South American Youth Facing the Confinement during the SARS-Cov-2 Pandemic

PEROSA, GRAZIELA; GIOVINE, MANUEL ALEJANDRO

KE Annual Trilingual Review of Social Research

Koinonikes Epistemes

Lugar: Atenas; Año: 2022 vol. 12 p. 76 - 88

2241-1984

This article deals with the social experience of young people during the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic in Argentina, Brazil and Chile; more precisely during the first months of 2021. It is examined how their working and study conditions influenced their perceptions about well-being, and how they use information and communication technologies in a period when the inequality among the three countries has grown under the impact of the economic recession of previous years caused by the effects of the pandemic. In order to establish positions and position-taking, it’s carried out a multidimensional analysis using the results of a questionnaire (n=464). The investigation is followed by a qualitative study of open-ended responses. Results show that the young people surveyed, with the same biological age, live in very different conditions. The associations shown are about the well-being of young people at both social extremes - young people who only study and young people who only work – which in some cases are counter-intuitive; at the same time, our results allow us to grasp the difference among those who occupy the positions in-between: young people who study and work, and those who neither study nor work. These findings can contribute to the development of public policies to support youth and go beyond those that prevailed the young Latin American students from the distribution of tablets and internet access.