IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/psewpa/hal-03005718.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Anxiety increases the willingness to be exposed to covid-19 risk among young adults in France

Author

Listed:
  • Fabrice Etilé

    (PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Pierre-Yves Geoffard

    (PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak has generated significant uncertainty about the future, especially for young adults. Health and economic threats, as well as more diffuse concerns about the consequences of COVID-19, can trigger feelings of anxiety, leading individuals to adopt uncertainty-reducing behaviours. We tested whether anxiety was associated with an increase in willingness to be exposed to the risk of COVID-19 infection (WiRE) using an online survey administered to 3,110 French individuals aged between 18 and 35 years old during the lockdown period (April 2020). Overall, 56.5% of the sample declared a positive WiRE. Unemployment was associated with a higher WiRE (+8.2 percentage points (pp); 95% CI +0.9-15.4 pp). One standard deviation increases in income (+1160€) and psychological state anxiety raised the WiRE by +2.7 pp (95% CI: +1.1-4.4 pp) and +3.9 pp (95% CI: +1.6-6.2 pp),respectively. A one standard deviation increase in perceived hospitalisation risk was associated with a -4.1 pp (95% CI: -6.2-2.1 pp) decrease in the WiRE. Overall, our results suggest that both the prospect of economic losses and psychological anxiety can undermine young adults' adherence to physical distancing recommendations. Public policies targeting young adults must consider both their economic situation and their mental health, and they must use uncertainty-reducing communication strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabrice Etilé & Pierre-Yves Geoffard, 2020. "Anxiety increases the willingness to be exposed to covid-19 risk among young adults in France," PSE Working Papers hal-03005718, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:psewpa:hal-03005718
    DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/5ntzc
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Campos-Mercade, Pol & Meier, Armando N. & Schneider, Florian H. & Wengström, Erik, 2021. "Prosociality predicts health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    2. Fernando Alvarez & David Argente, 2020. "A Simple Planning Problem for COVID-19 Lockdown," Working Papers 2020-34, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    3. Abel Brodeur & Idaliya Grigoryeva & Lamis Kattan, 2021. "Stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and trust," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 1321-1354, October.
    4. Thiemo Fetzer & Lukas Hensel & Johannes Hermle & Christopher Roth, 2021. "Coronavirus Perceptions and Economic Anxiety," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(5), pages 968-978, December.
    5. Ketki Sheth & Greg C. Wright, 2020. "The usual suspects: do risk tolerance, altruism, and health predict the response to COVID-19?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 1041-1052, December.
    6. Caroli, Eve & Weber-Baghdiguian, Lexane, 2016. "Self-reported health and gender: The role of social norms," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 220-229.
    7. Geoffard, Pierre-Yves & Philipson, Tomas, 1996. "Rational Epidemics and Their Public Control," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 37(3), pages 603-624, August.
    8. Falk, Armin & Zimmermann, Florian, 2016. "Beliefs and Utility: Experimental Evidence on Preferences for Information," IZA Discussion Papers 10172, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David B. Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2017. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," NBER Working Papers 23943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Tomasz Strzalecki, 2013. "Temporal Resolution of Uncertainty and Recursive Models of Ambiguity Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(3), pages 1039-1074, May.
    11. Saidi, Farzad & Alfaro, Laura & Faia, Ester & Lamersdorf, Nora, 2020. "Social Interactions in Pandemics: Fear, Altruism, and Reciprocity," CEPR Discussion Papers 14716, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. George Wu, 1999. "Anxiety and Decision Making with Delayed Resolution of Uncertainty," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 159-199, April.
    13. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2018. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1645-1692.
    14. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01379374 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Caroli, Eve & Weber-Baghdiguian, Lexane, 2016. "Self-reported health and gender: The role of social norms," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 220-229.
    16. Borgonovi, Francesca & Andrieu, Elodie, 2020. "Bowling together by bowling alone: Social capital and COVID-19," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    17. George Loewenstein, 2000. "Emotions in Economic Theory and Economic Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 426-432, May.
