A Poorly Understood Disease? The Impact of COVID-19 on the Income Gradient in Mortality over the Course of the Pandemic

Paul Brandily (), Clément Brébion, Simon Briole and Laura Khoury
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Paul Brandily: PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

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Abstract: Mortality inequalities remain substantial in many countries, and large shocks such as pandemics could amplify them further. The unequal distribution of COVID-19 confirmed cases suggests that this is the case. Yet, evidence on the causal effect of the epidemic on mortality inequalities remains scarce. In this paper, we exploit exhaustive municipality-level data in France, one of the most severely hit country in the world, to identify a negative relationship between income and excess mortality within urban areas, that persists over COVID-19 waves. Over the year 2020, the poorest municipalities experienced a 30% higher increase in excess mortality. Our analyses can rule out the contribution of policy responses (such as lockdown) in this heterogeneous impact. Finally, we show that both labour-market exposure and housing conditions are major determinants of the direct effect of the epidemic on mortality inequalities, but that their respective role depends on the state of the epidemic.

Keywords: labor market; mortality; inequality; poverty; COVID-19; housing conditions; mortality inequality; housing conditions I14; I18; R00 COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ure
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Journal Article: A poorly understood disease? The impact of COVID-19 on the income gradient in mortality over the course of the pandemic (2021)
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