Factors Influencing Changes in Social Activity under COVID-19 in Polish Rural Areas

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, due to unprecedented countermeasures aimed at limiting social contact, affected many spheres of life, including the forms and scope of social activity. This paper aims to identify the importance of the size and economic type of village, as well as the existence of rural organizations before the pandemic to identify the changes in different forms of social activity among rural area residents during the first and second year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland. This research was based on phone interviews (CATI) carried out in December 2022 with village administrators. It was concluded that the village size, economic profile, and the activities of various types of social organizations had very limited influence on changes in social contact during the pandemic. The economic type of the village, both low and high levels of agrarisation, showed a significant relationship with change of only one form of social activity: joint work on a farm. The activities of organizations popular in rural areas such as Volunteer Firefighters’ Brigades or Rural Housewives’ Clubs played an important role in the changes (decrease) in meetings at home and after mass in church.

1. Introduction

The disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a medical phenomenon. The first case of COVID-19 was reported in China in December 2019. The rapid spread, the world scope of the disease, the number of fatal cases, and unknown long-term outcomes led the World Health Organization to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on the 30 January 2020 and a pandemic on the 11 March 2020 [1]. Similar to the pandemics experienced by humankind in the past (the Black Death, the Spanish flu, AIDS) [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10], the COVID-19 pandemic triggered complex economic, psychological, and social phenomena [11]. The fear of unknown serious consequences sparked an immediate response from governments worldwide. In the beginning, in the absence of any effective vaccines or known medications for treating COVID-19, public non-pharmaceutical measures were introduced. As COVID-19 spreads mainly between people in close contact with each other or as a result of living in poorly ventilated or crowded indoor settings, many governments implemented measures aimed at drastically limiting physical contact between people [12,13,14]. The measures differed only slightly among the countries. The set of restrictions was called “lockdown”, and this term became popular worldwide. The measures were implemented step by step. Initially, restrictions on international travel, and measures such as self-isolation and quarantine were used. They were followed by many others: physical distancing, restricting mass gatherings, contact tracing, school closing, stay-at-home orders, restricting or adapting private gatherings outdoors or at homes, prohibition of visits to hospitals, suspending or restricting travel within countries, and many others. Offices, businesses, institutions, and operations adapted in various ways, such as implementing remote work [14]. The majority of countries introduced lockdowns. In Europe, two countries, Belarus and Sweden, did not introduce strict measures (Sweden introduced recommendations).

Lockdowns disrupted economies, education, style of life, mental health, social activities, and relations in all types of communities at national, regional, local, and personal levels. However, the lockdowns were not the only causes of changes in social contact; another significant issue was a fear of face-to-face contact with other people. These fears manifested themselves in various ways and influenced social behavior and contact with others, who were considered as either a source of threat or vulnerable to the threat. Such strong changes in many spheres of human life were followed by a considerable body of research; some of it will be presented in the next section.

Literature Review

The problem of changes in social activeness is very important, as, according to Putnam [15], social capital, understood as networks, norms, and trust, enables cooperation for mutual benefit, lowers transaction costs, and creates possibilities for building future trust. As Hurlbert et al. [16] underline, social networks are an important buffer against the crisis’ adverse consequences and an important source of social resilience. Social ties, especially in rural areas, might be an important source of spreading information [17]. They also reduce the scale of free-riding [18] and enable joint decision-making and coordination of actions for mutual benefits [19]. Social ties become stronger through increased contact frequency, especially over a longer period, which leads to increased trust [15,17]. According to Uphoff [20], the active participation in networks or organizations requires investment of time, information, and sometimes money, while implementing norms of trust, honesty, and reciprocity requires taking the risk that the counterpart would not pay back.

As Sztompka [21] writes, as far back as 1902, Simmel and Durkheim independently observed that the size of a group and the density of the population affect social relations (with small groups exhibiting less social distance). Putnam [15] also noticed that formal volunteering, working on community projects, informal help, and similar behaviors are more common in smaller societies compared to larger ones (in his book, these were small towns compared to big cities).

