“I Think Resilience Is Being Able to,You Know,Take Stock of the Situation You're in and Kind of Rally and Work Your Way Through”: Exploring Structural Resilience among Primary Caregivers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

When COVID-19 became a global pandemic in March 2020, governments around the world implored citizens to “be resilient” for the greater good. However, very little practical information was provided about how people could mobilize resilience, which is typically presented as an individual-level resource. Our qualitative interpretive description study was designed to explore the structural factors that influenced resilience among primary caregivers of school-aged children during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada. Interviews with 22 caregivers revealed three key structural factors that impacted how they employed resilience during the pandemic: employment, community, and the broader resilience discourse. Together, these results suggest that the structures embedded within society were profoundly impacted by the pandemic, and while this adversity afforded primary caregivers an opportunity to build resilience, ultimately, they often were expected to do so without the supports they previously relied on, including employment and income stability, community supports, and supportive government messaging.

Introduction

Resilience is commonly understood as the ability to bend but not break, bounce back, and/or grow in the face of adversity (Southwick et al., 2014). Despite research moving toward an understanding that resilience is dependent on far more than the individual and that environmental factors can support or hinder family resilience, much of the discourse from governmental agencies remains focused on the aforementioned definition which implies that individuals actively adapt to challenges. This juxtaposition between research and what is being disseminated to the public by trusted agencies creates a misleading binary regarding whether a person is resilient (or not). However, researchers have argued and demonstrated that resilience exists on a continuum and is impacted by both individual and structural factors (e.g., Daniels & Bryan, 2021; Pietrzak & Southwick, 2011; Ungar et al., 2013). Therefore, to understand resilience fully, we must acknowledge that numerous interacting and complex systems shape the capacity for it to develop or be expressed, including individual and structural factors (Masten, 2014a, 2014b). Structural factors influence resilience by changing the underlying conditions or systems within society, with the outcome of these changes being framed as structural resilience (Ager et al., 2013). In essence, structural resilience highlights the key role played by macrolevel factors in enabling individuals to have the capacity to survive—or thrive—when faced with adversity.

Ontario, Canada's Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic emerged as a critical structure affecting lives globally. After the declaration of the pandemic (World Health Organization, 2020), governments worldwide enacted public health restrictions to reduce the spread of the virus. The stay-at-home orders over a two-and-a-half-year period in Ontario, Canada, destabilized various aspects of people's lives, including their connections with extended family, access to employment, availability of childcare and schools, and leisure activities (Bender et al., 2022; Carli, 2020; Collins et al., 2021; Costa et al., 2022; Lateef et al., 2021; Lyttelton et al., 2022; Petts et al., 2021). Individuals and families across Canada felt compelled and were called to cultivate resilience in response to these significant and ongoing shifts and challenges (Condly, 2006; Garmezy, 1991; Katz, 1997; Prime et al., 2020; Werner, 2014). In Ontario, the government underscored the importance of resilience through its pandemic policies and discussions, much of which revolved around the concept of Building Back Better. This phrase, introduced by a United Nations disaster recovery task force, refers to reconstructing impaired social systems and livelihoods by increasing trust in governments and enhancing social capital, including resilience (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2017).

Throughout the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ontario government consistently framed its public health regulations and social distancing measures as strategies to help Ontarians become more resilient (Duffin, 2019). In this context, resilience was positioned as a vital source of internal strength and a remedy for the malaise associated with the pandemic, thereby shifting the burden of managing this unprecedented crisis onto individuals. This emphasis also diverted attention from the feelings of anomie and frustration that many Ontario residents experienced due to the perceived mismanagement of the pandemic by governing institutions (Orsini, 2020; Purser & Loy, 2013). A notable example of this strategic deployment of resilience was reflected in the Ontario government's expectation that school-aged children and their caregivers demonstrate resilience while transitioning between in-person and emergency remote learning environments, as oscillation between contexts that occurred several times throughout the pandemic with minimal notice (Orsini, 2020; Wade et al., 2020). This was particularly problematic, as Ontario had the most missed days of school when compared to all provinces/territories in Canada. Together this reality meant primary caregivers in Ontario needed to utilize their resilience to support their children as they navigated the near-constant uncertainties of their lives while juggling multiple responsibilities as parents, workers, and citizens affected by unpredictable forces beyond their control (Orsini, 2020).

