Article source: "Précarité étudiante : une crise « sans précédent »", Alice Pairo-Vasseur, Le Point, 26/02/2021.
“In addition to its effects on mental health, financial insecurity is undoubtedly the major consequence of this epidemic on students.” This is the conclusion drawn by Monique Ronzeau, President of the OVE (l’Observatoire national de la Vie Étudiante), the French national research institute for student life, from a survey conducted by the organisation on students’ living conditions during the health crisis.
The results are stark: one third of respondents state that they have been facing financial difficulties since the crisis started. Students being anything but a homogenous group, not everyone is affected in the same way, or to the same extent. Among those most seriously affected by the pandemic are independent students, including foreign and exchange students, who live away from their families and cannot benefit from the material and financial assistance they could provide.
Ronzeau points out that this “new financial insecurity” which is “getting worse and affecting a broader population,” is mainly caused by the disappearance of paid employment for students. A large number of workplaces have been closed, making many types of work that are commonly considered to be “student jobs” harder to find. While more than one million students in France (46%) usually have an occupation in addition to their studies, 58% of them are not working as much as they used to (leading to an average income loss of 274 euros per month). 36% simply lost their jobs during the first lockdown, and fewer than a third got them back once it was lifted.
Yet half of these students consider their “odd jobs” to be essential. Pictures of long queues outside food banks don’t lie: in these times of pandemic, finding food can be a real challenge for some. As the OVE study shows, the ability to buy food is the greatest problem faced by students during this crisis. 56% admit that it has become difficult for them to afford basic necessities. And even though 27% of those who have lost their jobs have been paid partial unemployment benefits, and 52% have received financial support from their families (the main source of aid) or from teaching institutions, one quarter say that during the first lockdown they “sometimes went hungry”.
All of these difficulties have also had a hidden impact on their mental health: 46% of students living in financial insecurity seem to have been showing signs of psychological distress since the beginning of the crisis, while 23% say they decided not to consult a doctor during lockdown because they lacked money1. “Students have lived through other crises in the past. However, given its multifaceted nature – in terms of economic, social, psychological and academic issues – and the fact that these effects can be combined, this crisis is unprecedented,” says Ronzeau. “And we still have a lot to learn about its effects.”
1 GP consultations are almost entirely[ covered by the French social security system, but patients need to pay up front and wait for a refund (ed.).
Translated by Justine Drancourt and Maëlle Fontaine
Editing by Sam Trainor