Societal restraint of behavior during the pre-vaccine pandemic saved working-age men but not women.

Abstract

Risky behavior disproportionately contributes to death in the working-age (i.e., 15 to 64 years old) population. Men exhibit riskier behavior than do women. As a result, working-age men die more frequently than do working-age women. Despite these circumstances, surprisingly little research has attempted to estimate the gender-specific efficacy of societal restraint of risky behavior. This study provides such estimations by exploiting differences among the Nordic countries in the dose of forced restraint adopted to reduce mortality in the pre-vaccine COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that relatively great restraint reduced the likelihood of death among working-age men but not among working-age women. The findings suggest that debate over the wisdom of forced restraint of behavior as a strategy to reduce deaths should reflect the likely divergent effects of such interventions on working-age men and women.