Despite COVID-19, Americans don’t expect the holiday season to be any more stressful than usual

Jamie BallardData Journalist
November 26, 2020, 6:40 PM GMT+0

Although 2020 has been an anxiety-filled year, YouGov’s data suggests that Americans don’t think that the coronavirus epidemic will make the holiday season any more stressful than usual.

About half (52%) say that they typically find the holiday season stressful, while a similar percentage (48%) say they think this year’s holiday season will be difficult.

Women (58%) are more likely than men (45%) to say that they typically find the holiday season stressful. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that women are more likely to have to put more effort into the festivities – a recent YouGov survey showed that women will be doing more of the work making Thanksgiving dinner.

COVID-19 concerns do play a role. Those who say they are “very scared” they will contract coronavirus are more likely (65%) than those who are “fairly scared” (55%), “not very scared” (37%) or “not scared at all” (29%) to say they think this year’s holiday season will be stressful for them.

Related: Despite tighter budgets this year, Americans still plan on holiday shopping

See full results here.

Methodology: 2,434 US adults were surveyed. The survey was carried out through YouGov Direct from November 14 – 15, 2020. Data is weighted on age, gender, education level, political affiliation, and ethnicity to be nationally representative of adults in the United States. The margin of error is approximately 3.0% for the overall sample.

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