Networks, trust, and norms are strongly path-dependent [22]; their creation might last for decades, while they can be quite easily destroyed [23]. This is why it is important to study the impact of shocks on social ties, norms, and networks to look for patterns and prevent the destruction of social ties. The recognition of the problem is theoretically and practically important, because it is of use to policymakers who aim to develop social capital in rural areas and maintain sustainability and the well-being of local communities.

Just a few days after the pandemic outbreak was declared, research on the short-term effects or potential outcomes of different problems connected to the pandemic appeared in large numbers (but only a few studies focused on rural areas [24,25]). The next generation of publications presented the first analyses of the pandemic’s influence on a wide range of phenomena. Over time, the analyses became more accurate and advanced, verifying earlier forecasts and assumptions.

The problem of fear and social relations was undertaken by Abuhammad et al. [26]. The authors examined the issue of stigmatization, originating from fear of COVID-19, towards infected people among Jordanian citizens. Other authors [27,28,29] noticed the same problem in other countries, so it can be considered a worldwide phenomenon of universal character. Gruchoła and Sławek-Czochra [30] pointed out the role of the media in the European Union countries in creating a culture of fear during the first wave of the pandemic. The findings of Sasaki et al. concerning Japan [31] and those of Miller et al. concerning the USA [32] aligned with their results. The phenomenon was not new, as similar reactions occurred during previous crises, such as the outbreak of Ebola in 2014 in West Africa [33] or the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2001 [34]. The research on the social consequences of COVID-19 pandemic concerned diverse areas of human activity. For example, Di Pietro et al. [35] and Khalifa et al. [11] analyzed education, Lebow [36], Ohlbrecht and Jellen [37], Mazza et al. [38], John [39], and Kourtit et al. [40] conducted research on family relations, Odone et al. [41], Górnicka et al. [42], Doraiswamy et al. [43], Lucchini et al. [44] attributed their findings to changes in lifestyle. The significance of social capital for protection against the negative mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic was proven by Snel et al. [45].

The work of Long et al. [46] represents a comprehensive approach to the problem of social relations that the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted. They identified four domains of social relationships—social networks, social support, social interactions, and intimacy. Having conducted this analysis, the authors examined how the pandemic affected social interactions in each domain.

Cavmak et al. [47] examined social dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic in towns in Turkey during the first months of the pandemic outbreak. The study revealed significant relationships between the social and economic effects of COVID-19. The conclusion was that the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected social and economic life. Moreover, it showed that the burden of social effects was greater for women than for men. A study conducted in India, primarily involving urban population (80% of the sample), indicated that 82% of people, due to their fears of being infected by the virus, reduced their social contacts, and about 90% avoided partying, meetings, and gatherings [48]. A study on the change in contacts in England in the first year of the pandemic [49,50] found that social contacts reduced dramatically compared to pre-pandemic levels. Contacts among adults remained low in the examined period, while the children’s contact changes were connected to patterns of school operation. Similar results were obtained by Drolet et al. [51] in Canada. Wong et al. [52] assessed changes in social contacts in 21 European countries between March 2020 and March 2022. They discovered that the daily number of contacts during the pandemic dropped far below the pre-pandemic level, mainly due to a large reduction in contacts at work. Moreover, fewer opportunities to meet at work decreased social contacts outside of work as well. Bertogg and Koos [53] found that a substantial part of adult respondents in Germany lost contact with acquaintances or friends due to the pandemic. Additionally, pandemic made it difficult to establish new social ties. The role of social capital during the pandemic in Scotland was examined by McIntyre and Roy [54]. Their study revealed that local businesses supported the vulnerable members of the community (low-income families, elderly, and shielding people). Most of the publications were oriented on current or short-term consequences of the pandemic. However, the report of The British Academy, “The COVID decade understanding the long-term societal impacts of COVID-19”, presented a longer perspective. The report identified nine areas of COVID-19 long-term social impact: the increased importance of local communities, low and unstable levels of trust, widening geographic inequalities, exacerbated structural inequalities, worsened health outcomes and growing health inequalities, health and well-being, greater awareness of the importance of mental health, pressure on revenue streams across the economy, rising unemployment and changing labor markets, renewed awareness of education and skills [55]. Little is known about the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on social life in rural areas and even less about the factors influencing these changes.

