Socioeconomic inequality and COVID-19 prevalence across municipalities in Catalonia, Spain

Abstract

This study provides preliminary evidence regarding associations between socioeconomic inequalities and variations in the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases across 923 municipalities in Catalonia, Spain, as of the 14th of May, 2020. We consider three types of inequalities at municipality-level: 1) economic development, i.e., unemployment rate, average income, immigrants proportion, and the prevalence of small residence; 2) health vulnerability, i.e., crude death rate and the proportion of elderly (aged 65 +) population; and 3) information communication, i.e., the proportion of people with tertiary education. In addition to the static analysis with the total sum of COVID-19 cases, the dynamic analysis with daily moving weekly sum of cases is conducted. The result draws a rather complex picture of relationships between contextual socioeconomic inequalities and the spread of COVID-19. Many indicators of economic inequalities imply the opposite relationship as intuitively suggested: economically disadvantaged municipalities tend to have less cases of confirmed infection than economically advantaged counterparts. The implications from health inequality indicators show mixed patterns: crude death rate is positively associated, but elderly population is negatively associated, with the number of confirmed cases. The indicator of information inequality shows a consistent tendency, i.e., municipalities with more university educated have less confirmed cases, but this tendency transforms across time: the negative association is particularly strong during the first month of Spanish “state of alarm” measure (mid-March to mid-April). Our evidence suggests the need for more careful consideration regarding the association between socioeconomic inequalities and the regional progression of COVID-19 pandemic.

Assessing the Impact of Individual Characteristics and Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Provinces of Milan and Lodi

“…46 A territorial variability in the pandemic severity was found also across different geographic areas in Spain, and this was significantly associated with some sociodemographic variables, 47 though a study in the municipalities of the Catalonia region led to mixed findings. 48 A study comparing the 50 largest American cities found that a number of socioeconomic factors, among which being unmarried, not having a computer, and being unemployed were associated with COVID-19 prevalence and/or fatality at the community level. 49 Moreover, a study at the zip-code level in New York City reported noticeable disparities in the COVID-19 rates according to area-income levels.…”

The socio-economic determinants of COVID-19: A spatial analysis of German county level data

“…Examples are [21] for 20 European countries, which points to a positive influence of high social activity and high population density on COVID-19 infections, or [28, 29] for a worldwide analysis of risk factors based on country data. Examples of regional analyses in Spain are [22], for an analysis at municipal level within Catalonia [20], for France [12], for Iran [26], for China [25] or [4] for Italy, to name a few. For the analysis at the district level within Germany, [23] finds significantly negative effects especially on income and education (for a later phase of the pandemic in May 2020).…”

Pandemics Initially Spread Among People of Higher (not Lower) Social Status: Evidence from COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu

“…Our research builds on established social status theory in social psychology (independent, exploring behavior among people of higher social status and interdependent, affiliative behavior among people of lower social status; Kraus et al, 2012;Piff et al, 2010;Snibbe & Markus, 2005;Stephens et al, 2019). Further, our research helps reconcile findings from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that appeared to contradict each other (Drefahl et al, 2020;Mogi et al, 2020). Finally, our research makes much-needed progress towards a distinctively psychological theory of pandemics (Betsch, 2020;Van Bavel et al, 2020).…”

“…Of particular interest for us, however, some studies also failed to replicate the classic tenet. Those studies found equal spread across societal strata (Brown & Ravallion, 2020;Ehlert, 2020) or even more spread among people of higher social status (Mogi et al, 2020;Plümper & Neumayer, 2020;Rodríguez-Pose & Burlina, 2020). Our hypothesis of a time-variant relationship between social status and pandemic spread has the potential to reconcile this seemingly contradictory evidence.…”