COVID 19: Women Are Willing to Respect the Rules and Pay More for Testing

A BOCCONI AND UCL SURVEY SHOWS THAT ITALIAN WOMEN HAVE A STRONGER PERCEPTION OF COVID RISK, ARE WILLING TO PAY MORE FOR SEROLOGICAL TESTS AND SWABS, AND ARE MORE INCLINED TO COMPLY WITH SAFETY MEASURES

Italian women, compared to men, are more afraid of contracting the coronavirus, perceive a greater effectiveness of testing systems and are willing to pay more for serological tests and swabs. This is what emerges from the preliminary results of a survey, part of a project on coronavirus and risk perception conducted by Pamela Giustinelli, Bocconi, and Gabriella Conti, University College London for the COVID Crisis Lab. The results also show that women are more likely to comply with security measures, such as masks and social distancing, while men are more likely to use Immuni, the Italian contact tracing app.
 
The survey involved a sample of the Italian population in early June, at the beginning of Phase 3 of the emergency. Regarding the swab, the average difference in WTP (willingness to pay) between women and men is 5 euros. For the serological test, the average difference is 6 euros. These gender differentials had already emerged at an early stage of the survey in early May, but with higher differentials (8 euros for the swab and 11.25 euros for the serological test).
 
These gender differences persist even controlling for characteristics of people such as age, employment status, family income, etc. and other relevant measures such as perceptions of risk related to the coronavirus (subjective probability of having contracted or contracting it), and perceptions of reliability of the test.
 
“The gender differential in WTP is substantial and significant. A first reason concerns the different subjective perception of the risk of contracting the virus between genders. In our sample, women on average assign a higher subjective probability than men,” explains Prof. Giustinelli. “Another factor concerns risk appetite and altruism. Women tend to have a lower risk tolerance and a higher degree of altruism on average than men. Finally, another empirically more relevant reason is related to the perception of the effectiveness of testing in fighting and controlling the epidemic. In our sample, in fact, women on average have a more positive perception of such effectiveness”.
 
The survey also found differences between men and women in other areas. Concerning the intentions - measured as subjective percentage probabilities (between 0 and 100%) - to follow behavior rules in the next 4 weeks, women report a higher probability of following a series of measures such as: wearing the mask (+2.45 percentage points compared to men), maintaining the social safety distance (+5.64 percentage points) and wearing a mask and maintaining distance (+5.10 percentage points). These differences, although small, are statistically significant.
 
Regarding the use of the app Immuni, instead, the gender difference is in favor of men, who report to be more informed than women and to have downloaded the app in a slightly higher percentage: 27%, compared to 26.1%. Moreover, the probability of downloading and actively using Immuni in the future is about 38.7% among men, 4 percentage points higher than the average indicated by women.

by Tomaso Eridani