Socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two Australian cities during transitional periods of the COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, both government-mandated lockdowns and discretionary changes in behaviour combined to produce dramatic and abrupt changes to human mobility patterns. To understand the socioeconomic determinants of intervention compliance and discretionary behavioural responses to epidemic threats, we investigate whether changes in human mobility showed a systematic variation with socioeconomic status during two distinct periods of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. We analyse mobility data from two major urban centres and compare the trends during mandated stay-at-home policies and after the full relaxation of NPIs, which coincided with a large surge of COVID-19 cases. We analyse data aggregated from de-identified GPS trajectories, collated from providers of mobile phone applications and aggregated to small spatial regions. Our results demonstrate systematic decreases in mobility relative to pre-pandemic baseline with the Index of Education and Occupation, for both pandemic periods. On the other hand, the Index of Economic Resources was not correlated with mobility changes. This result contrasts with observations from other national contexts, where reductions in mobility typically increased strongly with indicators of wealth. We interpret these findings in the context of the economic policies put in place by Australian authorities to subsidise household incomes and maintain the essential workforce.