    18. Ananda Ganguly & Joshua Tasoff, 2017. "Fantasy and Dread: The Demand for Information and the Consumption Utility of the Future," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4037-4060, December.
    19. Kreps, David M & Porteus, Evan L, 1978. "Temporal Resolution of Uncertainty and Dynamic Choice Theory," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 185-200, January.
    20. Tim Reeskens & Marc Hooghe, 2008. "Cross-cultural measurement equivalence of generalized trust. Evidence from the European Social Survey (2002 and 2004)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 85(3), pages 515-532, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fabrice Etilé & Pierre-Yves Geoffard, 2020. "Anxiety Increases the Willingness the Willingness to Be Exposed to Covid-19 Risk among Young Adults in France," Working Papers halshs-03066539, HAL.
    2. Fabrice Etilé & Pierre-Yves Geoffard, 2022. "Associations between anxiety and the willingness to be exposed to COVID-19 risk among French young adults during the first pandemic wave," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(1), pages 1-18, January.
    3. Étienne Dagorn & Martina Dattilo & Matthieu Pourieux, 2022. "Preferences matter! Political Responses to the COVID-19 and Population’s Preferences," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 2022-01, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    4. Rafaï, Ismaël & Blayac, Thierry & Dubois, Dimitri & Duchêne, Sébastien & Nguyen-Van, Phu & Ventelou, Bruno & Willinger, Marc, 2023. "Stated preferences outperform elicited preferences for predicting reported compliance with COVID-19 prophylactic measures," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    5. Abel Brodeur & David Gray & Anik Islam & Suraiya Bhuiyan, 2021. "A literature review of the economics of COVID‐19," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1007-1044, September.
    6. SeEun Jung & Sang-Hyun Kim, 2020. "Managing the Public Health Risks in the Time of COVID-19," Working papers 2020rwp-181, Yonsei University, Yonsei Economics Research Institute.
    7. Attar, M. Aykut & Tekin-Koru, Ayça, 2022. "Latent social distancing: Identification, causes and consequences," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 46(1).
    8. Henrike Sternberg & Janina Isabel Steinert & Tim Büthe, 2024. "Compliance in the public versus the private realm: Economic preferences, institutional trust and COVID‐19 health behaviors," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(5), pages 1055-1119, May.
    9. Rehse, Dominik & Tremöhlen, Felix, 2020. "Fostering participation in digital public health interventions: The case of digital contact tracing," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-076, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    10. Johannes Buckenmaier & Eugen Dimant & Ann-Christin Posten & Ulrich Schmidt, 2021. "Efficient Institutions and Effective Deterrence: On Timing and Uncertainty of Formal Sanctions," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 177-201, April.
    11. Martin F. Quaas & Jasper N. Meya & Hanna Schenk & Björn Bos & Moritz A. Drupp & Till Requate, 2020. "The Social Cost of Contacts: Theory and Evidence for the Covid-19 Pandemic in Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 8347, CESifo.
    12. Rehse, Dominik & Tremöhlen, Felix, 2022. "Fostering participation in digital contact tracing," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    13. Johnson Kakeu, 2023. "Concerns for Long-Run Risks and Natural Resource Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 84(4), pages 1051-1093, April.
    14. Sonia OREFICCE & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2021. "Gender inequality in COVID-19 times: evidence from UK prolific participants," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 261-287, June.
    15. Laliotis, Ioannis & Minos, Dimitrios, 2022. "Religion, social interactions, and COVID-19 incidence in Western Germany," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    16. Brodeur, Abel & Cook, Nikolai & Wright, Taylor, 2021. "On the effects of COVID-19 safer-at-home policies on social distancing, car crashes and pollution," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    17. Cédric Gutierrez & Emmanuel Kemel, 2021. "Measuring natural source dependence," Working Papers hal-03330409, HAL.
    18. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Enrico Diecidue & Emmanuel Kemel & Ayse Onculer, 2022. "Temporal Risk: Utility vs. Probability Weighting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5162-5186, July.
    19. Ho Fai Chan & Martin Brumpton & Alison Macintyre & Jefferson Arapoc & David A Savage & Ahmed Skali & David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2020. "How confidence in health care systems affects mobility and compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-18, October.
    20. Rodríguez Chatruc, Marisol & Rozo, Sandra, 2021. "Attitudes towards Migrants during Crisis Times," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 11326, Inter-American Development Bank.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:psewpa:hal-03005718. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.