While COVID-19 was responsible for more than 600,000 deaths worldwide as of July 24, 2020, very little is known about the socioeconomic heterogeneity of its impact on mortality. In this paper, we combine several administrative data sources to estimate the relationship between mortality due to COVID-19 and poverty at a very local level (i.e. the municipality level) in France, one of the most severely hit countries in the world. We find strong evidence of an income gradient in the impact of the pandemic on mortality rates, which is twice as large in municipalities below the 25th percentile of the national income distribution than in municipalities above this threshold. We then show that both poor housing conditions and higher occupational exposure play a key role in this heterogeneity: taken together, these mechanisms account for up to 77% of the difference observed between rich and poor municipalities.

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While COVID-19 was already responsible for more than 500,000 deaths worldwide as of July 3, 2020, very little is known on the socio-economic heterogeneity of its impact on mortality. In this paper, we combine several administrative data sources to estimate the relationship between mortality due to COVID-19 and poverty at a very local level (i.e. the municipality level) in France, one of the most severely hit country in the world. We find strong evidence of an income gradient in the impact of the pandemic on mortality: it is twice as large in the poorest municipalities compared to other municipalities. We then show that both poor housing conditions and higher occupational exposure are likely mechanisms. Overall, these mechanisms accounts for up to 60% of the difference observed between rich and poor municipalities.

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Though it is largely admitted that non-cognitive skills matter for adult outcomes, little is known about how the family environment affects their formation. In this paper, we use a cohort study of children born in 2000-2001 in the U.K. (Millennium Cohort Study) to estimate the effect of family size on socio-emotional skills, measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. To account for the endogeneity of fertility decisions, we use a well-known instrumental approach that exploits parents' preference for children's gender diversity. We show that an increase in family size negatively affects the socioemotional skills of the two first children in a persistent manner. However, we show that this negative effect is entirely driven by girls. We provide evidence that this gender effect is partly driven by an unequal response of parents' time investment in favor of boys and, to a lesser extent, to an unequal demand for household chores.JEL classification: I20, J13, J16