“Lockdown and its effects on family relationships”

Introduction:
Corona virus pandemic has imposed inhabitant to emulate fully different
lifestyle. Staying at home for such a long interval help us to experience
numerous things which no one has to go through before. Now it is a matter of
consideration, is this longtime homestay strengthening the family bond or
weakening the bond.

The purpose of this research is to know how the pandemic is affecting family
relationship while staying at home. I conducted my research by occupying
surveys and interviews of my neighbors and batchmates.

Objectives of research:

General objective: The aim of this research is to know the people reflections
about long time home stay.

Specific objective:
The purpose of this research is:

• To identify the favourable and unfavourable changes in family

relationships.
• To determine the gratification among the people for staying extended
time with their family.
• To assess the impact of family relations due to economical adversity e.g.
losing jobs, dying of an earning member of a family etc.
• To discover the relationship among the family members before COVID-19
and after COVID-19.

Methodology:
This research has been accomplished by following two procedure i) Google
form for surveys ii) Online video calls for interviews. Both the quantitative
and the qualitative research portion has been carried out through online.
As the corona virus outspreading has been global issues and the
lockdown time has been extended, I had to do my research by staying at
home. I carried out the qualitative research strategy based on online video call
interview. According to the instructions, I started my conversation by taking
basic introduction. I briefly described them the purpose of this research and also
told them why I will have to ask those personal questions. I also make sure
everyone security. I seek permission if she is interested to spend few minutes to
participate in this study. Before recording I also took permission. However, some
of them didn’t want to express their identity. So, I keep those data privately. To
assembly surveys for quantitative research I made google form which I had to
send to the potential inhabitants. After their completion I got the statistics of 10
people point of views. According to those evidence I started to analysis. This
research has been mostly focused resident’s view point in terms of age groups
and genders.

Research ethics:
Based on research ethics segment in Anderson (2016) book, it is
understandable that to conduct any research there is some guidelines of ethics
board which we all have to follow. Before implementing the research we must
maintain the following regulations:

Participants identity must be protected. Researchers must not reveal any

personal information which brings participants to personal harm. Participants
must not be oppressed either into participating or into expressing information.
Data must be stored in a secure place for at least 7 years. Before recording or
collecting information from the participants, researcher must take permission.
Participants have rights to response on the research result. If any of reason
participants think his data can be harmful then he has a right to ask researcher
to circulate the research result. Besides, researcher must be aware the ethical
issues and loyalty while doing the research.

According to the guidelines of Ethics boards, I did my research. I followed

some principles which are given below:

• I kept data in a secure place.

• I protected the identity of research participants.
• I took permission before recording. However, some people were not
interested in recording. So, I had to take note.

• Some participants wanted to know about my research and they also

wanted to see how I was exhibiting the outcome of research. So, I
openly disseminated the results.
Key findings of quantitative research:

The key finding of quantitative research:

• Most of the participants agreed they like spending time with family.
• Even so, there was contradictory view point of positive change in family
relationships.
• The majority of participants were spending more time in the internet.
• Most participants value their family because they love their family
members.
• All participants concured that helping family members in the work
strength family bond. On top of that most participants were happy with
their role to make family members happy.

Key findings of qualitative research:

The key finding of qualitative research:

• Most participants admit they are enjoying spending time with family for
this long period of time.
• The most interesting side all of them think is spending time with their
family. However, most interesting and least interesting perspective is
different according to age group and genders.
• University students think they love watching movies, spending quality
time with their friends but they cannot hangout with their friends and also
missing the campus life. Besides, it is unquestionable how many days this
pandemic will stay and when they will be able to go out. Thinking of these
are least interesting part for them.
• Similarly, married people think most interesting sides are, be able to give
much effort to their children while least interesting factors are tendency
of getting into quarrels pretty often. In additions, expenses of living and
financial situations are quite unstable in this time, which is another reason
of tribulation.
• However, still majority of participants think Covid-19 has not brought any
changes to the patterns of relationships in their family.
Analysis of findings:
The research has carried out through two parts Qualitative research and
Quantitative research. According to the bottom given questions the studies have
been made. Briefly displaying the analysis of findings of two research below:

Quantitative- According to the collected data we can see, about 60 percentile

are agreeing that they love to spend their time with their family member while
the other rest 40 percentile are disagreeing in this inquiry. Nevertheless, there
is a mixed reaction among the resident for staying at home for long period of
time affected their family relationships positively.

Only 36 percent people are agreeing while 16 percent are totally have opposing
views. Other 48 percentile divided into two parts, 24 percentages people are
thinking slightly positive change has happened and other rest 24percentages are
confusing sight. It is clear that staying together for this long duration did not
necessarily brought positive changes to all the families in Bangladesh.68 percent
is Connecting to technology or social medias during this quarantine phase, in
contrast to nearly 20 percent are using the technology sometimes and the other
12 percentile are completely saying ‘no’ to the social medias. Remarkably, this
percentile is varying according to the age groups. Students or professionals have
to use the technology because of the online jobs or online classes. In addition,
housewife or others who does not need to use the phone essentially, they are
spending their quality time with the family. However, 18-25 age group people
are principally using technology plenty of hours of their day. Most of the people
in Bangladesh are giving values to family relationships because they love their
family members. Contrarily, only very small percentage of people are valuing
family relations because of the family income. Some family bonds in Bangladesh
are not strong enough. Parental quarreling, complicated family relations some
teenagers are losing their interest in family relationship. However, all people in
Bangladesh believe helping family members and working together strengthens
family bonds. How much strong family bonds they have with their family
members, it can easily be understanded with a statistic. Around twenty percent
of people love to share their feelings with their family members compared to
twenty five percent people only like to share their feelings with their friends. In
opposition, around fifty-four percentile think both family life and friends are
equally important. Based on their family sharing activity it is certain that how
happy they are living during quarantine. When it comes to ask question about
their happiness in the role play to make their family members happy during
corona pandemic, most of them give positive feedback. However, not all people
are happy with their role during pandemic to make their family members happy.
64 percentage of people are happy with their role while 12 percentage are
saying no, 24 percentage have moderate view point.