It is clear that throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, primary caregivers of school-aged children across Ontario have encountered profound upheaval in multiple facets of their lives, related to family dynamics, occupational demands, and social structures. Interestingly, a recent scoping review on resilience among primary caregivers and children during the pandemic revealed that resilience acted as a protective factor for both groups (Yates & Mantler, 2023). However, researchers have yet to explore how precarious and shifting environments and structures have influenced the resilience of primary caregivers during the early stages of the pandemic. Addressing this research gap, via an exploration of structural resilience, is crucial as employers, communities, and society continue to navigate the many impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper aims to explore how environmental and structural factors shaped the resilience of primary caregivers during the early stages of the pandemic in Ontario, Canada.

Methods

Design

This qualitative, cross-sectional, interpretive description study is a substudy of the Surviving or Thriving?: Exploring how Children and Caregivers in Ontario Cultivate Resilience in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic (SOAR) project (Yates et al., 2024) which explored the situational, relational, and structural foundations of resilience in the lives of primary caregivers and school-aged children (Thorne, 2016). Conducted in a medium-sized city in Ontario between February and October 2022, this sub-analysis focused on the environmental and structural factors that influenced the resilience of primary caregivers during the first two years of the pandemic. Below, we provide an overview of the methods used for data collection in this analysis.

Sampling and Recruitment

We employed purposive and snowball sampling techniques to recruit participants through targeted advertisements on social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Kijiji. Participants were encouraged to share information about the study with members of their social networks who met the eligibility criteria. Ultimately, a total of 27 dyads were recruited for this study. Each dyad consisted of at least one primary caregiver and one school-aged child; this sample size aligns with previous research in the field (Thorne, 2016; Thorne et al., 2004).

Participants

Participants in this study comprised caregiver-child dyads from Ontario, where the caregiver was identified as being primarily responsible for a child between the ages of 7 and 10 years. These dyads could include multiple caregivers and children from the same family unit. In this study, there were 16 dyads with a single caregiver and child, 4 dyads with one caregiver and multiple children, and 1 dyad with multiple caregivers and multiple children. Among the 22 caregivers participating in this research, 20 were female and 2 were male, with an average age of 40.45 years (SD = 4.55). All but two caregivers were married or in common-law relationships and lived in urban areas. The number of children in these families ranged from one to five, with the most common family size being two children (40.91%). Thirteen caregivers were employed full-time, four worked part-time, three were on occasional/seasonal/freelance contracts, and two were unemployed. Four caregivers reported family incomes below $60,000, thirteen had family incomes between $60,000 and $150,000, and three had family incomes exceeding $150,000. Four caregivers chose not to disclose their family income.

COVID-19 Context at Time of Study

When the interviews began in February 2022, Ontario elementary students had just received the option to return to in-person learning following a period of emergency remote learning from January 3 to January 19, 2022 (Government of Ontario, 2022). Interviews continued until October 2022, after Ontario's Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, announced that students would remain in classrooms for the 2022–2023 school year, even in the event of a COVID-19 winter surge (Rushowy, 2022). Lecce assured a “normal” school experience where masks would be optional, physical distancing measures would be eliminated, and isolation requirements would be lifted (CBC News, 2020).

Procedures

Ethics approval was obtained from the Non-Medical Research Ethics Board at the host institution (NMREB #119509). Caregivers participated in individual semi-structured video/telephone-based interviews lasting approximately 60 min. All participants completed basic demographic questions, and no participant refused to answer any questions.