This study concerns local communities in Polish rural areas. This paper aims to identify the influence of village size, economic type, and the level of social activity before the pandemic on changes in different forms of social activity among rural areas residents during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland, compared to the pre-pandemic state. Although there is an abundant body of literature on COVID-19 pandemic consequences on social relations, there is not so much research concerning the pandemic influence on social activity in rural areas. This paper aims to address this gap.

2. Materials and Methods

This research concerns local societies in rural areas in Poland. We focused on a village, so the inhabitants of a village (village communities, rather than individuals) are the basic research unit. There are about 43 thousand villages in Poland; they are diverse in size, type of economic activity, and the number of local organizations operating in the village.

This research (Funded by the Ministry of Science in Poland) was based on phone interviews (CATI) carried out in December 2022 by a professional company with village administrators (sołtys), who have the best knowledge of what is happening in their villages. The administrators are elected by the villagers for 4-year terms and are quite often the most esteemed village inhabitants. Several villages constitute one commune (according to the Eurostat nomenclature Local Administrative Unit 2, formerly named NUTS5).

Out of 1464 rural communes in Poland, 500 were chosen using stratified-random selection proportionally to their number in regions (NUTS2 in Eurostat nomenclature). On average, in Poland, there are 16 village administrators in one commune. For each selected commune, the National Association of Village Administrators provided the research team with the name and a phone number of one village administrator. The company conducting the interview made at least 5 attempts to contact each of the administrators. Finally, there were 124 interviews carried out successfully, and the proportions for each region were similar to the proportions of the communes.

According to detailed statistics for all communes in Poland [56], average size of farms and types of production are very uniform within regions while they are not uniform across regions. Similarly, a village size is rather uniform within regions and differs between regions [57]. This suggests that our sample, despite having only about a 25% response rate, might be close to being representative in this respect.

According to the data presented in Figure 1, the sample is diverse in terms of the predominant production profiles on farms: in just below 1/3 of the villages, the production profile is diversified, and the numbers are slightly lower for crop production and animal production.

In Polish rural areas, there are various forms of social activity—from traditional ones, observed as far back as the 19th century, to modern ones, combining old and new forms. They are facilitated by different kinds of formal organizations.

The traditional form of local cooperation in villages is Rural Housewives’ Clubs. In 2022, there were about 11,300 such clubs in Poland with 317,000 members [59]. Their goals for decades were education in housekeeping and organizing childcare during harvest times. Gradually, the scope of the aims and forms of activity has changed, and nowadays their profile is rather connected to cultivating tradition (e.g., cuisine, music, plastic arts, sports, theatre, education, etc.) [60].

Among popular organizations in villages oriented toward men are Voluntary Firefighters’ Brigades. In 2022, there were over 16 thousands of them in Poland, mostly situated in rural areas. Their primary role is to fight fires and rescue victims of various accidents before professional help arrives. In addition, they are also engaged in activities promoting culture, sports, relaxation, and environmental protection [61].

Among the important elements of rural social life there are also rural community centers. They can be treated as an infrastructure for social activity, as they offer a space for different kinds of meetings for the inhabitants. Sometimes, they offer opportunities to participate in folk ensembles or different forms of common activities [62]. We assumed that they facilitate and foster contact among village community members.

In our sample, just before the pandemic, in 59% of villages there was a community center, in 44% there was a Rural Housewives’ Club, and in 40% there was a Volunteer Firefighters’ Brigade. There were also some other organizations, such as sports clubs (23%), an association for the development of the village (16%), producer groups (15%), a Local Action Group (12%), and a Farmers’ Circle (7%).

In this research, we defined social activity as a set of different types of contacts between village members. The forms of social activity are represented by the following:

• Joint work on a farm;
• Joint work for the common good of the village or commune (LAU2/NUTS 5);
• Taking care of somebody else’s child or an elderly or disabled person;
• Taking care of somebody else’s everyday shopping;
• Giving a lift to a shop, medical clinic, or town;
• Home visiting;
• Telephone calls;
• Meetings after masses or other church services.

