SHARE Working Paper Series 62-2021: Adjustment of daily activities to restrictions and reported spread of the COVID-19 pandemic across Europe

Abstract

This paper addresses adjustments of daily activities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic among people aged 50 years and older in Europe, and investigates the extent to which such adjustments are associated with the stringency of governmental restrictions and the overall spread of COVID-19. We use data from the SHARE Corona Survey collected during summer 2020, published data on government response stringency, and reported country-specific prevalence and mortality of COVID-19. Our analyses show that older Europeans across the continent have reduced their daily activities quite substantially during the pandemic. However, we observe variation across countries and demographic groups, which may be important to highlight for policymakers. Our explanatory analysis replicates previous studies using mobility data, showing that both restrictions and infections predict a reduction in mobility. Thus, policymakers could potentially rely on both restrictions and voluntary adjustments in order to decrease the spread of the virus. However, it is noteworthy that we find relatively weaker associations with restrictions compared to previous studies using mobility data. One explanation for this discrepancy could be that our study focuses on older people, who face a higher risk of becoming severely ill and therefore have stronger incentives to adjust their behaviours independent of governmental regulations.