We study individual aversion to health and income inequality in three European countries (the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy), its determinants and especially, the effects of exposure to three types of COVID-19 specific shocks affecting individuals’ employment status, their income and health. Next, using evidence of representative samples of the population in the UK, we compare levels of health- and income-inequality aversion in the UK between the years 2016 and 2020. We document evidence of a significant increase in inequality aversion in both income and health domains. However, we show that inequality aversion is higher in the income domain than in the health domain. Furthermore, we find that inequality aversion in both domains increases in age and education and decreases in income and risk appetite. However, people directly exposed to major health shocks during the COVID-19 pandemic generally exhibited lower levels of aversion to both income and health inequality. Finally, we show that inequality aversion was significantly higher among those exposed to higher risk of COVID-19 mortality who experienced major health shocks during the pandemic.

我们研究了三个欧洲国家（英国、德国和意大利）的个人对健康和收入不平等的厌恶及其决定因素，特别是暴露于三种类型的 COVID-19 特定冲击对个人就业状况、收入的影响和健康。接下来，利用英国人口代表性样本的证据，我们比较了 2016 年至 2020 年英国对健康和收入不平等的厌恶程度。我们记录了收入和健康方面对不平等的厌恶显着增加的证据域。然而，我们发现收入领域的不平等厌恶程度高于健康领域。此外，我们发现这两个领域的不平等厌恶随着年龄和教育程度的增加而增加，而收入和风险偏好的下降。然而，在 COVID-19 大流行期间直接遭受重大健康冲击的人们普遍对收入和健康不平等表现出较低程度的厌恶。最后，我们发现，在那些面临较高 COVID-19 死亡风险且在大流行期间经历过重大健康冲击的人中，不平等厌恶感明显更高。