Social homogeneity and spread of pandemic: Evidence from India
研究印度疫情期间种姓同质性对新冠感染传播的影响，发现同质性高的地区感染增长更慢，可能与人员流动减少和卫生工作者参与增加有关。
Compliance with the public health guidelines during pandemics requires coordinated community actions which might be undermined in socially diverse areas. In this paper, we assess the relationship between caste-group homogeneity and spread of COVID-19 infection during the nationwide lockdown and unlocking period in India. Estimates using daily data show that caste-homogeneous districts experienced slower growth in infection for about 2.5 months since the beginning of the lockdown. The findings further indicate that caste-homogeneous districts took more days to cross the concentration thresholds of 50-500 cases. In terms of mechanisms, we find suggestive evidence of lower mobility in caste-homogeneous localities during the lockdown period, which would have slowed infection spread. We also find a significantly higher engagement of frontline health workers in these districts after the outbreak. Our findings reveal how caste-group homogeneity can be used to identify potential hotspots and emphasize the importance of health workers, and decentralized policy response.