Culture and contagion: Individualism and compliance with COVID-19 policy

In the first wave of the pandemic, places where geographic mobility declined more rapidly saw fewer cases of COVID-19. And yet, there is significant variation in people's compliance with the lockdown measures introduced by governments in order to curb the spread of the virus. In this paper, we show that much of this variation can be explained by differ-ent cultural traits. Specifically, we advance the hypothesis that individualism, which puts greater value on personal freedom, makes government intervention harder, whereas col-lectivism, which emphasises the wellbeing of the group, makes collective action easier. We find support for these ideas across 111 countries, but also when exploiting within country variation in the two largest economies in the world: China and the United States. Across a host of specifications, people were less abiding by the lockdown rules in places with greater prevalence of individualistic cultural traits. We conclude that cultural factors play a critical role in successful policy implementation. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study reveals that cultural traits such as individualism and collectivism influence the level of compliance with government lockdown measures. Regions with more individualistic cultural traits are less likely to abide by lockdown rules, while regions with collectivist traits are more likely to engage in collective action.