Daily activities of older adults before and during the COVID pandemic

Abstract

Objectives: This study examines how older adults’ (65 years old plus) daily activities shifted in the years around the coronavirus disease (COVID) pandemic. Methods: Using data from American Time Use Survey, this study compares activities across the pre-pandemic (2019 to March 2020), early-pandemic (May to December 2020), and pandemic-normal (2021) periods. Results: In the first year of the pandemic, there was less time spent on average on leisure outside the home, traveling, and with nonhousehold members, and more time alone and at home, compared with before the pandemic. Moving beyond averages, sequence and cluster analyses find 5 similar typologies of days across the three periods, charac..