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CEP Covid-19 analysis

Covid-19 and social mobility


Governments are having to balance short- and long-term interests, and the trade-offs they generate, as they try to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. Social distancing measures may limit the number of immediate deaths from the coronavirus, but an extended lockdown could cause lasting damage to livelihoods for years to come. The effects vary across age groups: while the coronavirus health shock has particularly affected the over-60s, the longer-term economic and social damage is likely to hit young people disproportionately, especially the under-25s.


Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin

28 May 2020     Paper Number CEPCOVID-19-004

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This CEP Covid-19 analysis is published under the centre's Community Wellbeing programme.