Browsing by Author "Karhu, Pilvi"

The purpose of this study is to observe the effect of Covid-19 epidemic to the everyday life and the work-life balance among young adults. Work is a significant part of a person’s every-day life. Individualisation of working hours stands out in the current work life. Therefore, the need for finding the work-life balance increases. Work-life balance is seen to be a main factor, whereby the employee is able to stabilize the demands becoming from work and leisure. The exceptional global circumstances with Covid-19 epidemic have suddenly affected people’s everyday life and ways of working during the year 2020. Majority of Finnish employees were forced to move to remote work due to the Covid-19 epidemic. The remote work makes it even more challenging to maintain the border between work and leisure time. In addition, people were required to adapt their everyday life due to the health threatening virus. This research applies qualitative methodology. The data were collected by using the theme interview method. Six young adults took part in the interview. All interviews were carried out during September and October in 2020. In addition to the interview the interviewees were asked to describe their normal day during Covid-19 epidemic with a timeline. The timeline was used to support the interviews according to the stimulated recall Interview method. The interview recordings were transcribed word for word and analysed using qualitative content analysis. Hermeneutic-phenomenological approach was also applied in this research. The significance of routines stood out in the everyday life during Covid-19 epidemic. Certain everyday routines were shattered due to the epidemic, while people were forced to adapt their ways of working and free time activities. Despite this, other daily routines were considered as a resource to manage in the crisis. Especially the continuing of work was seen as an important factor in the Covid-19 crisis. Work and leisure time activities were overlapping more flexibly during the Covid-19 epidemic. On the other hand, it was considered important to make a clear boundary between work and leisure time in the end of the day.