. And they see lockdown as something that has safeguarded this value. However, lockdown may not be the needed instrument going ahead.

To protect lives and livelihood, walking the tightrope between caution and optimism is the key. If caution is thrown to the winds, the virus can hit us like a tsunami, shaking up our health systems. If we give up on optimism, individuals and establishments will not conduct the economic activity fully, and livelihood will suffer. Both roads lead to destabilization, and delay in returning to normalcy.

We need to sustain this ‘cautious optimism’ for us to tide over this unprecedented crisis. This calls for a collaborative partnership among all the stakeholders - the political leadership, the government machinery, the healthcare system, the businesses, NGOs, academic and research institutions, and people at large. All need to work together, much like V V S Laxman and Rahul Dravid coming together in the Eden Gardens in 2001 and doing the impossible, just by keeping the right mix of caution and optimism!

(The authors, Gopinathan C P and Ritu Vinayak are co-founders of 361dm.com, and have been working and researching in the adult learning and behavioral sciences space for more than 20 years now.)

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