TY - JOUR
T1 - Relative deprivation, inequality and the Covid-19 pandemic
AU - Chakrabarty, Debajyoti
AU - Bhatia, Bhanu
AU - Jayasinghe, Maneka
AU - Low, David
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the funds received under the Covid-19 Supplementary Funding Pool Scheme from Charles Darwin University to undertake this research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
PY - 2023/5
Y1 - 2023/5
N2 - There is a growing concern that inequalities are hindering health outcomes. This paper's primary objective is to investigate the role of relative deprivation and inequality in explaining the daily spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. For this purpose, we use secondary cross-sectional data across 119 (developed and developing) countries from January 2020 – to April 2021. For the empirical analysis, we use a recent dynamic panel data modelling approach that allows us to identify the role of time-invariant variables such as degree of globalisation, political freedom and income inequality on the dynamics of the pandemic and fatality rates across countries. We find that new cases per million and fatality rates are highly persistent processes. After controlling for time-varying mobility statistics from the Google mobility database and region-specific dummy variables, the two significant factors that explain the severity of Covid-19 spread in a country are per-capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Yitzhaki's relative income deprivation index. Lagged value of new cases per million significantly explains cross-country variations in the daily case fatality rates. A higher proportion of the older population and pollution increased fatality rates while better medical infrastructure reduced it.
AB - There is a growing concern that inequalities are hindering health outcomes. This paper's primary objective is to investigate the role of relative deprivation and inequality in explaining the daily spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. For this purpose, we use secondary cross-sectional data across 119 (developed and developing) countries from January 2020 – to April 2021. For the empirical analysis, we use a recent dynamic panel data modelling approach that allows us to identify the role of time-invariant variables such as degree of globalisation, political freedom and income inequality on the dynamics of the pandemic and fatality rates across countries. We find that new cases per million and fatality rates are highly persistent processes. After controlling for time-varying mobility statistics from the Google mobility database and region-specific dummy variables, the two significant factors that explain the severity of Covid-19 spread in a country are per-capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Yitzhaki's relative income deprivation index. Lagged value of new cases per million significantly explains cross-country variations in the daily case fatality rates. A higher proportion of the older population and pollution increased fatality rates while better medical infrastructure reduced it.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Cross-country
KW - Inequality
KW - Panel data
KW - Relative deprivation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85151006430&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115858
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115858
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85151006430
SN - 0277-9536
VL - 324
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
IS - 115858
M1 - 115858
ER -