Disentangling youth non-compliance with COVID-19 restrictions from gender, socioeconomic vulnerability and poor mental health: lessons from the first wave in Catalonia

The COVID-19 pandemic focused public attention on youth non-compliance with restrictions, but the social and health factors underpinning this behaviour were overlooked. Hereby, we considered the complex relationships between age (16–29 vs. 30+), non-compliance, socioeconomic vulnerabilities and poor mental health using a gender perspective. Data were derived from the ‘Survey on the impact of COVID-19’, fielded on 11–15 April 2020 in Catalonia. In a non-probabilistic sample of 14,123 individuals, we performed gender-stratified mediation analyses using Structural Equation Models. The results suggest that youth was related to non-compliance among men, but not among women. Nonetheless, young women were more frequently fired than older women, which enhanced their likelihood of non-compliance. Mental health outcomes were poorer among young people but did not relate to youth non-compliance. Finally, adverse socioeconomic situations related to non-compliance and poor mental health, but this was not an idiosyncrasy of young people. Lessons from the first COVID-19 wave suggest that young age intersects with gender and socioeconomic factors in determining non-compliance. This highlights the need to incorporate a gender and socioeconomic inequalities perspective in the design and evaluation of policies that tackle non-compliance among young people. Only by using this holistic approach will we effectively manage future public health crises.