Political Affiliation and Human Mobility Under Stay-at-Home Orders: A Difference-in-Difference Analysis with County and Time Fixed Effects
Siona Prasad, Yulin Hswen · 2021
Background In late March 2020, state and local governments across the country issued stay-at-home directives to slow the spread of COVID-19. However, divergent messages from political parties on the severity of COVID-19 and differing levels of support of these social distancing measures have potentially prompted differential behaviors across political groups. This study examines state-level partisan differences in changes in human mobility during stay-at-home orders. Methods Aggregated and de-identified large-scale human mobility data was collected from Cuebiq, a mobility insights platform, to measure the fraction of users that staying at home. A difference-in-difference analysis was performed to evaluate the changes in human mobility before and after stay-at-home orders were implemented by state political afflictions. Results Before March 19th, 2020, there was a 0.82% difference (SE=0.003, p<0.001) between the percent of users staying at home in republican states versus democratic states. Difference-in-difference analysis revealed that on average, democratic states experienced a 4.11% (SE = 0.006, p<0.001) greater increase in the percent of users that stayed at home compared to republican states pre-post the implementation of stay-at-home orders. States that were not issued state-wide stay-at-home orders were excluded from the study. Conclusion Evidence supports the differential changes in adherence to stay-at-home orders by state political affiliation. These results suggest that political messaging may be a strong factor in influencing social distancing behaviors.