COVID-19 lockdowns may impact economic inequalities
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Publicly released:
2020-06-19 08:24
Italian researchers have studied movement-tracking data from Facebook to examine potential links between COVID-19 lockdowns and income inequality in Italy earlier this year. The researchers used a near-real-time dataset of human mobility to model how mobility restrictions affected Italian residents. They found that lockdown measures had the biggest impact on people's mobility in towns with higher financial performance, but this was explained by the finding that these towns had the highest number of people earning less than the average income, and therefore had the greatest income inequality. The study authors conclude that, without targeted fiscal interventions, lockdown could induce a further increase in poverty and inequality.
Journal/conference: PNAS
Research: Paper
Organisation/s: Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy
Funder: No funding listed.
Media release
From: PNAS
Using aggregated, deidentified, near-real-time data on Facebook users’ mobility between Italian municipalities from February 23 to April 4, 2020, researchers report that reductions in mobility following the COVID-19 lockdown tended to be strong in municipalities with high fiscal capacity, but also in municipalities with high income inequality and low income per capita, suggesting that the lockdown might exacerbate poverty and income inequality in the absence of targeted fiscal interventions.
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