A Temporal Analysis of Leisure Activity Variety and Social Capital Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The extraordinary disruption caused by the spread of COVID-19 has prompted the need to better understand the changes in people’s activity and mobility behavior. Reduced leisure activity space due to public health interventions has changed people’s ability to participate in different activities. This paper examines the temporal influence of social capital, mobility, personalities, and demographics on leisure variety using samples collected in 2019 and 2020. Social capital constructs, specifically instrumental support, have substantial and significant effects on increasing leisure activity variety and remain temporally stable. This result supports the robustness and importance of social capital in activity variety, which further provides evidence for the valuable resources offered by one’s social network under drastic changes and restrictions. Age, household size, and extraversion are among the factors that exhibit temporal instability. Model inference shows negative impact of the pandemic on activity variety, especially for people aged 60 or older.