Did the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic and the various lockdown measures taken by European governments in the spring of 2020 impact individuals aged 50 and over differently according to their living arrangements and housing conditions? Focusing on three indicators of mental well-being, depression, loneliness and trouble sleeping, this paper answers the question using data on Europeans interviewed in the SHARE Corona Survey, fielded right after the first wave of the pandemic in summer 2020, linked longitudinally with two previous waves of SHARE (2013 and 2015). We find that the first wave of the pandemic changed the association between mental health and living arrangements and housing conditions. New to this pandemic period, the mental well-being of those who lived only with a spouse declined relative to the general population aged 50+. Relatedly, there was a protective impact for parents of having (adult) children in the same building as opposed to children, however close, who were not co-residing. Finally, living in cities and in multi-unit housing also led to a decrease in mental well-being relative to the general population aged 50+.
We present evidence that discrimination against Asian-American Airbnb users sharply increased at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a DiD approach, we find that hosts with distinctively Asian names experienced a 12 percent decline in guests relative to hosts with distinctively White names. In contrast, we do not see spikes in discrimination against Black or Hispanic hosts. Our results suggest that the rise in anti-Asian sentiment in 2020 translated to discrimination in economic activity, highlighting the ways in which scapegoating minority groups can shape markets. Our results also point to the role of platform design choices in enabling discrimination.
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