These types of activities can be treated as visible manifestations of social networks.

According to a large body of research, in Polish rural areas, informal social ties, feelings of togetherness, informal cooperation, and neighborhood mutual help are much stronger than in urban areas [63,64].

A simple analysis of frequencies in our sample revealed that the changes in cooperation among farmers in Poland after the outbreak of the pandemic differed among the villages; in some of them, a decline was observed, in some of them nothing changed, and in some cases, there was a rise in activity. What is more, the intensity of changes varied according to the type of cooperation [58]. As it was stated in the literature review, the size of the community, its coherence, and its previous experiences are said to have an impact on social relations.

To recognize the determinants of the influence of the COVID-19 virus pandemic on social activity, we stated three research hypotheses.

• The size of the rural local community influenced changes in social activity during the pandemic.
• The economic type of the village influenced changes in the social activity of the village inhabitants.
• The level and scope of social activity before the pandemic had an impact on changes in the social activity of rural residents during the pandemic.

The number of families in the villages represents the size of the rural community.

According to the size, the villages under research were divided into three groups:

• Small villages—30 or fewer families (18% of the sample);
• Medium-sized villages—more than 30 to 100 families (40%);
• Large villages—more than 100 families (42%).

The economic type of villages is described by the proportion of farmers’ families to the total number of families in the village. The villages with 50% and higher representation of farmers’ families among the total number of families are treated as agricultural villages (high level of agrarisation), while others as non-agricultural villages (low level of agrarisation). The literature underlines the role of work for social contacts [49]. Carrying out the same kind of economic activity also favors the contacts within a group. According to Kłoczko-Gajewska [65], farmers in Poland discuss issues related to input and product prices, new technologies, and law regulations with their neighbors. According to research by Nowak and Gorlach [66], about 2/3 of Polish farmers declared that in the event of their agricultural machines breaking down, they would be able to find a farmer that would lend to them such a machine, and about 50% of farmers stated that during the last year, they had helped somebody with work on a farm.

The level of social activity before the pandemic is reflected by the operations of the most popular social organizations—Rural Housewives’ Clubs, Volunteer Firefighters’ Brigades, and the village community center. The existence of organizations in the village before the pandemic, along with the infrastructure for social activities, allows us to expect more intensive activity during the pandemic compared to a situation without such support.

The size of local community is considered one of the determinants of social ties, as smaller groups tend to have closer connections than large groups.

The analysis was divided into the following stages:

In the first stage, it was verified whether changes in social activity could be observed during the pandemic for the first year and the second year separately. For this purpose, contingency tables were constructed, in which various types of social activities observed in villages during the first and second years of the pandemic were compared with the following:

• The size of the village (hypothesis 1);
• The economic type of the village (hypothesis 2);
• The number of institutions operating in the village: Rural Housewives’ Clubs (RHCs), Volunteer Firefighters’ Brigades (VF), and the existing community center (hypothesis 3).

The results from the first stage showed that classical methods of analysis (such as correlation or regression) are not useful in this case due to not fulfilling the methodical assumptions [67]. This is why in the second stage of analysis, the authors used the Chi-square test of independence [68]. The preliminary analysis of 34 contingency tables revealed that the assumptions for the Chi-square test were not met, as some respondents’ answers occurred very infrequently, resulting in cell values less than 5. It was also noted that for most social activities (regardless of the determinant studied), the most common response was no change. Analyzing individual responses did not allow us to clearly determine a pattern in the direction of changes. A decrease in activity for one determinant was not observed in another case. That is why Fisher’s exact test [69] was used to verify the research hypotheses. This is a reliable method that calculates the probability of rejecting the hypothesis of variable independence. A significance level of 0.05 was adopted for this study, ensuring the reliability of the results. Values above this threshold indicate the independence of the analyzed features.

