The sense of belonging of public and private sector employees, during the COVID-19 crisis

Explore the differences in population sense of belonging indicators before and during the COVID-19 crisis, and also assess the differences between public and private employees in these indicators. By using the stratified random sampling method by administrative territorial division, data were collected from a representative sample of Latvian residents, within a framework of the national research programme "Challenges and solutions for Latvia's state and society in an international context (INTERFRAME-LV)" in October 2019 and within a framework of the national research programme “Life with COVID-19: Assessment of overcoming the crisis caused by coronavirus in Latvia and proposals for the sustainability of society in the future” in September 2020, in cooperation with the research centre SKDS. Regarding the indicator “I feel close to people in my place of residence” results show statistically important differences between surveys conducted in year 2019 and 2020 (year 2019: M =4.01, SD =.820, t(6.35); year 2020: M =3.76, SD =.944, t(6.34) =6.358, p <.000). Regarding the indicator “I feel accepted in society” there were no statistically important differences between surveys conducted in year 2019 and 2020 (year 2019: M =3.93, SD =.838; year 2020: M =388, SD =0.883, t (1.3) =1.331 p =.183). When examining differences between public and private sector employees, statistically significant differences were found for the indicator “I feel accepted in society” Welch`s F (2, 951) = 8.670, p < .000. Statistically significant differences Welch`s F (2, 952) = 8.035, p < .000 between these groups were also found for the indicator “I feel close to people in my place of residence”. The COVID-19 crisis has diminished the sense of belonging to society. Employees in the private sector feel less belonging to the society and to the people in their place of residence, compared with employees in the public sector.