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Does Corona virus choose between social classes? How a health crisis enhances inequality between rich and poor

Author: Rita Coelho do Vale

 

In the last few months the entire world trembled under the spreading of the corona virus. When China was strongly affected in the beginning of the year most citizens in the other countries thought it would be something that would be confined to China and would never reach them. As we all know, that was not what happened. Soon the virus migrated between continents and suddenly Europe and USA became also under this terrible threat. The corona virus, often referred as COVID-19, is a respiratory virus easily spread through direct contact with an infected person[1]. Having said this, ceteris paribus, it should in principle affect all of us the same, independently if we are poor or rich, white or black. It should simply be indifferent between people with different characteristics. While that is almost true in terms of the morphologic characteristics of the individuals (some articles indicate genetic characteristics as a possible cause to explain why symptoms are so hard on some and so soft on others[2]), that is not true for almost anything else. First of all, it hit harder on the elderly, mainly because these older citizens are more fragile and already carry some other diseases related with aging. But more importantly, it also impacted differently people with less or more economic conditions. 

In a study run at the end of March in Portugal, when the country was in an emergency state, 1000 participants indicated how they were feeling regarding many different constructs[3]. The sample, composed by a very heterogeneous set of individuals, some with strong economic difficulties and others not, allowed researchers to try to understand the impact of the pandemic on individuals of different economic backgrounds. Researchers analysed participant’s reported happiness, well being, economic impact, optimism about the future, among many other variables. 

The results are shocking in many of the constructs assessed. When results obtained during pandemic period are compared with the average value obtained in a similar study in November 2019, results indicated that poorer people- those that declare to live in strong economic difficulties- experience a stronger decrease in terms of life satisfaction than people with moderate and low levels of economic difficulty (Δ strong difficulties = -1.02, Δ moderate difficulties = -0.35, Δ low difficulties = 0.12, F(2,997) = 37.78, p< .001). Similar results were found for general happiness with participants with strong economic difficulties reporting a higher decrease on happiness than any of the other groups of participants (Δ strong difficulties = -0.98, Δ moderate difficulties = -0.35, Δ low difficulties = -0.01, F(2,997) = 16.97, p< .001). Regarding satisfaction with daily activities, findings suggest not only a significant decrease among those that experience strong economic difficulties, as also indicate a significant increase among those that indicate to experience low economic difficulties (Δ strong difficulties = -0.55, Δ moderate difficulties = -0.05, Δ low difficulties = 0.27, F(2,997) = 26.75, p< .001), highlighting how pandemic crisis can enhance further inequality between social classes. 

Figure 1. Variation of indicators between November 2019 and March 2020, across groups of different economic difficulties.

Regarding the impact that pandemic crisis may have in their economic situation, results were aligned with previous findings. Poorer people expect to experience a very strong impact (scale 1-10, 1= not at all, 7=very much) on their economic situation than any other of the groups of participants with moderate and low levels of economic difficulty (Mstrong difficulties = 7.75, Mmoderate difficulties = 6.06, Mlow difficulties = 5.25, F(2,997) = 69.34, p< .001).

Figure 2. Impact of the pandemics in the current and future economic situation, across groups of different economic difficulties.

In what respects participants expectations of how satisfied will they be with their life when pandemic is over, results suggest a lower level of satisfaction among poorer ones, compared with any of the other groups Mstrong difficulties = 5.36, Mmoderate difficulties = 6.19, Mlow difficulties = 6.52, F(2,997) = 30.79, p< .001).

Figure 3. Satisfaction with life, during and after the pandemics, across groups of different economic difficulties.

Overall, findings from this study (full report can be found here) highlight further the potential disparities in terms of impact of the coronavirus among individuals of different economic backgrounds. Prior works have already highlighted the inability of certain groups of citizens to take proper precautions to mitigate the spread of the disease[4] as is the case of African Americans communities in US5. The current results suggest that inequality experienced among individuals of different social and economic classes goes much further that the simple higher likelihood of non-volunteer exposure to the virus. In fact, results suggest that depending on the economic difficulties experienced by individuals, the pandemic may impact significantly their happiness, their satisfaction with life, their optimism about current conditions, and therefore their ability to deal with the consequences of a crisis as the one we are currently experiencing across the world.

 

References

[1] What is the coronavirus? Here's what we know about it. - NBC News

[2] Coronavirus: How ‘viral load’ and genetics could explain why young people have died from Covid-19. - The Independent 

[3] CATÓLICA-LISBON Behavioral Research Unit (2020). Estudo da Sociedade Portuguesa- O impacto da pandemia COVID 19 na vida dos Portugueses (Março 2020). Observatório da Sociedade Portuguesa.

[4]  Van Dorn, A., Cooney, R., and Sabin, M. (2020), "COVID-19 exacerbating inequalities in the US”, World Report, vol. 395 (10232), 1243-1244. 

[5] Laurencin, C. and McClinton, A. (2020), “The COVID-19 Pandemic: a Call to Action to Identify and Address Racial and Ethnic Disparities,” Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, vol. 7, 398–402. 

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