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on Demographic Economics |
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Issue of 2012‒10‒20
24 papers chosen by Clarence Nkengne Tsimpo University of Montreal and World Bank Group |
| By: | Hayley Fisher; Hamish Low (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Trinity College, Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | In raw data in the UK, the income loss on separation for women who were cohabiting is less than the loss for those who were married. Cohabitees lose less even after matching on observable characteristics including age and children. This difference is not explained by differences in access to benefits or labour supply responses after separation. We show that the difference arises because of differences in access to family support networks: cohabitees' household income falls by less because they are more likely to live with other adults, particularly their family, following separation, even after matching on age and children. Divorced women do not return to living with their extended families. The greater legal protection offered by marriage does not appear to translate into economic protection. |
| Keywords: | divorce, cohabitation, income loss, matching |
| JEL: | D10 J12 |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:12/17&r=dem |
| By: | Laura Cavalli (Department of Economics (University of Verona)) |
| Abstract: | This work aims at understanding whether, and the extent to which, the intention of having other children is influenced by aspects related to the employment sector chosen by “new” mothers (those who already have one child less than 2 years old). Using Italian data from the Birth Sample Survey conducted by the Italian National Statistical Institute (ISTAT) in 2005, this work models new mothers’ preferences for family formation and for “working conditions”, namely the sector of employment, taking into account the potential endogeneity of the latter. Working in the public sector, which benefits from stronger employment protection, tends to influence the desired and the realized fertility of working mothers. This could be due to the existence of a lower level of wage discrimination compared to the private sector, to the higher level of job security and to the existence of family friendly policies. However, the choice of the working sector could be endogenous. In fact, once the selection effect is taken into account and the choice of working sector and the desired fertility are modelled together, the correlation among unobservable women’s characteristics affecting the two choices is found to be negative: women who desire more children seem to be less likely to self-select into the public sector. This last finding could be the result of more productive women’s working strategies: given that they are those more work oriented (and less family-oriented), they tend to enter into the public sector, a less gender discriminated sector. |
| Keywords: | Desired Fertility, Total Demand for Children, Working Mothers, Public-Private Sector, Seemingly Unrelated Regression models |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ver:wpaper:27/2012&r=dem |
| By: | Mark E. McGovern (Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies and University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | The prevalence of low birth weight is an important aspect of public health which has been linked to increased risk of infant death, increased cost of care, and a range of later life outcomes. Using data from a new Irish cohort study, I document the relationship between birth weight and socioeconomic status. The association of maternal education with birth weight does not appear to be due to the timing of birth or complications during pregnancy, even controlling for a wide range of background characteristics. However, results do suggest intergenerational persistence in the transmission of poor early life conditions. Birth weight predicts a number of outcomes at age 9, including test scores, hospital stays and health. An advantage of the data is that I am able to control for a number of typically unmeasured variables. I determine whether parental investments (as measured by the quality of interaction with the child, parenting style, or school quality) mediate the association between birth weight and later indicators. For test scores, there is evidence of non-linearity, and boys are more adversely aected than girls. I also consider whether there are heterogeneous effects by ability using quantile regression. These results are consistent with a literature which finds that there is a causal relationship between early life conditions and later outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Early life conditions, birth weight, health inequalities, test scores |
| JEL: | I14 I18 J13 |
| Date: | 2012–10–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucd:wpaper:201222&r=dem |
| By: | Yitaek Park (Department of Economics, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea); Junghun Seung (Department of Economics, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea); Kyeongrok Lee (Department of Economics, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies causal relation between the old-age dependency ratio and population change factors (fertility, mortality and migration), using the data of the administrative districtions of South Korea between 2005 to 2011. The main results show there is not panel Granger causality between the old-age dependency ratio and fertility but between the old-age dependency ratio and mortality/migration. |
| Keywords: | Old-age dependency ratio, convergence and divergence, Panel Granger causality test |
| JEL: | C14 J11 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iek:wpaper:1210&r=dem |
| By: | Alan I. Barreca (Department of Economics, Tulane University); Marianne E. Page (Department of Economics, University of California, Davis) |
| Abstract: | Previous research documents a substantive, positive, correlation between the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) and birth outcomes. Using an improved empirical framework, we reach a different conclusion: there is little or no relationship between the minimum legal drinking age and the health of infants born to young mothers. We do, however, find that MLDA policies are associated with the sex ratio at birth. Our estimates suggest that raising the MLDA may reduce fetal losses. |
| Keywords: | alcohol, minimum drinking age, infant health, birthweight, fetal death |
| JEL: | I18 J13 |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tul:wpaper:1220&r=dem |
| By: | Marie-Pier Bergeron Boucher |
| Abstract: | With a lower and lower mortality at younger ages, gains in life expectancy are heavily dependent on improvements in old age survival. However, over the last three decades, life expectancies at ages 65 and 85 did not show a constant rate of progress. Changes in life expectancy come from variations in the prevalence of specific causes of death trends and their interactions. The present thesis looks at the contribution of some causes of death on the changes observed in life expectancies and also at the trends in cause-specific death rates for Canada between 1979 and 2007. Results show that progresses in life expectancy at ages 65 and 85 are still mainly due to decreasing mortality from cardiovascular diseases. However, cardiovascular diseases are not the only causes of death to contribute to the gains in life expectancy. Death rates from the ten leading causes of death in Canada have all declined since the turn of the Century, but with different pathways from 1979 on. |
