Demographic Differences in the Social Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic Lockdown among Households in Ebonyi State

Abstract

This study investigated demographic differences on the social impacts of Covid-19 pandemic
lockdown among households in Ebonyi State. Three research questions and corresponding
null hypotheses guided the study. The study employed cross-sectional survey design. The
population of this study was 5041 heads of household in Ebonyi State and multi-stage
sampling technique was used to select 504 participants used in the study. A self-developed
structured questionnaire title: Social Impact of Covid-19 Questionnaire (SIC-19Q) with
reliability co-efficient (r=0.84) was used as instrument for data collection. Mean and
standard deviation were used to answer all the research questions while ANOVA statistics
were used to test hypotheses. The study found that households in Ebonyi State with age
bracket 18-30years ( x

= 3.23  0.58), 31-40years ( x

= 3.00  0.52) and 41years and above (
x

= 2.83  0.59) had high social impact of Covid-19 pandemic lockdown but those within
18-30years and 31-40years had higher impact. Study further found significance differences in
the social impact of Covid-19 pandemic lockdown among households in Ebonyi State based
on age (F-value=18.774, P=0.000), educational qualifications (F-value=7.509, P=0.000)
but there was no significant difference on religious denomination (F-value=0.207,
P=0.813).Therefore, there is need to call on Religious Institutions and professional bodies
like HEPRAN to use sensitization on basic ways of overcoming this social misery and how
they are apt to responds to the existing crisis by taking into consideration the pre-existing
conditions into account to provide a tailored approach.