Complying with COVID-19 policy: The role of citizenship norms for young people's compliance with Sweden's voluntary COVID-19 recommendations

Sweden's COVID-19 policy was characterized by reliance on voluntary compliance. Citizens were expected to act responsibly. Previous research has not focused on the role of citizenship norms (duty-based, engaged, and critical) in the COVID-19 crisis. This is an important omission, since citizenship norms are expected to raise social responsibility and trigger prosocial behavior. This article asks how important citizenship norms are for explaining voluntary COVID-19 policy compliance. Additionally, it considers perceptions of how other people comply, individual background factors, and interpersonal and institutional trust. The study focuses on Swedish high school youth, a group reported to comply less with voluntary COVID-19 measures. Using survey data (N = 1823), we find higher reported voluntary compliance by high school youth who adhere more strongly to the duty-based citizenship norm. Importantly, believing that other people follow the COVID-19 recommendations is strongly associated with following them. Thus, next to citizenship norms, “descriptive norms” (i.e., what other people are doing) are central for individuals to decide how they will comply. We further find that differences in worry about the pandemic and socioeconomic background factors (migration background and economic situation of the household) explain variation in compliance. Institutional and interpersonal trust play a less important role. These findings challenge the strong focus on trust in previous research. Our findings have implications for research on policy compliance in the context of crisis, and for public policy.