Then, after transforming the selected tables into binary tables, odds ratios (ORs) were calculated to check whether the likelihood of changes in social activity for the studied determinant was lower (OR < 1) or higher (OR > 1) than in the reference group (for more details, see [67]).

These findings are significant for understanding the dynamics of social activities during the pandemic.

3. Results

According to Putnam [15], the size and similarity of a group enhance the social trust among its members. This is why we assumed that the size of a village matters for the social activity of local inhabitants.

In

Table 1. The relationship between the size of the village and changes in various forms of social activity during the pandemic.

Social Activities	(Fisher Test) p Value	(Fisher Test) p Value
	1st Year	2nd Year
joint work on a farm	0.610	0.152
joint work for the common good of the village or commune	0.384	0.557
taking care of somebody else’s child, or an elderly, or disabled person	0.938	0.560
taking care of somebody else’s everyday shopping	0.535	0.220
giving a lift to a shop, medical clinic, or town	0.651	0.655
home visiting	0.029	0.418
telephone calls	0.141	0.110
meetings after masses or other church services	0.370	0.723

Source: authors’ own calculations.

, we show the research results on the relationship between the size of a village and changes in social activities of village inhabitants during the pandemic.

Our comparison of the level of residents’ changes in social activity, based on the size of the village, revealed a somehow unexpected finding (Table 1). Generally, we did not find evidence for the impact of the village size on the changes in activity of the villagers. However, there was a noticeable exception: changes in home visiting during the first year of the pandemic depended on the size of the village. This means that although theoretically the size of a group has an impact on the social behavior, it does not influence changes in social behavior during times of crisis.

The common faith and common work of farmers used to create a feeling of togetherness within a village [70]; thus, disagrarisation might have a negative impact on trust, as well as on the strength and density of social networks among village inhabitants.

Our research found that among all the social activities studied, joint work on a farm in the first and second year of the pandemic was the only one that showed a statistically significant relationship with the economic type of the village (

Table 2. The relationship between the economic type of the village (low level of agrarisation) and changes in various forms of social activity during the pandemic.

Social Activities	Fisher’s Test p Value	Fisher’s Test p Value
	1st Year	2nd Year
joint work on a farm	0.026	0.043
joint work for the common good of the village or commune	0.289	0.296
taking care of somebody else’s child or an elderly or disabled person	0.740	0.392
taking care of somebody else’s everyday shopping	0.940	0.793
giving a lift to a shop, medical clinic, or town	0.629	0.628
home visiting	0.426	0.100
telephone calls	0.911	0.779
meetings after masses or other church services	0.462	0.268

Source: authors’ own calculations.

). In other cases, we did not find a similar connection between changes in forms of social activity during the pandemic and the economic type of the village.

In the third hypothesis, we assumed that the scope of social activity among village inhabitants before the pandemic mattered for changes in their behavior during the pandemic. Our analysis of the activities undertaken in the first and second year of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed some significant findings (

Table 3. The relationship between the number of existing institutions and changes in various forms of social activity during the pandemic.

Social Activities	Fisher’s Test p Value	Fisher’s Test p Value
	1st Year	2nd Year
joint work on a farm	0.518	0.902
joint work for the common good of the village or commune	0.854	0.122
taking care of somebody else’s child or an elderly or disabled person	0.976	0.070
taking care of somebody else’s everyday shopping	0.600	0.780
giving a lift to a shop, medical clinic, or town	0.940	0.033
home visiting	0.040	0.765
telephone calls	0.155	0.035
meetings after masses or other church services	0.125	0.929

Source: authors’ own calculations.

). In the first year, we observed a statistically significant relationship only for home visiting. However, for the second year, our research uncovered several statistically significant relationships, including giving a lift to a shop, medical clinic, or town, telephone calls, and taking care of somebody else’s child, or an elderly, or a disabled person (in the case of caregiving, p = 0.07). These findings have important implications for understanding the impact of the pandemic on social activity and can guide future research on this topic and policy decisions.

The results of the in-depth analyses of the relationship between changes in rural social activity during the pandemic and the functioning of particular social organizations are presented in

Table 4. The relationship between the presence of Rural Housewives’ Clubs and changes in various forms of social activity during the pandemic.

