COVID-19 and the Forces behind Social Unrest
Mario Lackner,
Uwe Sunde and
Rudolf Winter-Ebmer
No 14884, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
Abstract:
The unprecedented consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic have raised concerns about intensified social unrest, but evidence for such a link and the underlying channels is still lacking. We use a unique combination of nationally representative survey data, event data on social unrest, and data on Covid-19 fatalities and unemployment at a weekly resolution to investigate the forces behind social unrest in the context of the strains on public health and the economy due to the pandemic in the USA. The results show that pandemic-related unemployment and Covid-19 fatalities intensified negative emotional stress and led to a deterioration of economic confidence among individuals. The prevalence of negative emotional stress, particularly in economically strained and politically polarized environments, was, in turn, associated with intensified social unrest as measured by political protests. No such link is found for economic perceptions.
Keywords: civil unrest; COVID-19; economic shocks; political polarization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2021-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
Forthcoming - forthcoming in: Plos One, 2025
Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp14884.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
Working Paper: Covid-19 and the Forces Behind Social Unrest (2021) 
Working Paper: Covid-19 and the Forces Behind Social Unrest (2021) 
Working Paper: Covid-19 and the Forces Behind Social Unrest (2021) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14884
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().