Romanians willing to welcome restrictions during second coronavirus wave (study)

One Romanian in six agrees to welcome the same restrictions if a similar situation occurs or a second COVID-19 wave occurs, according to a Novel Research study commissioned by Provident Financial Romania.

Over 46% of respondents believe that remote working will be the main way of doing business next year as well, while a third (33%) say they intend to keep their children at home and not send to school or kindergarten. At the same time, almost 21% of the respondents mentioned that they are opposing such action.

Regarding the financial situation, only 6% of Romanians say that their current income allows them to live without worries and only a little over 14% keep a written record of expenses.

Almost 40% of respondents say that their current income is enough to secure them a decent living, without being able to afford more expensive things, and almost a quarter points out that the money they earn covers bare necessities. At the same time, almost 9% say that their money is not enough even for bare necessities.

On the other hand, more than a quarter of respondents do not pay much attention to expenses and how they distribute their income, and the remaining 75% pay attention to income management and spending money. The most thoughtful, from this point of view, are Romanians aged between 45 and 64, and in terms of distribution by type of place of residence, urban Romanians are more attentive to the way they distribute their money than the inhabitants of the countryside.

At the moment, almost 60% of the country's population has a debit card and more than a third have a credit or shopping card.

Also, over a fifth of the population does not currently use any financial product and only 17% have a savings account. Asked about the probability of using a financial product in the near future (debit card, credit card, mortgage, etc.), almost two thirds said they do not plan on getting any such product, and of these almost 18% are respondents who do not currently have any of the financial products available in the market.

According to the study, almost half of all respondents believe that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will have a major impact on their lives even after it is completely gone. An almost similar percentage said that the period they are going through now has led them to re-evaluate their future plans, control more closely the resources they have and focus more on digital technology.

In general, just under 60% of Romanians said they would agree to welcome the same restrictions if a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic occurred.

The Novel Research study was conducted on a sample of 1,003 people, randomly selected from the adult population in Romania aged over 18 years. It carries an error margin of +/- 3%.