Verfestigte Klassenungleichheiten: Zur arbeitsweltlichen Dynamik der Corona-Pandemie

The paper addresses the work-life dynamics of the Corona pandemic from a class analytic perspective. Based on a mixed-methods design, a broad thematic approach and two survey waves of the Work-Life Monitor “Working in the Corona Crisis”, the pandemic effects in April/May 2020 and April/May 2021 are compared. Quantitatively, there is remarkable continuity in the distribution of risks and burdens. The two “hard lockdowns” hardly differ in absolute levels of subjective infection risks, economic burdens, deteriorated working conditions, nor do they differ in access to mobile work – and thus they do not differ in the patterns of vertical and horizontal class inequalities resulting from the interplay of these effects. At the same time, the qualitative interviews suggest that perceptions of the social distribution of risks and burdens shift over the course of the pandemic. Particularly in the lower classes the entrenched inequalities in the pandemicʼs implications are increasingly experienced as a disregard for their own efforts from the early stages of the pandemic and as an attack on their dignity as human beings.