Unpacking the Opinion of Taiwanese on COVID-19 Policies: Going Beyond Simple Aggregate Satisfaction

Cathy  WS Chen; Shu-Hui  Hsieh; Dan  Liou Yu; Timothy  S Rich

Authors

Cathy WS Chen Department of Statistics, Feng Chia University, Taiwan
Shu-Hui Hsieh Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
Dan Liou Yu Department of Information Management and Finance, National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
Timothy S Rich Department of Political Science, Western Kentucky University, USA

Keywords:

Partisanship, presidential votes, health policies, goodman and Kruskals lambda, mixed-effects logistic regression

Abstract

This research examines Taiwans public health behaviors, attitudes, and policy opinions regarding COVID-19 policies during the pandemic, taking South Korea as a comparison. We assess how public approval of COVID-19 policies correlates with partisanship, voting behavior, and confidence in government and healthcare during the pandemic. We focus on three major issues: 1) Identifying
key factors associated with confidence in the governments pandemic response. 2) Investigating the connection between presidential voting behavior and pandemic policies. 3) Evaluating respondents confidence in specific policies and the healthcare system during the pandemic. We collect samples from the Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS) conducted between September and December 2021,
obtaining 1,260 complete face-to-face interview responses. We use Goodman and Kruskals lambda to measure the correlation between each policy and the respondents responses. Using decision tree learning and considering the region as a random effect in the mixed-effects logistic regression, we examine the relationships between political outcome variables and their explanatory counterparts. Our study reveals that political factors and demographic characteristics significantly shape public confidence in Taiwans governmental and healthcare responses to COVID-19. The majority of Taiwanese people, irrespective of voting preferences, generally support measures such as mobile phone surveillance to track infected individuals, border closures, mandatory face masks, and isolation of those with the disease to curb COVID-19 transmission. Additionally, the closure of educational institutions as a public health measure enhances public confidence in the government.

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