Social Activities	Fisher’s Test p Value	Fisher’s Test p Value
	1st Year	2nd Year
joint work on a farm	0.508	0.956
joint work for the common good of the village or commune	0.649	0.819
taking care of somebody else’s child or an elderly or disabled person	0.519	0.407
taking care of somebody else’s everyday shopping	0.417	0.901
giving a lift to a shop, medical clinic, or town	0.637	0.613
home visiting	0.011	0.181
telephone calls	0.769	0.508
meetings after masses or other church services	0.337	0.739

Source: authors’ own calculations.

and

Table 5. The relationship between the existence of Volunteer Firefighters’ Brigades and various forms of social activity.

Social Activities during Pandemic Time	Fisher’s Test p Value	Fisher’s Test p Value
	1st Year	2nd Year
joint work on a farm	1.000	0.368
joint work for the common good of the village or commune	0.959	0.955
taking care of somebody else’s child or an elderly or disabled person	1.000	0.481
taking care of somebody else’s everyday shopping	0.616	0.675
giving a lift to a shop, medical clinic, or town,	0.879	0.866
home visiting	0.199	0.873
telephone calls	0.815	0.755
meetings after masses or other church services	0.725	0.03

Source: authors’ own calculations.

.

For villages where Rural Housewives’ Clubs were present before the pandemic, statistically significant relationships were observed only for home visiting in the first year of the pandemic (Table 4).

For village societies with Volunteer Firefighters’ Brigades, a statistically significant relationship was observed only for meetings after mass in the second year of the pandemic (Table 5).

In villages with a community center, a statistically significant relationship was demonstrated for telephone calls in the second year of the pandemic (

Table 6. The relationship between the existence of the community center and changes in various forms of social activity.

Social Activities during Pandemic Time	Fisher’s Test p Value	Fisher’s Test p Value
	1st Year	2nd Year
joint work on a farm	0.259	0.506
joint work for the common good of the village or commune	0.608	0.581
taking care of somebody else’s child or an elderly or disabled person	0.97	0.291
taking care of somebody else’s everyday shopping	0.475	0.291
giving a lift to a shop, medical clinic, or town	0.989	0.116
home visiting	0.495	0.217
telephone calls	0.149	0.04
meetings after masses or another church services	0.903	0.276

Source: authors’ own calculations.

).

A summary of statistically significant relationships for the three most popular rural organizations is provided in the following table (

Table 7. Statistically significant relationships between the most common rural organizations and changes in social activity during the pandemic.

Form of Activity	Rural Housewives’ Clubs	Volunteer Firefighters’ Brigades	Community Centers	Number of Organizations
giving a lift to a shop, medical clinic, or town	0.613	0.866	0.116	0.033
home visiting	0.011	0.199	0.495	0.040
telephone calls	0.508	0.755	0.04	0.035
meetings after masses or another church services	0.739	0.03	0.276	0.929

Source: authors’ own calculations.

).

Statistically significant changes in social activities during the pandemic (noticeable for individual organizations) did not translate into an overall pattern. This may be due to the specific nature of each of these organizations.

We used a Fisher’s test in the following research stage to determine the odds ratios for statistically significant relationships. For this purpose, we constructed 2 × 2 tables. The rows contained verified determinants of changes, and the columns contained changes in activity as a binary variable (YES/NO). This approach led to the following combinations:

• Size of village + home visiting (first year);
• Low level of agrarisation + joint work on a farm (second year);
• Low level of agrarisation + joint work on a farm (first year);
• Rural Housewives’ Clubs + home visiting (first year);
• Volunteer Firefighters Brigade + meetings after masses or other church services (second year);
• Community center + telephone calls.

The results of the analyses conducted, along with the interpretation, are presented in

Table 8. Calculated odds ratios (ORs) with their interpretation.