Interview questions were divided into three sections, two of which pertained to caregivers and were analyzed for this sub-study. The first relevant section explored caregivers’ experiences of resilience (i.e., “when you hear the term ‘resilience’, what comes to mind for you?,” and “what kinds of things have helped you to be resilience during the pandemic?”). The next section relevant to this study explored caregivers’ experiences with resilience discourse (i.e., “is resilience a term you have seen in the government or media stories related to the pandemic?”).

All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Each transcript was anonymized prior to the analysis process and each participant was assigned a pseudonym. To reduce barriers to participation, a $20 Amazon e-gift-card was provided to each participant in recognition of their time.

Data Analysis

The analysis process adhered to the guidelines set by Thorne (2016) and followed the principles of auditability, fit, dependence, and transferability (Guba & Lincoln, 2008; Thorne, 2016; Thorne et al., 2004). We organized the transcripts from interviews and field notes using Quirkos qualitative analysis software, compiling them into a single file for each dyad (Quirkos, 2021).

Each of the 27 files was independently coded by two of the five research team members. The first step in the analysis process involved each researcher working with a partner to read the same two assigned caregiver transcripts. They then conducted their coding individually before discussing their findings together. This initial analysis resulted in the creation of a preliminary coding structure with defined categories. Next, the fit of the preliminary coding structure was discussed in a full team meeting wherein necessary adjustments and refinements were made until the researchers felt confident that the structure adequately represented the data and was informed by existing literature—an essential aspect of interpretive description (Thorne, 2016; Thorne et al., 2004).

Once the initial coding was complete, all transcripts were assigned to two researchers for independent analysis. After finishing the analysis, we merged the Quirkos files from all researchers and conducted queries to generate reports on the codes and data related to the concept of “resilience.” The research team engaged in discussions to theorize the relationships and structure of the data, extracting meaningful insights—a method aligned with interpretive description (Thorne et al., 2004). For more details on the analysis, refer to Yates et al. (2024).

Results

Structural factors are vital to our lives, and during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, these factors were repeatedly threatened, reshaped, or removed. As a result, primary caregivers faced the daunting challenge of being resilient and demonstrating resilience with limited or no access to the structural factors that had previously helped them survive and thrive. Primary caregivers emphasized three structural factors that were perceived to have strongly influenced their and their family's resilience during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic: employment, community, and the prevailing discourse on resilience.

Employment

The interconnectedness of employment and income is vital for meeting family needs and building resilience. Many primary caregivers in our study noted that the COVID-19 pandemic required them to demonstrate resilience and continue working, despite their capacity or desire to do so. Many participants described this as feeling like they were being forced to be resilient. As one caregiver said,

But I guess I don't get the choice to not go into work to say that I feel unsafe and not go in, because if I don't go in, I don't get paid. And if I don't get paid, we lose our house. So, it's kind of like a forced [resilience] (Rose).

The reality for many of our study participants was stark: having employment was non-negotiable. This required caregivers to be resilient to both cope with the pandemic and continue working, because their income was essential for themselves and their families. Another caregiver summarized this necessity: “I guess [resilience is] you’re still functioning, and you can still make enough money to eat and support your family” (Lily).

Beyond needing to work for financial reasons, the pandemic reshaped the work environment and introduced new challenges for many of the primary caregivers in our study. Self-employed and direct service providers, particularly those working in health care and emergency services, seemed to have been particularly impacted. Specifically, self-employed caregivers often reported stress from the economic downturn stemming from pandemic-related closures, which led to partial or complete loss of income for many participants. The need for resilience among these caregivers became evident as they faced the consequences of business closures. One caregiver reflected on these difficulties, saying, “I guess the simple one is like our business having to close and we made a lot less money. So that, you know, was more stress-inducing” (Petunia). Others were forced to be resilient while watching loved ones, who were self-employed, struggle. Although caregivers attempted to focus on the positives during this point in the pandemic, such as spending more time with their children, they felt the heavy burden of this forced resilience during periods of unemployment. One caregiver shared her husband's challenges, noting

I think, like, my husband has struggled, I think, more through the pandemic for sure than I have. Like he's self-employed and works from home, which is why he was able to flip things around and do ‘Daddy school,’ but it means that his own professional life has suffered significantly. He had to stop working and go on CERB while watching the kids. So, he's still quite struggling with that (June).

