Spousal Occupational Sorting and COVID-19 Incidence: Evidence from the United States

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effect of patterns in spousal occupational sorting on the incidence of COVID-19 in the United States over the period of April-June 2020. METHODS & MATERIALS: Two regression models with the state-level data from the United States are considered. The outcome variables are the number of COVID-19 cases per 100’000 people and the number of deaths from COVID-19 per 100’000 people in state s on date t. The daily observations of COVID-19 cases and deaths are pooled together for each week. The explanatory variables are taken from the 2015-2019 American Community Survey and include an array of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics: average household size, share of married couples, share of males, shares of age groups (20-39, 40-59, and above 60), shares of Black, Hispanic, and Asian, share of people without health insurance, median income, population density, average commute time to work, share of people who use public transportation, and employment of working-age population by occupations. The main variable of interest, the measure of spousal occupational sorting, is constructed using the Pearson correlation coefficient between the degrees of occupation contact intensity of husband and wife. All the explanatory variables represent the pre-pandemic characteristics of the U.S. states. The regressions are run for each week so that the coefficients are allowed to be time-varying. RESULTS: A higher degree of spousal sorting into occupations of different contact intensity is associated with a greater number of COVID-19 cases and deaths per 100’000 people over the first weeks of the pandemic. The effect on the number of cases is statistically significant during the first 2 weeks following April 1, 2020. The effect on the number of deaths is statistically significant over the first 12 weeks. CONCLUSION: The degree of contact-intensity-based spousal occupational sorting is likely to account for the part of the state-level variation in the numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths over the first months of the pandemic. First, this finding is consistent with the literature that emphasizes the importance of household transmission of COVID-19. Second, more broadly, it highlights the significant effects of socioeconomic factors on the incidence of COVID-19.