Relation	OR	Result	Interpretation
Size of village + home visiting (1st year)	0.38	OR < 1	In small villages, the likelihood of a change in social activity (in this case, home visiting) in the first year of the pandemic decreased by 0.38 compared to other villages.
Low-agricultural village + joint work on a farm (2nd year)	0.92	OR ≈ 1	In villages with low level of agrarisation, the likelihood of a change in social activity (in this case, joint work on a farm) in the second year of the pandemic was slightly lower than the likelihood of changes in other localities.
Low-agricultural village + joint work on a farm (1st year)	1.50	OR > 1	In villages with low level of agrarisation, the likelihood of a change in social activity (in this case, joint work on a farm) in the first year of the pandemic was 1.5 times higher than in other localities.
RHC + home visiting (1st year)	1.47	OR > 1	In villages where Rural Housewives’ Clubs are present, the likelihood of a change in social activity (in this case, home visiting) in the first year of the pandemic was 1.5 times higher than in localities without Rural Housewives’ Clubs.
VFB + meetings after masses or other church service (2nd year)	0.99	OR ≈ 1	In villages where Volunteer Firefighters’ Brigades are active, the likelihood of a change in social activity (in this case, meetings after mass) in the second year of the pandemic was the same as in localities without Volunteer Firefighters’ Brigades.
Community center + telephone calls (2nd year)	2.84	OR > 1	In villages where a community center is present, the likelihood of a change in social activity (in this case, telephone calls) in the second year of the pandemic was 1.5 times higher than in localities without a community center.

.

The odds ratio is close to 1 for two out of six analyzed relationships. It indicates a non-significant statistical relationship between VFB + meetings after masses or other church services (second year) and low level of agrarisation + joint work on a farm (second year). Only four of the relationships analyzed are statistically significant. These are the following: size of village + home visiting (first year), RHC+ home visiting (first year), low level of agrarisation + joint work on a farm (first year), community center + telephone calls (second year). Based on these analyses, no pattern in the analyzed sample can be found. In other words, the social activities of the villagers, as represented by the typical rural organizations (RHC, VFB, and community center), did not influence social activity change during the pandemic. Based on the analyses presented in Table 3, Table 4, Table 5, Table 6, Table 7 and Table 8, hypothesis 3 was not confirmed.

The analyses of the contingency tables for the four statistically significant relationships showed the direction of changes in activity. The analyses revealed the following:

• In small, medium-sized, and large villages, the number of visits at home in the first year of the pandemic decreased; however, in small villages, the decrease in the number of visits was less frequently observed.
• In the first year of the pandemic, in villages with low level of agrarisation, the change in joint work on a farm was more frequent than in villages with high level of agrarisation.
• In villages with Rural Housewives’ Clubs present before the pandemic, the number of visits at home in the first year of the pandemic decreased more than in the villages where RHC did not exist.
• In villages where community centers operated before the pandemic, an increase in telephone calls in the second year of the pandemic was observed more often than in villages without a community center.

These findings show that rural communities in Poland, irrespective of their size, economic profile, or the presence of various types of social organizations, reduced physical social contacts during the pandemic. In some of the cases, it was replaced with telephone calls. The scope of the changes differed, depending on the size and the presence of Rural Housewives’ Clubs and community centers.

4. Discussion and Conclusions

The findings of this study show the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social activity in rural areas in Poland. Contrary to the initial hypotheses, this study revealed several unexpected results regarding the determinants of changes in social activity during the pandemic.

Firstly, the size of the village was found to have no significant impact on changes in most of the analyzed forms of social activity during the first year of the pandemic. It was hypothesized that the size of the local community matters, as in smaller villages there are stronger social relationships and mutual support between inhabitants, but the data did not support this assumption uniformly. Instead, the relationship between village size and changes in social activities was complex and not always consistent with the hypothesis. Although the literature indicates the influence of the size of the community on social activity [15], it might not have an impact on changes in activity during times of crisis.