For many self-employed caregivers, forced resilience manifested as stress from income loss, job insecurity, and a diminished sense of personal identity.

The pandemic also divided the workforce in new ways, and many people found themselves falling into one of two groups: those who continued to physically attend work and those who could work from home. For many participants, transitioning to remote work felt like a necessary sacrifice; however, this transition occurred when there was limited access to resources for building resilience and removed some structural factors that primary caregivers relied on (i.e., education and childcare). One mother shared her perspective on juggling this challenging reality, stating,

I guess more of an understanding that the childcare piece is a very, very big piece of the puzzle, especially depending on the age. For example, my kid didn't even know how to read yet at that point. So, you can't really work full time and teach your kid full time and that's not even considering, like, having toddlers at home who needs your undivided attention or I think I read somewhere that, you know, up until an age of the age of ten, children aren't even allowed to be alone at home in the home for more than well for any time amount of time, so you're looking at an entire cohort of people who have non-stop caregiving responsibilities as well as trying to work full time. And trying to juggle that was just very difficult. And maybe just more respect and understanding for how difficult that could be and how very little, personal time or space caregivers have (June).

For direct service providers in our study, including those in healthcare and emergency services, the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to create divisions that were mirrored within organizations. There were frustrated employees who resented colleagues who worked from home and received warm welcomes upon their return—similar to the accolades directed at them for being present during the pandemic's early months. One direct service provider, who is also a primary caregiver, voiced her frustration,

So, I think that was probably one of the things I'm most bitter about like when some of the staff would come back that had been working from home, people would put like a welcome back sign and have like balloons up or whatever and I was like ‘somebody should have a sign over my office that says still fucking here because I've been here the whole damn time’ (Rose).

For this participant, resilience diminished as she felt her sacrifice was undervalued by her organization.

Community

According to many of the primary caregivers in our study, the inability to rely on the communities—the people and organizations that support individuals and families—they had carefully built and nurtured for support during the pandemic significantly undermined their resilience. One primary caregiver captured this loss by saying, “For a lot of us, you know, our support system has been taken away. We've lost the support of school, constant socializing, and many of these things we thought we could rely on, like [my partner's] parents” (May). This loss of tangible community support weighed heavily on primary caregivers.

Caregivers underscored that their children perceived their own communities to consist mainly of friends found in extracurricular activities and at school. Children's lack of community within these settings deeply affected caregivers, who also mourned these losses. One caregiver reflected on this grief, stating,

I think I grieved more than [the children] did about everything. My daughter was in competitive gymnastics, and we were just five days away from the first competition of the year. Before everything shut down, my son was in hockey (Poppy).

Grieving the loss of community proved challenging for many primary caregivers, who understood the significant role that community plays in fostering resilience. This grief complicated their losses, as they not only mourned the loss of their own community but also their children's typical, age-appropriate social experiences. One caregiver described these layers of community loss when discussing its impact on resilience, sharing, “My kid doesn't have any friends anymore. So, like, they don't get to see friends during the week” (Daisy). For this caregiver, the profound loss experienced by their child added emotional weight, further impacting their own resilience during the pandemic.

