‘It’s not the same to live in a house as to a small hall of residence’: housing conditions, psychological distress and academic success of students in France during the first COVID-19 lockdown

ABSTRACT

On 17 March 2020, the population in France entered into a strict lockdown due to the critical spreading of COVID-19. Students could no longer go to their learning institutions. The initial 2-week-lockdown lasted overall 10 weeks and higher education institutions remained closed until the end of the academic year, affecting then even longer students’ study situation. Many students chose to leave the accommodation they occupied during the study period if they had the opportunity. Our paper explores the effects of the housing situation on students’ academic success during this lockdown using two quantitative national surveys (one on students’ living and studying conditions before the pandemic and the other on the situation during this lockdown to which 5994 students responded) and 33 semi-structured interviews conducted amongst students living in university halls of residence in the North of France. Our study confirms that in a period of lockdown, housing plays a pivotal and active role in influencing students’ psychological distress, study success, and orientation.

KEYWORDS:

• Students living conditions
• housing
• COVID-19 pandemic
• psychological distress
• social inequality

Acknowledgements

This research would not have been possible without students’ participation in both the OVE’s Living Conditions Survey and in the interviews. Particularly for the latter, students trusted us with their personal stories and experiences during a very difficult time. We are extremely grateful to them. In addition, the authors would like to thank the Crous of Northern France for their collaboration in the qualitative part of this research, and Pr. Yannick Morvan, for his valuable insights on the psychological distress indicator and literature. The authors are also grateful for Dr. Amanda Bigler’s precious help in the thorough proofreading of this paper. Finally, the authors would like to thank Dr. Kristina Hauschildt and Dr. Markus Lörz, for their encouraging and constructive guidance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 There are 175,000 student social halls of residence in France for about 3 million students enrolled in HEI. This entails that only 7 % of students can be accommodated in this type of accommodation, which is the same ratio since the early 1990s (Alamel 2022).

2 See for example the following report ‘Le logement des étudiants dans la métropole lilloise’ (‘Student accommodation in the Lille metropolitan area’), ADULM, 2018, 120 p., online.

3 Students who did not get their results yet are excluded from this regression, leading to a lower number of observations.

4 Self-perceived results were measured through the question: ‘what are the consequences of the pandemic on your academic results?’ (better/same/worse results)

5 We made these analyses both with the MIH-5 as a scale and as a dichotomic variable (with cut-off point at 14). Results turned out to be even more significant with the dichotomic indicator.

6 See ADULM (2018).

7 t Student’s statistics = 23.108 (p-value < 0.001)

8 t Student’s statistics = 12.697 (p-value < 0.001)

9 As Morvan et al. (2016), we found that female students had more signs of psychological distress, as well as younger students. Contrary to the literature, parental social class was not significant in our models: maybe the housing situation and the financial difficulties of the students absorbed most of its effects.

10 This can be due to the fact that many international students stayed in the student accommodation and the effect of the nationality was negative whereas the effect of the housing was positive on drop out intentions, as shown in model 2.

11 This model implied an important decrease of the observations, as many students did not have their results at time of the survey.

12 Due to the surveying method, the 2021 survey does not represent first year students, therefore the comparisons exclude first year students in all surveys.

13 2.3% of unweighted observations are under 18 years old and 2.7% are over 30 years old, we chose to bound the age of students between 17 and 31.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexis Alamel

Alexis Alamel, PhD, is an associate professor in geography at Sciences Po Rennes, University of Rennes. His research interests focus on student residential choices, their living conditions, the unfolding of studentification processes (notably in the U.K. and in France), as well as students’ domestic energy practices and behaviours in light of fuel poverty situations. His latest works have explored the academic mobility of associate geography professors in France and he is currently examining the spatial and professional trajectories of PhD holders in France.

Odile Ferry

Odile Ferry is Head of Studies at OVE. She is in particular in charge of the participation of France in the European project EUROSTUDENT that provides cross-country comparisons of data on the social dimension of European higher education and is a member of the Steering Board of this project. She has been involved in different research projects regarding students’ living conditions and has a particular interest for survey methodology.

Élise Tenret

Élise Tenret, PhD, is an associate professor in sociology at Paris Dauphine University – PSL. Her research interests focus on students’ living conditions, selection processes and social inequality in education. Her latest works have explored selection tools in higher education, as well as students’ jobs transformations due to digital employment platforms. She is currently conducting research on the channelling processes of Ivorian students’ international mobility.