Marta VELJKOVIC, RECCHI Ettore, ZOLA Andrew, "Household Income Mobility in France over the COVID-19 Pandemic: Losers and Winners of the Crisis", Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 101093, 2025

Highlights

  • Downward household equivalized income mobility in France increased substantially over the COVID-19 pandemic (2019-2022) compared to before (2016-2019)
  • In parallel, the poverty and inequality levels also increased in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic
  • The patterns of income loss were independent from COVID-19-related health conditions and remained largely stable across different social groups from before (2016-2019) through the crisis (2019-2022)
  • This challenges the idea that turbulent times act as ‘great equalizers’, and provides evidence of cumulative (dis)advantage process defined in wide, but not in strict terms, implying a persistence rather than reinforcement of unequal income mobility patterns
  • The avoidance of income loss rather than income increase seems to separate ‘winners’ from ‘losers’ of the COVID-19 pandemic
Centre_national_de_la_recherche_scientifiquelogo-Sorbonne-Universite_image_650