Resilience Discourse

Discourse plays a crucial role in establishing shared truths or frames of reference that shape shared practices and meanings about a range of behaviors and socio-cultural factors. Discourse in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic played a fundamental role in the management of the population through public health surveillance and campaigns. During the pandemic, discussions about resilience often framed it as an individual responsibility while also presenting it as a way to contribute to the greater good. The narrative promoted by the Ontario provincial government, reflected in both media and public health measures, consistently emphasized, “We are all in this together,” asserting that the collective we must endure and adhere to pandemic guidelines (Pelley, 2020). However, these calls to action often placed primary caregivers in the challenging position of trying to be resilient despite depleting personal resources. One primary caregiver summed up this tension by saying,

For us, when we were trying to be resilient through COVID, I think we did a pretty good job. We were able to accommodate all the different restrictions, but after a certain length of time, our resilience really started to fall apart. It began to take a toll on our mental health, and then it got worse. So, we were resilient for a little while, but after that, it was like, no, we can't keep [following public health guidelines] (Jasmine).

This tension, combined with the divisive nature of the resilience discourse, created a palpable us versus them mentality for some primary caregivers as the pandemic wore on and fatigue from the new way of life set in. One participant explained how this polarization within her various communities negatively impacted her resilience:

The polarization that's happened … that gets me down. So, I feel like when I'm in that kind of mood, like that depressed kind of mood, it really hinders resilience. When you’re depressed and feeling down or angry, it's hard to move forward. So, a lot of the politics of the pandemic have been difficult (Iris).

Discussion

This paper presents an important complement to existing research about resilience, which tends to focus on individual factors. Primary caregivers faced structural factors that reshaped resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic due to unexpected changes in employment, communities, and the prevailing discourse surrounding resilience. According to our participants, the pandemic disrupted many of the established systems and structures that had once supported them and their families. During the pandemic, the connection between employment and income became a critical structural factor in a family's resilience. Many primary caregivers had to show resilience and maintain employment to survive, often while dealing with their own personal and family safety concerns. Our findings also show that according to caregivers, the pandemic weakened the sense of community they depended on for support. The loss of community resources, including schools and social connections, significantly impacted their emotional well-being and resilience. The dominant narrative surrounding resilience framed resilience as an individual responsibility, which seemed to place added pressure on caregivers to face their challenges alone without sufficient structural support. This perspective fostered feelings of inadequacy and frustration, leading to a sense of isolation for caregivers as available resources dwindled. The reality is that for primary caregivers in our study, the COVID-19 pandemic altered structures that were paramount to the resilience of themselves and their families.

Caregivers in our study faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, including (but not limited to) burnout, difficulty balancing work and childcare, the ongoing stress of the crisis, and the need to remain resilient in the face of adversity. Research indicates that stressors in relationships can negatively impact personal resources, ultimately undermining resilience (Afifi et al., 2016). In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, studies have highlighted that caregiver well-being is essential for families to reduce the negative consequences of the crisis and to foster resilience (Eales et al., 2021; Prime et al., 2020). Furthermore, the well-being/mental health impacts of family income loss, job loss, and reduced capacity for paid work during the pandemic have been well documented (Bender et al., 2022; Carli, 2020; Collins et al., 2021; Gayatri & Puspitasari, 2023; Lyttelton et al., 2022). Caregivers in our study, especially those who were self-employed or in frontline positions, experienced heightened stress due to economic downturns, which included substantial income loss and job insecurity. The closure of businesses amplified these pressures and challenged caregivers’ ability to support their families. In this study, primary caregivers explained how the tension between working and not working negatively impacted their resilience. While they expressed gratitude for their jobs, recognizing that employment allowed them to provide for their families, many caregivers also noted that this necessity felt more like a requirement than a choice. This study highlights that for participants, work and resilience became intertwined, acting as a double-edged sword and an important structural factor influencing their resilience.

