Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP15783
Authors: Sergi Basco; Jordi Domenech; Joan Ross
Abstract: The outburst of deaths and cases of Covid-19 around the world has renewed the interest to understand the mortality effects of pandemics across regions, occupations, age and gender. The Spanish Flu is the closest pandemic to Covid-19. Mortality rates in Spain were among the largest in today’s developed countries. Our research documents a substantial heterogeneity on mortality rates across occupations. The highest mortality was on low-income workers. We also record a rural mortality penalty that reversed the historical urban penalty temporally. The higher capacity of certain social groups to isolate themselves from social contact could explain these mortality differentials. However, adjusting mortality evidence by these two factors, there were still large mortality inter-provincial differences for the same occupation and location, suggesting the existence of a regional component in rates of flu contagion possibly related to climatic differences.
Keywords: pandemics; health inequality; socioeconomic mortality differences; urban penalty
JEL Codes: N34; J1; I14
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| occupational status (J28) | mortality rates (I12) |
| low-income workers (J46) | mortality rates (I12) |
| miners (L72) | excess mortality rate (J17) |
| rentiers (J26) | excess mortality rate (J17) |
| rural areas (R19) | mortality rates (I12) |
| urban areas (R11) | mortality rates (I12) |
| social distancing measures (I14) | rural penalty (R19) |
| female status (J16) | excess mortality (I12) |
| male status (J16) | excess mortality (I12) |
| age (25-34) (J14) | excess mortality (I12) |
| older age (J14) | excess mortality (I12) |
| climatic factors (Q54) | mortality rates (I12) |