Back to school brings new worries
September 14— Following Labor Day, back to school is in full force, and we explore some of the fault lines permeating schools this year: mask and vaccine mandates. We also reflect on what children missed out on and struggled with last year and analyze how vaccine hesitancy among parents has declined.
Next, following President Biden’s six-point vaccine plan, we examine how experience with employer mask mandates impacts behavior and attitudes toward the pandemic, along with whether people believe these mandates are effective.
Back-to-school:
- More affluent Americans are more likely to want kids back to school
- Parents of color tend to be more supportive of mask mandates in schools
- Overall, parents are a little more doubtful about the effectiveness of requiring students to get the COVID vaccine
- During the pandemic, more unmarried than married parents report a wide range of struggles for their kids
- Vaccine hesitancy among parents declines
Vaccine and mask mandates:
- People under a mask mandate at work are more likely to wear masks
- How people feel about Biden’s new COVID mandates varies by news consumption
More affluent Americans are more likely to want kids back to school
More affluent parents are most eager to see kids back in school, new USA Today/Ipsos polling finds. They are also significantly more supportive of requiring vaccinations for students, teachers and staff.
Close to seven in ten parents earning over $75,000 support requiring vaccinations for eligible students, teachers and staff. Among parents earning less than $75,000, 43% support vaccinations for students and 50% support vaccinations for teachers and staff.
These findings track with broader trends in vaccine uptake, with vaccine hesitancy more pronounced among lower-income groups.
Parents of color tend to be more supportive of mask mandates in schools
Support for students returning to school is even across all racial and ethnic groups (seven in ten support it) and on vaccinating students (half support it). Yet there is greater disagreement around mask mandates in schools, with 56% of white parents supporting requiring masks for students compared to 71% of non-white parents.
People with kids under the age of 18 in the household are slightly less likely to think that requiring students to get vaccinated before returning to school will be effective at limiting the spread of COVID-19 than those without children in the household.
Further differences emerge across race, with non-white parents significantly more likely to think that requiring students to get vaccinated would slow the spread of COVID than white parents.
Throughout the pandemic, more unmarried than married parents felt that their kids struggled with activities outside of the classroom.
Half of the unmarried parents in the USA Today/Ipsos survey felt their child’s biggest struggle last year was participating in extracurricular activities. Only one in three married parents felt their child struggled in that same way during the pandemic.
Likewise, just under half of unmarried parents report making friends and lack of physical activity were issues for their children throughout the pandemic, about 14-points ahead of married parents on this question.
Affluent Americans are more likely to be married, adding another component that may influence access to things like childcare and extracurricular activities.
Vaccine hesitancy among parents declines
Vaccine hesitancy among parents declined last month, according to tracking from the Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index.
Back in the middle of August, about one in four parents were not at all likely to get their kids vaccinated against the coronavirus. Two weeks later, that number dipped to just one in five. Over that same time, openness to the vaccine grew by 10-points.
Still, the vaccination rate remains stagnant among eligible parents, pointing to one of the enduring problems in the race to vaccinate the population: that the vaccine is only available to half of the children in the U.S.
All this is happening as students resume in-person learning, mask and vaccine mandates in schools spark controversy among a vocal minority, and the Delta variant continues to spread among kids.
People under a mask mandate at work are more likely to wear masks
Workers who are currently under an employer mask mandate are more likely to take protective action against the pandemic than those who don’t work under one, Axios/Ipsos polling finds.
Notably, 78% of people working under a mask mandate report wearing a mask some of the time, 27-points ahead of workers whose employers don’t have a mask mandate in place. Similarly, people under a mask mandate at work are more likely than workers not under a mandate to be vaccinated, see working indoors as a large or moderate risk to their health, and believe returning to pre-COVID life right now is risky.
How people feel about Biden’s new COVID mandates varies by news consumption
Six in ten Americans support a new Biden administration mandate that all businesses with 100 or more employees require all staff be vaccinated or undergo regular COVID testing, according to the most recent wave of the Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index. However, support varies considerably when filtered by Americans’ primary source of news.
Nine in ten who get their news from outlets like CNN, MSNBC or The New York Times or Washington Post support this new mandate. By contrast, just 30% of people who primarily turn to FOX or conservative outlets online, like Breitbart, support it.
These findings reflect similar trends across partisan lines, with 30% of Republicans in favor, compared to more than eight in ten Democrats.
