Yahoo Autos COVID-related stigma cost Asian restaurants in US $7.4 billion in lost revenue: study
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A new study reveals that COVID-related stigma cost Asian American restaurants over $7.4 billion in lost revenue in 2020.
As anti-Chinese sentiment rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers from Boston College, the University of Michigan and Microsoft Research studied the subtle patterns of consumer discrimination arising from anti-Asian bias and how it has led to the 18.4% decrease in traffic relative to comparable non-Asian restaurants.
In their study titled "The cost of anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic” and published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour on Thursday, the researchers found that Asian restaurants in the U.S. suffered an estimated $7.42 billion in lost revenue in 2020, with greater losses in areas that have higher levels of support for former President Donald Trump, who explicitly blamed the COVID-19 pandemic on China and regularly referred to it as the “China virus” or “kung flu.”
The findings, which were derived from a series of surveys, online search trends and consumer traffic data, are consistent with “the roles of collective blame, out-group homogeneity and ethnic misidentification.”
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The change in attitudes toward Asian food during the pandemic was propelled by a combination of blaming Asians for the spread of COVID-19 and experiencing fear of Chinese food, according to the report.
“The Covid-19 pandemic originated in China,” co-author Masha Krupenkin, a Boston College assistant professor of political science, said.
Many actors in U.S. politics and media, especially those that were ideologically conservative, emphasized the connection between covid and China as a way of placing blame for the pandemic. At the same time, there was a sharp increase in incidents of discrimination and violence against Asian-Americans.
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According to Krupenkin, the researchers hope to further examine patterns of discrimination and negative media narratives relating to specific groups.
In an interview with NextShark, co-author Justin T. Huang, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Michigan, explained that anti-China bias among consumers who would misidentify other Asian restaurants as Chinese have led to decreased visits to non-Chinese Asian restaurants as well.
