As people’s mobility determines the spread of COVID-19 virus, this paper scrutinises factors that drive their mobility responses during the pandemic. Utilising Google mobility data, labour force statistics and daily COVID-19 data, this study finds that mobility changes are induced by various heterogeneous behavioural responses across provinces in Indonesia. Variations in the pre-pandemic labour structure, people’s perception of health risks and local policy settings define the mobility changes. In addition, behavioural responses are larger in the early pandemic phase, indicating the importance of arrangements to manage the situation in the early period.  

This research was conducted as a part of the project ‘ERIA Research on COVID-19’ at the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).

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