During the pandemic, caregivers’ communities disappeared, were reshaped, and emerged. To date, research has highlighted the negative mental health and social consequences of this isolation in the context of the pandemic (Imran et al., 2020; Kauhanen et al., 2023; Loades et al., 2020; Panchal et al., 2023). This study highlighted that the loss of community perceived by primary caregivers extended to entire family units, having a compounding effect on resilience in so much that the grief and loss of those structures were felt by primary caregivers both for themselves and for their children. The full extent of the long-term consequences stemming from these lost support systems remains uncertain; however, this study, conducted in the second year of the pandemic (2022), revealed the significant scope of that loss among school-aged children with caregivers reporting kids felt like they had no friends. Navigating these losses presents challenges for everyone, but it is particularly heartbreaking for children, given the critical role of social support and connection during this vital period of development (Hartup, 2021, 2022) and the established importance of social support in enhancing resilience (Hidayat & Nurhayati, 2019). Our findings suggest that caregivers bore, in part, the emotional burden of their children's losses during this phase of the pandemic. This dual mourning process over the loss of community complicated caregivers’ experiences and further impacted their resilience.

In the early stages of the pandemic in Ontario, the resilience discourse aimed to foster connection across the country, as it was designed as a rallying call. However, as the pandemic progressed, according to our participants it became divisive. Many primary caregivers found themselves in a difficult situation, torn between adhering to pandemic guidelines and prioritizing their children's mental health. Research has consistently demonstrated the connection between mental health and resilience (Mesman et al., 2021; Velonis et al., 2017). However, this tension raised important concerns for caregivers, particularly regarding what is most important in terms of fostering resilience for both them and their children. The polarization of the resilience narrative created an us versus them mentality within many communities, forcing some caregivers in our study to feel the need to choose between following guidelines or focusing on their (and their family's) mental health. This difficult choice both built and undermined caregivers’ resilience.

Implications for Family Counselors

It is commonplace to position resilience squarely as an individual responsibility; however, resilience goes beyond the individual and is influenced by structural factors. While the Ontario government provided financial support during the early stages of the pandemic, as well as assistance for educational recovery, primary caregivers needed additional help during the early stages of the crisis when many of the supports and resources they had previously relied upon were no longer available. We must explore what types of meaningful support, beyond financial assistance, can be offered to families during pandemics and other times of crisis, given the profound impact of the loss of social support systems on caregivers. For instance, early in the pandemic, primary caregivers reported anecdotally that free grocery delivery, reduced expectations in schools, and additional work accommodations were beneficial—these measures and concessions should be maintained and extended throughout any crisis.

Discussions and messaging about resilience at government levels and in the media should also be thoughtfully crafted to avoid division. Narratives must evolve alongside the pandemic to reflect the unique tensions families are experiencing at different time points during a crisis. According to the participants in our study, the message of we are all in this together became divisive, creating discord between direct service providers who continued to work outside of the home during the pandemic and workers who transitioned to remote work. As such, policymakers, researchers, and primary caregivers must collaborate to promote a more nuanced understanding of resilience and think critically about how messages are developed and delivered. This messaging should address how individual, relational, and structural factors intertwine to shape resilience.

Limitations and Future Research

Most primary caregivers in this study identified as women, which suggests a need for caution in interpreting the results. Although the project aimed for purposive and representative sampling, the reality of fatigue and burnout during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a sample that is not representative of the Ontario population. Consequently, there may be nuanced differences in resilience among male primary caregivers, non-cisgender primary caregivers, and their children. Future studies that examine these intersections with more diverse demographics would enhance our understanding of how resilience is built and influenced during times of crisis.

Conclusion

The first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted the structural resilience of primary caregivers and school-aged children in Ontario. Caregivers faced challenges that impacted their structural resilience, including heightened stress from employment and income instability, the loss of essential support from the community, and oversimplified messaging around resilience that fostered division. This study highlights the role of structures in building and undermining resilience during the pandemic for a sample of primary caregivers during the first two years of the pandemic in Ontario, Canada. To truly support caregivers and children during times of crisis, decision-makers must implement comprehensive policies that address these challenges, ensuring that families have access to resources and support systems that foster resilience through understanding the complex nature of resilience and factors that influence it, particularly in times of crisis. By doing so, we can work towards rebuilding communities and promoting well-being for caregivers and their families.