Happiness in Post Pandemic Era: A Global Perspective

The onset of Covid pandemic heralded drastic measures of locking the boundaries, social distancing, lockdown and many more disrupting the lives of everyone in the world. It also provided a lot of free time to the people. This was a paradoxical situation where on one hand there was a lot of restriction on movement and on the other more free time was available on account of the imposed lockdown and other travel restrictions. Enhanced leisure engagement helped in mitigating the challenges of stress induced by uncertain times and helped in meeting the physical, mental and emotional needs of the population. The effect of work on happiness is a well-explored area of research, but far less is known about how participating in leisure activities affects happiness. The pandemic has also altered the work arena and newer styles like work from home have emerged, increasing the free time available for leisure. A positive correlation has been found between leisure engagement and happiness.

The session will explore the relationship between leisure and happiness; between leisure life and life satisfaction in the post pandemic society taking a cross cultural perspective.