Demetrio Panarello

The United Kingdom introduced a national lockdown in March 2020, as a means to curb the rising pace of COVID-19 infections in the country. Since then, the various restrictions imposed on citizens have produced enormous social and economic consequences. However, full awareness of the mid-term and long-term impacts of such restrictive measures is still lacking. In this paper, by making use of longitudinal data from the Understanding Society COVID-19 study, consisting of nine survey waves administered to a representative sample of UK citizens from April 2020 to September 2021, we analyze the potential determinants of lack of employment and poor economic conditions, considering individuals’ length of stay in an economic hardship context and the differential effects related to their socio-demographic characteristics.

How do organized economic interests affect the governance of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic? We investigate whether the structural and instrumental power of employer organizations and unions impact upon the stringency of containment measures implemented by governing authorities to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on Italy during the first Covid-19 wave of early 2020 as a crucial case. Using Hausman–Taylor panel regression models and original indicators of regional stringency and of unions and employers’ organizations’ efforts to exercise instrumental power via public pressure on social media, we find that the intensity of public pressure by employer organizations is negatively correlated with the stringency of the policy responses implemented by regional authorities to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, whilst union pressures only show a limited effect. Our findings demonstrate that business pressure and the interplay of economic and class interests are constitutive of the governance of a crucial social and public health phenomenon such as the Covid-19 pandemic.