3.1. Life Satisfaction in This Study

When considering all levels of income loss, there is an increase from 48.9% in the initial survey to 72.2% in the subsequent one, indicating that the economic impact of the pandemic on individuals worsened over time. However, when considering only acute economic impact, a slight decrease in the severity of the impact is noted, with 44.3% of respondents reporting acute economic impact in the second survey compared with 48.9% in the first survey. Also, in the initial phase of the crisis, 43% reported a reduction in working days, yet in the second survey, only 21.1% reported tangible harm to their professional work (including loss of working days). However, even two years into the crisis, 64.8% reported a rise in workplace stress. While this indicates a 10% decrease compared to the crisis’s onset, the figure remains notably high.

The intricate interplay between work and home life was significantly affected during the early stages of the epidemic, particularly due to closures and movement restrictions. Some 26.4% of respondents reported that their work–life balance was compromised at the outset of the crisis. However, by the beginning of 2022, there was a noticeable improvement, with only 12.5% expressing a continued work–life balance impairment. This shift suggests that individuals employed adaptation and coping strategies as the crisis extended, potentially contributing to a more stabilized work–home equilibrium over time.

Concerning healthy lifestyles, at the outset of the pandemic, following the stringent restrictions on movement, individuals perceived a more pronounced deterioration of lifestyle, with 21.4% reporting a less healthy lifestyle compared to 16.5% reporting a healthier lifestyle. However, a year and a half later, the trend reversed, with only 12.2% reporting a decline in healthy lifestyle compared with 14.9% reporting healthy lifestyle improvements since the outset of the pandemic. In contrast, decreased expectations for a healthy lifestyle slightly worsened from the first survey to the second (34.5% vs. 39.9%).

The prolonged impact of the COVID-19 crisis is evident in the sustained emotional and mental strain reported by approximately 48% of respondents in both surveys. This figure remained stable even as the restrictions were relaxed, highlighting the enduring challenges COVID-19 posed to the emotional and mental wellbeing of individuals.

The influence of the COVID-19 crisis on vacation patterns persisted even after the removal of many of the initial restrictions. At the crisis’s onset, 73.7% of respondents reported a negative impact on vacation patterns, and a year and a half later, this trend remained significant, with 66.8% noting adverse effects. Similarly, the negative impact on leisure patterns persisted throughout the pandemic, with a decrease of only 4.5% (69.6% to 65.4%) between the two surveys.

The adverse impact on social relations remained consistent, with approximately 55% reporting some adverse effects during both stages of the pandemic. During the initial stages of the crisis, relationships within the nuclear family experienced both positive and negative impacts in roughly equal proportions, with around a third (30–32%) reporting each. However, two years later, the impact shifted in a negative direction, as 35.5% of respondents indicated damage to nuclear family relations and only 17% indicated a positive impact of COVID-19 on nuclear family relations. The results show a similar trend with regard to extended family relations: at the crisis’s onset, negative impacts were reported by 44.4% of the respondents, while positive impacts were reported by only about half that number (23%). As of the beginning of 2022, the negative impacts remained relatively stable (46%), but the positive impacts decreased to 13.2%. Thus, even with the removal of restrictions, there was no immediate improvement in the reported negative effects on social relations and family relations, underscoring the enduring effects on interpersonal connections.

The overall picture that emerges is thus one in which economic losses, work–life imbalances, and adverse healthy lifestyle effects were largely mitigated once the restrictions were removed. The adverse effects on mental health and expectations for a healthy lifestyle and social contacts, including within the family, remained high even after the restrictions were lifted.

3.3. Factors Affecting Life Satisfaction over Time

The possibility of using ordinal regression was considered in order to avoid the loss of original information of the dependent variable (five categories instead of three). However, two main considerations led to the selection of the MNL procedure. First, it is more important for this study to understand the differences between unsatisfied and satisfied people regarding the tangible effects of the pandemic and to identify how the main factors explored affected life satisfaction rather than to understand differences among ordinal levels of life satisfaction. Second, from a methodological perspective, because the proportional odds assumption for ordered regression is violated in our data, we recoded the dependent variable into a categorial variable and used MNL regression models instead of ordinal regression.