Rental-Insights-A-COVID-19-Collection - Flipbook - Page 27
RENTAL INSIGHTS:
ISOLATION AND
MENTAL HEALTH
What is the relevance
to Australian policy?
In response to the financial pressures
of COVID-19, employers and universities
are launching cost-saving initiatives
and downsizing their physical facilities.
People can expect to spend more time
working/studying at home after the
pandemic is over.
Organisations, therefore, need to
give careful consideration to how
they manage remote work and study.
For example, employers should avoid
mandating remote work and develop
flexible policies, so that employees
can choose work locations that best
maintain—and expand—their social
connections.
In addition, organisations should
make a deliberate effort to enable
social connections among remote
workers and students. Connections
might be supported through hybrid
work/study models that combine virtual
activity with face-to-face contact; and
managers and instructors can schedule
time for casual conversations alongside
task-focused interactions.
Higher levels of
loneliness were
reported by renters
in single-person
or shared-living
arrangements than
by renters living
with family.
In the short term, loneliness
can motivate people to seek out
relationships. But when loneliness
is experienced on a long-term basis,
it has the opposite effect: lonely
people withdraw and stop building
relationships. If the loneliness risks
of remote work/study are not addressed
quickly, loneliness is likely to accelerate
and have a society-level impact on the
physical and psychological wellbeing
of a large group of people.
As a result of COVID-19, have you felt higher levels of loneliness or isolation?
70%
Women Remote
Women Not Remote
Couple w/o Children
Couple w Children
Men Remote
Men Not Remote
Percentage Affected
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
One Parent Family
Single Person
Shared Living
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