Meaning Change in U.S. Occupational Identities during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Was It Temporary or Durable?

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic altered social and economic life in the United States, displacing many people from their typical relationship to the institution of work. Our research uses affect control theory’s measurement structure to examine how cultural meanings for occupational identities shifted during the pandemic on the dimensions of evaluation (good-bad), potency (powerful-powerless), and activity (lively-inactive). Quinn et al. found that most occupations were seen as less good and powerful in the early stages of the pandemic than they were shortly before it began, with greater evaluation loss for nonessential occupations and greater potency loss for occupations classified as essential by state executive orders. We add a third wave to these data to reassess meanings after the pandemic eased and vaccines were developed. We use linear mixed modeling to estimate meaning changes across all three waves and to explore whether these changes differed for essential versus nonessential occupations. We find that evaluation and potency ratings of occupations rebounded over the longer term—a pattern that fits a control model of stable cultural meaning. Our results contribute to discussions in cultural sociology about beliefs and their stability.