Who cares about health and the economy through the Covid-19 pandemic? Longitudinally tracking changes and heterogeneity in people’s perceptions of risks

The Covid-19 pandemic is widely interpreted as a double-edged crisis between the preservation of health and economic functioning. Considering individuals’ perceptions of the pandemic risks, we devised a ten-point tradeoff scale asking people to situate their concern between health and the economy. We administered this question seven times to a representative panel of French residents from April until November 2020, establishing a barometer that tracked changes and heterogeneity between these two concerns. We find overall concern moved in favor of the economy over time. There is substantial heterogeneity across respondents: those reporting risk from Covid-19, lower subjective social status and politically leftwing preferences were more concerned with health than the rest of the population. This partially applies to the less educated, the less wealthy and the young, suggesting the pandemic reinforces preexisting social cleavages. Beyond the pandemic situation, longitudinal tradeoff scales are a promising way to investigate risk perceptions.