Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/250628 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 14967
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Strict containment limits the spread of pandemics but is difficult to achieve when people must continue to work to avoid poverty. A new role is emerging for income support: by enabling people to effectively stay home, it can produce substantial health externalities. We examine this issue using data on human mobility and poverty rates in 729 subnational regions of Africa, Latin America and Asia during the first year of COVID-19. We focus on within-country differential mobility changes between higher- and lower-poverty regions. Conditional on country-day fixed effects, shelter-in-place orders decrease work-related mobility significantly less in poorer regions. Emergency income support programs seem to help people to reduce their mobility on average, mitigating the poverty-driven gap in mobility between regions and, hence, regional differences in contagion rates.
Subjects: 
COVID-19
poverty
policy
lockdown
social protection
compliance
mobility
JEL: 
H12
I12
I18
I38
O15
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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