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Clear as a bell? Policy stringency and elderly health during Covid-19

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  • Dupuy, Jules
  • Barnay, Thomas
  • Defebvre, Eric

Abstract

This paper investigates how restriction policies have impacted elderly self-assessed health (SAH) in Europe during the pandemic, and how the Covid-19 infection interacts with policy stringency to modulate the SAH deterioration. Using the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) between October 2019 and August 2021, including 9,034 adults aged 50 years and above, alongside with a stringency index from the Oxford's Coronavirus Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), we design both an adjusted probit model and a recursive bivariate probit model to test for endogeneity of Covid-19 infection. Estimations results show a bell curve between stringency and SAH degradation: a deleterious effect of restrictions at low levels of stringency up to a tipping point after which more stringent policies become protective. Covid-19 infection moderates this association. Depending on individuals' initial health, the effect of restrictions is uneven: highly stringent policies become damaging for individuals most likely to enter a vulnerabilization path, for whom the bell curve is thus inverted. Overall, this study shows clear patterns of association between policy stringency and perceived health among older Europeans, and highlights the potential trade-off between targeting as many people as possible, those in poor health or those on the edge of vulnerability.

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  • Dupuy, Jules & Barnay, Thomas & Defebvre, Eric, 2024. "Clear as a bell? Policy stringency and elderly health during Covid-19," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 349(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:349:y:2024:i:c:s0277953624003228
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116878
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Policy stringency; Self-assessed health; Covid-19 infection; European elderly; Interaction effects;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • H12 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Crisis Management
    • C35 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions

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