This book examines the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the degree of inequality in wellbeing (income and wealth, health, access to health care, employment, and education) in a number of different countries around the globe. The effect of socioeconomic inequality within a country on the outcome of the pandemic is also considered. This book studies the differential effects of Covid based on location, age, income, education, gender, race/ethnicity, and immigrant status. Special attention is devoted to indigenous populations and those who are institutionalized. The short- and long-term effects of public policy developed to deal with the pandemic's fallout are studied, as are the effects of the pandemic on innovations in health care systems and likely extensions of public policy instituted during the pandemic to alleviate unemployment, poverty, and income inequality.

Shirley Johnson-Lans is Professor Emerita of Economics of Vassar College (USA). Johnson-Lans has an academic career spanning over 50 years, during which she has taught courses and done research in labor economics, health economics, gender studies, economic inequality, and history of economic thought. She is the author of many journal articles, book chapters and the A Health Economics Primer and Wage Inequality in Africa.