The COVID-19 pandemic presents a significant challenge to wellbeing for people around the world. Here, we examine which individual and societal factors can predict the extent to which individuals suffer or thrive during the COVID-19 outbreak, with survey data collected from 26,684 participants in 51 countries from 17 April to 15 May 2020. We show that wellbeing is linked to an individual's recent experiences of specific momentary positive and negative emotions, including love, calm, determination, and loneliness. Higher socioeconomic status was associated with better wellbeing. The present study provides a rich map of emotional experiences and wellbeing around the world during the COVID-19 outbreak, and points to calm, connection, and control as central to our wellbeing at this time of collective crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a significant challenge to wellbeing for people around the world. Here, we examine which individual and societal factors can predict the extent to which individuals suffer or thrive during the COVID-19 outbreak, with survey data collected from 26,684 participants in 51 countries from 17 April to 15 May 2020. We show that wellbeing is linked to an individual’s recent experiences of specific momentary positive and negative emotions, including love, calm, determination, and loneliness. Higher socioeconomic status was associated with better wellbeing. The present study provides a rich map of emotional experiences and wellbeing around the world during the COVID-19 outbreak, and points to calm, connection, and control as central to our wellbeing at this time of collective crisis.

Numerous studies have demonstrated the importance of entrepreneurship for migrants’ integration. Nonetheless, the impact of entrepreneurship on refugees’ inclusion and sense of belonging has been largely overlooked. This article explores how entrepreneurship contributes to the inclusion of Iranian refugee entrepreneurs, considering the different aspects of a refugee’s identity components such as ethnicity, age, class, gender, and religion. The life stories of 14 Iranian refugee entrepreneurs, who immigrated to the Netherlands in the 1980s and 1990s are analysed. We illustrate how different dimensions of their identity shape entrepreneurial motivations, resources, and entrepreneurial strategies. The results show that intersecting identity components impact Iranian refugee entrepreneurs’ sense of belonging. Notwithstanding the diverse ways in which individuals experience belonging, our study identifies three particular modes of belonging: hybrid, cosmopolitan, and transnational belonging. Drawing on interviews with individual refugee entrepreneurs, we conclude that entrepreneurship is a vehicle for greater acceptance and inclusion within the host society. Our study points to an urgent need to go beyond the integration paradigm by applying the concept of inclusion. The notion of inclusion enables us to gain a deeper understanding of refugees’ position in the labour market and the receiving society more broadly.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents challenges to psychological wellbeing, but how can we predict when people suffer or cope during sustained stress? Here, we test the prediction that specific types of momentary emotional experiences are differently linked to psychological wellbeing during the pandemic. Study 1 used survey data collected from 24,221 participants in 51 countries during the COVID-19 outbreak. We show that, across countries, wellbeing is linked to individuals’ recent emotional experiences, including calm, hope, anxiety, loneliness, and sadness. Consistent results are found in two age, sex, and ethnicity-representative samples in the United Kingdom (N = 971) and the United States (N=961) with pre-registered analyses (Study 2). A prospective 30-day daily diary study conducted in the United Kingdom (N = 110) confirms the key role of these five emotions, and demonstrates that emotional experiences precede changes in wellbeing (Study 3). Our findings highlight differential relationships between specific types of momentary emotional experiences and wellbeing, and point to the cultivation of calm and hope as candidate routes for wellbeing interventions during periods of sustained stress.