The impact of exogenous shocks on national wellbeing. New Zealanders’ reaction to COVID-19

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the response of an aggregate measure of subjective wellbeing to the arrival and passage of the COVID-19 pandemic in a small, geographically separate economy in the South Pacific. Studies of national wellbeing and emotional responses to infection rates during a pandemic have been rare thus far. While several disciplines offer theoretical priors in the case of individuals, far less attention has been paid to the wellbeing and emotional response at a national level. Our paper contributes to the literature by applying a time-series approach to the relationship between wellbeing, emotions and the passage of a pandemic. As such we contribute to a wider literature on macro responses to exogenous shocks. Our analysis involves the use of a wellbeing index and emotional time-series derived from Big Data in the form of tweets originating within New Zealand. The index captures the daily evaluative mood of the country several weeks before the first domestic case of COVID-19 was recorded until several weeks of no new COVID-19 cases. We find distinct reactions to the pandemic: a initial fall in national wellbeing generated by a decrease in the emotions ‘joy’, ‘anticipation’ and ‘trust’. Following a rapid and severe lockdown designed to limit domestic transmission of the virus national wellbeing recovered relatively quickly. Gaining insight into the wellbeing (happiness) reponse to pandemics at the national level is important because the average level of happiness within countries is known to be associated with a range of economic, social, health and political outcomes.

Implications of COVID-19 Mitigation Policies for National Well-Being: A Systems Perspective

“…Such data are becoming increasingly available, for example, see the OECD COVID-19 Recovery Dashboard [101]. Multiple national-level observational studies report negative consequences of the pandemic on the subjective well-being and other national well-being dimensions, such as trust in government [5,23,24,88,[102][103][104]. However, these studies do not account for causal mechanisms of such effects [102].…”

“…However, to date, no studies have applied systems thinking to focus on the overall impact of COVID-19 mitigation policies on the national well-being (Figure 1). Moreover, although there is a burgeoning body of research on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the well-being of people (more than 7000 papers indexed in the Scopus database as of November 2021; e.g., [19][20][21][22]), the majority of these works focus on the individual, family, or community well-being rather than on the national well-being [23]. Several studies investigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis (both the pandemic itself and measures aimed to curb it) on well-being at the national level [23][24][25][26].…”

“…Moreover, although there is a burgeoning body of research on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the well-being of people (more than 7000 papers indexed in the Scopus database as of November 2021; e.g., [19][20][21][22]), the majority of these works focus on the individual, family, or community well-being rather than on the national well-being [23]. Several studies investigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis (both the pandemic itself and measures aimed to curb it) on well-being at the national level [23][24][25][26]. However, these studies rely on a single-dimensional notion of the Gross National Happiness Index [27], therefore omitting a multi-faceted nature of the national well-being emphasized by the OECD [28].…”

Measuring Pandemic and Lockdown Impacts on Wellbeing

“…( 2020 ) and Morrison et al . ( 2021 ). The first five of these studies are based on survey responses.…”

“…Instead of using surveys, Rossouw et al (2020) and Morrison et al (2021) analyze data from twitter feeds that are used to compile an index termed Gross National Happiness. Using data from 2020, the two studies indicate that average levels of happiness were significantly lowered after the onset of the pandemic but then recovered quickly.…”