The Effects of COVID-19 on Self-Esteem: Panel Data from the Netherlands

The onset of Covid-19 and associated social restrictions, implementation of preventive and mitigation measures can challenge the physical and psychological health. The spillover effects of these events can appear on self-esteem and can subsequently affect the socio-economic decisions. To understand the impact of pandemic on self-esteem, this study uses data (N = 2740) from the Netherlands to examine the ‘general’ effect (fixed effects regressions) as well as the ‘causal effect’ (difference-in-differences) of the Covid-19 on self-esteem. Both fixed effects and DID analyses provide conclusive evidence that pandemic did not have any significant influence on the self- esteem over time and across infected and uninfected people. The sub-group analysis however provides weak support that self-esteem of females and relatively young people improved after the start of the pandemic (general effect). The results provide support for the psychological resilience of people in the Netherlands.