**5. Discussion**

The quality of life of people who worked in care social services in Chile during the COVID-19 pandemic was affected by the pandemic. Our study confirmed that the sample obtained a COV19-QoL score higher than the arithmetic means, and almost half of them obtained high scores (>3). More specifically, our study confirmed that it was young people from middle socioeconomic levels were most affected by the pandemic in Chile.

With respect to age, the findings present that there is a greater impact of COVID on social service workers at a younger age. This makes sense given that younger people generally have less professional experience in dealing with complex situations in their work environment. In addition, it is expected that younger people have lower levels of training in the area, so they have fewer professional tools to cope with these situations, an issue that has been considered by the literature previously [39, 40]. It is also important to consider that young workers are more likely to be employed in occupations more affected by the pandemic, with a higher risk of losing their jobs or reducing their working hours [41]. The negative relationship between age and COV19-QoL could also be explained due to other care roles held by people between 25 and 35 years old, the age range most affected in the study. In this sense, age could be related to care functions within their home, assuming that workers in care industries, men and women, must face the difficulties of care in the organizations where they work and their homes.

Moreover, a positive and significant relationship is reported between the socioeconomic level of social service workers and a COVID affectation on quality of life. It could be considered that this socioeconomic level is related to professional profile and positions of high responsibility in care centers. Therefore, modifications in work routines, protocols, and other activities have gone through these workers, who have been called to lead the transformations in the workspaces [42], which could mean a higher level of stress and exhaustion.

In this way, it is expected that COVID represents an especially complex challenge for women, considering situations such as quarantine, and telematic classes, to point out some examples have generated that the boundaries between the workspace and the domestic space become blurred. This could be reflected in women between 25 and 35 years old cases, where a higher level of impact of the pandemic is observed. The results allow understanding the connection between two of the groups most exposed to experiencing complex situations at work; women with a high workload for care work outside the workplace and young people with a less academic or professional specialization.

The results of our study are consistent with previous results in other parts of the world since the effect of demographic factors on the impact of quality of life (gender, age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, among others) is unclear. It seems that other demanding and stressful experiences are antecedents of the greater impact of the pandemic on the quality of life. In the case of the population analyzed, it seems that the demands of other roles or identities would affect how people live the pandemic.

Thus, these results are added to the fact that social services were affected by the absence of face-to-face, the incorporation of digital technologies, and the adaptation, on the fly, of work processes, in an environment of great uncertainty. Telematic work developed a favorable area to withdraw the labor rights achieved in salaried work, in terms of privacy, control of leisure and rest, conciliation of work and family life, and rights with a gender focus, among others [43]. Given the above, it is necessary to intervene in the working conditions in these organizations, recognizing the double experience of stress in their workplaces.