Qualitative- The statistics have been measured with the interview of four
people, where two of them were men and other two were women. In qualitative
interview I found out that different age groups have different perspectives.
Genders are playing another big factor here. However, when it comes to ask
questions about long time stay at home with their family, three out of four gave
positive overview. According to age groups this conjecture has changed. Age 18
-25 (mainly students) think that it is a mixed feeling. One of the male aged 24
years has told me “It is a mixed feeling. I usually like going out with my friends
almost on a regular basis, but I could only afford to spend very little time with
my family before the lockdown. Yes, it was enjoyable at the beginning, but after
a week or two, it was simply boring.” While a married woman aged 38 has told
me, she is enjoying her time with her family. Because, usual day before
quarantine she had to stay busy with her jobs, she had a very little amount of
time to take care of her children. Now this quarantine she can focus on her
household works, children as well as online office. She is also spending pretty
quality time by watching Netflix with all the family members together. So, it is
clearly visible married couple think, they now can give much time to their family
while students or young aged group become impatient to hang out with their
friends.

Most interesting things in staying at home most of the people think, in the
regular times, each of them are always busy in their own schedules and they
barely get to see each other's face. Seeing everybody at home was infact
something they personally found to be interesting. But apart from all that, they
also enjoyed watching movies with their siblings or children and sometimes with
parents as well. They also think they got a lot of time for gossiping and listening.
On the opposition, married couple think the least interesting sides is quarreling
with the family members, indiscipline routine life, online jobs even after staying
at home. Similarly, unmarried people, specially students think unable to hang
out with their friends is kind of boring. They also add there is always a tendency
of getting into quarrels pretty often.

When I asked question about what ways COVID-19 has brought changes to the
patterns of relationships in their family. All of them almost have said nothing
specially changed except the family bond. Age group 18-25 admit they don’t see
any differences. However, married couple think financial issues turn into a great
factor in terms of changing patterns of relationships. Bearing daily expenses in
this corona crisis is been vigorous for some families in Bangladesh.

Overall, by the analysis of qualitative and quantitative research it can be come

to interpretation that most of the families of Bangladesh spending quality time
with their family members but because of financial factors lots of people
suffering to bear the expenses of their daily needs. In most Bangladeshi family,
father is the only earning person who bear all the expenses of the family. But,
now because of current circumstances some people are losing their jobs. Which
heinously affecting the family relationships because of the daily needs.
Introverts are enjoying staying at home while extroverts are finding it too much
irritating. Mostly women are in enjoyment than men in terms of staying at
home. Students are also feeling provoking to stay at home. They are missing
their campus life, friends next to their family life. They are also complaining
about domestic works they need to do daily by the side of their online studies.

Limitations:
This recent regulation has been made illusive to go outside for research. Owing
to this, I had to take the interviews virtually. Besides, some people were not
willing to give personal questions answers. Some were not interested to fill out
the google form for my surveys. Besides, using google form for the first time was
inconvenient. Due to wrong settings Some people filled up google form two
times mistakenly, it was troublesome to sort out. Some of them were feeling
hesitate to tell their family crisis.
Conclusions:
At last, based on the qualitative and quantitative research we can come to the
conclusion. Although, virtual online classes & online jobs making people busy,
spending time with the family still premier achievement for most of the human
being. Even though all participants are loving to stay at home and to spend
quality time with their family, they want to go back to normal life. Beside family
life, students want to meet with their friends and Capable individual want to
work to get wages to live fully. Owing to this pandemic most of the middle-class
family income becomes inconsistent. Which is affecting to live with tranquil
with their family members.

Questionnaires:
Qualitative research questions:

1. How do you feel about staying at home with your family members for a long
period?
2. What are the most interesting sides of staying at home with family for a long
time?
3. What are the least interesting sides of staying at home with family for a long
time?
4. It is said that COVID-19 has affected family relationships throughout the
world. In what
ways COVID-19 has brought changes to the patterns of relationships in your
family?

5. How much secrets your family members know about you? With whom are
you comfortable to share your secrets? Friends or Family?

6. Are you an introvert or extrovert person?

Quantitative research questions:

1. Do you think COVID-19 has brough a lot of changes to the world?

2. Do you like spending more time with your family members?

3. Has staying at home for long period positively affected your family
relationships?

4. Do you feel more connected to technology, social media etc. when you are at
home for long period?

5. You give value to family relationships because

6. Do you think helping your family members in their everyday work strengthens
family bonds?

7. Are you satisfied with your role during the pandemic to make your family
members happy?

8. With whom are you comfortable to share your secrets? Friend or

Family?