A Cross-Cultural Study on the Effects of Government Control Policies on Mobility in COVID-19

Abstract

This study sought to explore the impact of government policies aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19, such as social distancing and quarantine, on the reduction in the mobility of people and the role of national culture in moderating this effect. To test this hypothesis, this study collected 21,150 sets of data from 57 countries worldwide and analyzed them using a multilevel growth model. In addition, the number of COVID-19-infected people, the number of people vaccinated, number of days since the first COVID-19, median age by country, population density, total population, and GDP per capita, which can affect mobility, were added as control variables in the study model. Notably, the results of our analysis revealed that the stringency of government policies had a negative effect on mobility and that this effect differed according to cultural characteristics. The findings of the current study have the following implications. First, differences between countries were explained by exploring the effectiveness of government policies in preventing the increase in infectious diseases based on a cultural perspective. Second, the results of this study provide policy implications that international policy makers can refer to apart from the context of the COVID-19 epidemic by presenting country-specific differences in government policies.