COVID-19 and Inequality

The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 posed enormous challenges for the economy, society and politics. It quickly became clear that the coronavirus crisis would profoundly change societies. Existing economic, social and political inequalities were exacerbated and new forms of inequality emerged. Researchers at the Cluster set themselves the task of tracking and better understanding these developments. Below we present a series of research projects, publications and statements on the topic of COVID-19 and Inequality at the Cluster.

In_equality magazine No. 1

When our Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality" was approved in 2018, nobody could have guessed that the first issue of our research magazine would bear the name of a virus.

This issue reports in pictures and text on how we dealt with the state of emergency both practically and scientifically.

Covid-19 and Social Inequality – Survey Program

In order to better understand how people in Germany are dealing with the social and political consequences of the coronavirus crisis, the Cluster of Excellence launched a survey programme in 2020. In the form of several online surveys, over 8,000 people living in Germany were interviewed in the period April-June 2020. A second wave of 7,000 interviews was conducted in a panel setting in October and November 2020. A third survey wave with over 6,000 participants followed in May 2021.

The survey programme combined "day-to-day" research on the extraordinary situation resulting from the pandemic with the larger interdisciplinary issues that we are working on at the Cluster of Excellence over the longer term.

Read the full interview with Marius R. Busemeyer on campus.kn, the University of Konstanz's online magazine (in German).