IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v102y2021i6p2516-2527.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Polarized social distancing: Residents of Republican‐majority counties spend more time away from home during the COVID‐19 crisis

Author

Listed:
  • Damon C. Roberts
  • Stephen M. Utych

Abstract

Background The COVID‐19 pandemic has presented unique challenges across the world in getting citizens to change their behaviors in response to a public health crisis. In the United States, it appears that partisan differences in willingness to comply with these measures have emerged: Democrats are typically more supportive than Republicans in their stated support of and willingness to comply with these measures. However, actual behaviors are notoriously hard to accurately capture with survey items. Objective To determine the extent to which county‐level partisanship influences average willingness to stay at home, and how these effects are moderated by county level characteristics. Methods We use personal device (cell phone) data provided by SafeGraph, aggregated at the county‐level, to determine how county‐level partisanship is correlated with willigness to stay at home. We additionally test whether these effects are conditional upon the prevalence of COVID‐19 in the county, and the percentage of the county under 30 years old. Results We find that county‐level partisanship predicts aggregate level compliance with social distancing behavior—citizens of counties that are more Republican spend more time away from home than Democratic counties. We find that the number of COVID‐19 cases in the county and the percentage of the county under the age of 30 moderate these effects. Conclusion Partisanship appears to be a powerful predictor, at the county‐level, of willigness to follow stay at home orders in the early stages of the COVID‐19 pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Damon C. Roberts & Stephen M. Utych, 2021. "Polarized social distancing: Residents of Republican‐majority counties spend more time away from home during the COVID‐19 crisis," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2516-2527, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:102:y:2021:i:6:p:2516-2527
    DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.13101
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.13101
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ssqu.13101?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brad T. Gomez & J. Matthew Wilson, 2008. "Political Sophistication and Attributions of Blame in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 38(4), pages 633-650, Fall.
    2. Allcott, Hunt & Boxell, Levi & Conway, Jacob & Gentzkow, Matthew & Thaler, Michael & Yang, David, 2020. "Polarization and public health: Partisan differences in social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    3. White, Ismail K. & Laird, Chryl N. & Allen, Troy D., 2014. "Selling Out?: The Politics of Navigating Conflicts between Racial Group Interest and Self-interest," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 108(4), pages 783-800, November.
    4. Kirsten Cornelson & Boriana Miloucheva, 2020. "Political polarization, social fragmentation, and cooperation during a pandemic," Working Papers tecipa-663, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mercer, Katie Holstein & Mollborn, Stefanie, 2023. "Distinction through distancing: Norm formation and enforcement during the COVID-19 pandemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 338(C).

    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. Milosh, Maria & Painter, Marcus & Sonin, Konstantin & Van Dijcke, David & Wright, Austin L., 2021. "Unmasking partisanship: Polarization undermines public response to collective risk," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    2. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    3. Aassve,Arnstein & Capezzone,Tommaso & Cavalli,Nicolo’ & Conzo,Pierluigi & Peng,Chen, 2022. "Trust in the time of coronavirus: longitudinal evidence from the United States," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 202203, University of Turin.
    4. Shana Kushner Gadarian & Sara Wallace Goodman & Thomas B Pepinsky, 2021. "Partisanship, health behavior, and policy attitudes in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(4), pages 1-13, April.
    5. Chen, Zhuo & Li, Pengfei & Liao, Li & Liu, Lu & Wang, Zhengwei, 2024. "Assessing and addressing the coronavirus-induced economic crisis: Evidence from 1.5 billion sales invoices," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    6. repec:osf:socarx:vwzk7_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Acolin, Jessica & Fishman, Paul, 2023. "Beyond the biomedical, towards the agentic: A paradigm shift for population health science," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 326(C).
    8. Adam Brzezinski & Valentin Kecht & David Van Dijcke & Austin L. Wright, 2020. "Belief in Science Influences Physical Distancing in Response to COVID-19 Lockdown Policies," Working Papers 2020-56, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    9. Jennifer D. Wu & Gregory A. Huber, 2021. "Partisan Differences in Social Distancing May Originate in Norms and Beliefs: Results from Novel Data," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2251-2265, September.
    10. Fazio, Andrea & Reggiani, Tommaso & Sabatini, Fabio, 2022. "The political cost of sanctions: Evidence from COVID-19," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(9), pages 872-878.
    11. Romer, Daniel & Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, 2020. "Conspiracy theories as barriers to controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 263(C).
    12. Jacek Rothert, 2020. "Optimal federal redistribution during the uncoordinated response to a pandemic," Departmental Working Papers 64, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.
    13. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Michael Weber, 2020. "Political Polarization and Expected Economic Outcomes," Working Papers 2020-158, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    14. 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.
    15. Bidisha Mandal & Nilton Porto & D. Elizabeth Kiss & Soo Hyun Cho & Lorna Saboe‐Wounded Head, 2023. "Health insurance coverage during the COVID‐19 pandemic: The role of Medicaid expansion," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 296-319, January.
    16. Lou, Jiehong & Shen, Xingchi & Niemeier, Deb, 2020. "Are stay-at-home orders more difficult to follow for low-income groups?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    17. Ross Levine & Chen Lin & Mingzhu Tai & Wensi Xie, 2021. "How Did Depositors Respond to COVID-19? [A crisis of banks as liquidity providers]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5438-5473.
    18. Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Taylor Wright, 2020. "COVID-19, Stay-at-Home Orders and Employment: Evidence from CPS Data," Carleton Economic Papers 20-04, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 19 May 2020.
    19. Chiara Natalie Focacci & Pak Hung Lam & Yu Bai, 2022. "Choosing the right COVID-19 indicator: crude mortality, case fatality, and infection fatality rates influence policy preferences, behaviour, and understanding," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-8, December.
    20. Latkin, Carl A. & Dayton, Lauren & Yi, Grace & Konstantopoulos, Arianna & Boodram, Basmattee, 2021. "Trust in a COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S.: A social-ecological perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    21. Aldo Carranza & Marcel Goic & Eduardo Lara & Marcelo Olivares & Gabriel Y. Weintraub & Julio Covarrubia & Cristian Escobedo & Natalia Jara & Leonardo J. Basso, 2022. "The Social Divide of Social Distancing: Shelter-in-Place Behavior in Santiago During the Covid-19 Pandemic," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(3), pages 2016-2027, March.

    More about this item

    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:bla:socsci:v:102:y:2021:i:6:p:2516-2527. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    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.