A survey by Charycka and Gumkowska [71] from April 2020 shows that non-governmental organizations in small towns and villages suspended their activities or decreased activity at the beginning of the pandemic more often than organizations in cities. The reason was that these organizations were based mostly on voluntary work, and, according to our research, the size of the village did not affect this feature. Lower engagement of the members was especially visible in organizations active within only one village [72]. Undertaking additional, new activities due to the pandemic outbreak (such as sewing masks, helping people who were in isolation, etc.) concerned 40% of rural non-governmental organizations and did not depend on their typical area of activeness (village, county, region, or country) or on the type of organization [72]. New activities in NGOs due to the pandemic outbreak were also observed in other countries [73]. Little is known about the causes for the differences in change of activity.

Secondly, the economic type of the village, categorized as either a village with high level of agrarisation or low level of agrarisation, showed a significant relationship, with changes in only one form of social activity: joint work on a farm. This finding rejects the second hypothesis. In villages with low level of agrarisation the change in joint work on a farm was more frequent than in villages with high level of agrarisation. Perhaps it was easier to give up joint work on farms where the cooperation was not necessary. Alternatively, a high level of agrarisation meant more work outdoors and less social contacts among village inhabitants, which might have reduced fears of COVID-19 infection. Even though the literature stresses the impact of social coherence (understood often as common norms and common faith) on social relations, we did not find evidence for changes in many social relations during times of crisis.

Thirdly, we can confirm the hypothesis that the level and scope of social activity before the pandemic had an impact on changes in social activity during the pandemic. The presence of social organizations, such as Rural Housewives’ Clubs, Volunteer Firefighters’ Brigades, and community centers, had varying impacts on changes in social activity. For instance, the existence of Rural Housewives’ Clubs was associated with a higher decrease in home visiting during the first year of the pandemic in comparison with the villages where RHC did not exist, while community centers were linked to higher telephone call activity in the second year. It is possible that the reduction in contact in villages with RHC was greater because the initial level was relatively high in comparison with villages without such organizations. There is evidence that in many villages where there are no organizations, people just stay at home, watch TV, and use the Internet [74] (which supports observations made by Putnam [15]). Generally, in Poland, the feeling of togetherness with one’s neighbors, based on everyday, direct, friendly contact, and cooperation, is in a state of atrophy [75]. Our research does not support evidence from Italy, where during the first lockdown people characterized by a high level of social capital improved their social engagement, while people with a low level of social capital experienced further deterioration [76]. In general, research on the relationship between social capital and reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic produced mixed results [77,78]. The unclear pattern of changes in social activity suggests a need for further research on the causes.

To sum up, only some assumed determinants of changes in social activity in rural areas came out as significant. Although changes in social activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic were evident and not uniform, in many cases, prior social activity, the size of the villages, and their economic profile did not prove to be important predictors of the changes. The findings are somewhat surprising, given earlier research on Polish villages. The size of the village (territorial aspect of social contacts) is not as important for social activity as it used to be in the past. Social media, mobile phones, private transport enabling access to different services situated far from the villages, and many other facilities have decreased the mutual interdependence in work and everyday life. The disagrarisation and differentiation of sources of income reduced the importance of social contacts. The scope of social activities before the pandemic did not significantly differentiate the changes in the level of social contacts in the surveyed villages. This suggests that local organizations focus on specific activities, but their role in creating interpersonal relationships (solidarity and cohesion) is limited.

Overall, this study provides valuable insights into how rural communities in Poland adapted their social activity in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The complex interplay between village size, economic type, and local institutions underscores the need for tailored policy interventions to support social cohesion in rural areas.

5. Limitations and Further Research

Obviously, the findings would be more valuable with a higher response rate, and the data would allow for more sophisticated statistical analyses, but this problem is difficult to overcome. It is possible that there is some self-selection among village administrators in answering a phone call from an unknown number; however, this is likely a characteristic of a village administrator, rather than of a village society as a whole.

Even with such limitations, it is evident that the determinants of changes in social activity during the pandemic are not as obvious as village size, economic type, and prior activity. To find the patterns, one should dig deeper, looking, for instance, for local conditions, such as trust toward local authorities [79], political preferences [80], fear of infection, the demographic characteristics of the village in general, and social activists in particular (as older people were at higher risk of being hospitalized and dying because of infection compared to other age groups).