| Keywords: | Causes of death, life expectancy, mortality, elderly, Canada |
| JEL: | I10 |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcm:sedapp:299&r=dem |
| By: | Pangaribowo, Evita Hanie |
| Abstract: | Using the Indonesian setting with its cultural heterogeneity, this paper examines women’s bargaining power in the distribution of household expenditures. Women’s share of assets and participation in community-based organizations and development in the village is used to approach bargaining power. This study employs the Indonesian longitudinal dataset from the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS). The results show that women’s share of assets has negative effect on adult goods expenditure. This finding confirms that women’s share of asset explicitly increase women autonomy not to allocate the budget share on adult goods expenditure which is identical to male domination. Women’s share of assets also has positive and substantial effect on richer nutrients expenditure such as meat and fish and dairy products. It is also found that women participation in the community-based organization in the village has negative and significant effect on budget share of staple food and adult goods expenditure. This finding embraces the importance of women’s power in the household particularly in terms of distribution of household expenditures to the spending that increase the welfare of the household. |
| Keywords: | intrahousehold power, women’s asset, social capital, expenditures, Consumer/Household Economics, D13, |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aesc12:135521&r=dem |
| By: | Seema Joshi (Dr Seema Joshi is Associate Professor of Economics, Department of Commerce, Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007. E-mail : seemajoshi143@gmail.com.) |
| Abstract: | The developed world is experiencing rapid aging, rising dependency ratio and shrinking youth population. How ever, the ‘youth bulge’ has been experienced in most Asian countries. India is not an exception to this phenomenon. India experienced fertility decline in the 1970s, so the youth peak was experienced in 1990. India is having 70% of its population below the age of 35 years (GOI, 2008). As per 2001 Census, the size of youth population in India was 422.3 million with 219 million males and 203 million females comprising of 41 percent of the total population. The population in the age group of 25-59 age groups is likely to grow very fast and will constitute half of the country’s population by 2050 (Alam, 2006). This phenomenon of emergence of a large, youthful population i.e. ‘Young Population Bulge’ can be a window of opportunity for India to harness the energy of the youth to fuel economic and social development and to bring in’ demographic dividend’. It has been argued in various studies that public investment on children and youth today can ensure greater future returns to society through higher economic growth (via raising human capital formation) and greater social well being of future generations. It is also believed that more than economic growth, it is the development of human capability in its population that makes a nation prosper. Unarguably, a nation cannot develop properly if people are illiterate, they are not free from illness and malnourishment, have no self respect, no work, and no freedom of choice. The development of these aspects of human capability begins in the early childhood and continues in adulthood. Inter alia, a supportive policy framework can play an important role in ensuring the progress of child development and youth development parameters.Given this background, an attempt will be made in this paper to provide a picture of the public investment targeted to children and youth in India. We will analyze the trends in central and state outlays on services having children or /and youth component (over 1990-2010 period) in case of India. The paper will also provide a brief overview of policy environment for the development of adolescents and youth in India. |
| Keywords: | rapid aging, dependency ratio, youth bulge’, window of opportunity, demographic dividend’. central and state outlays, services having children or /and youth component. |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:msm:wpaper:2012/19&r=dem |
| By: | Jordi Brandts; Valeska Groenert; Christina Rott |
| Abstract: | We conduct a laboratory experiment to study how advice affects the gender gap in the entry into a real-effort tournament. Our experiment is motivated by the concerns raised by approaching the gender gap through affirmative action. Advice is given by subjects who have already had some experience with the participation decision. We show that advice improves the entry decision of subjects, in that forgone earnings due to wrong entry decisions go significantly down. This is mainly driven by significantly increased entry of strong performing women, who also become significantly more confident, and reduced entry of weak performing men. |
| Keywords: | experiments, advice, gender gap in competitiveness |
| JEL: | C91 J08 J16 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:663&r=dem |
| By: | Telalagic, S. |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that wives in developing countries use domestic labour as a tool to incentivise husbands, especially when they lack power and cannot credibly threaten divorce. In Malawi, husbands often supplement farm income with wage labour. In our model, this creates moral hazard: husbands may not make sufficient effort to bring home wages. Wives use different tools to incentivise husbands. They either threaten them with divorce or alter their domestic labour. Our theory predicts that wives who would be hurt badly by divorce resort to using domestic labour as a source of power. Others, having better "outside options", use a combination of the two or only divorce threat. We confirm this prediction using survey data from Malawi. Identification is based on the fact that Malawi’s kinship traditions exogenously determine outside options. Wives in patrilineal cultures (with low outside options) react to good consumption outcomes by significantly increasing domestic labour and reducing leisure, whereas matrilineal wives do not. The effect is particularly strong for patrilineal wives with no natal land inheritance. This suggests that land inheritance is a crucial determinant of the accessibility of divorce to women in Malawi. |
| Keywords: | Intra-household allocation, domestic production, divorce, moral hazard, matriliny, Malawi |
| JEL: | D13 D82 J12 J22 |
| Date: | 2012–10–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1243&r=dem |
| By: | Averett, Susan L (Lafayette College); Smith, Julie K. (Lafayette College) |
| Abstract: | There is a substantial correlation between household debt and bodyweight. Theory suggests that a causal relationship between debt and bodyweight could run in either direction or both could be caused by unobserved common factors. We use OLS and Propensity Score Matching to ascertain if household debt (measured by credit card indebtedness and having trouble paying bills) is a potential cause of obesity. We find a strong positive correlation between debt and weight for women but this seems driven largely by unobservables. In contrast, men with trouble paying their bills are thinner and this is robust to various specification checks. |
| Keywords: | obesity, credit card debt, propensity score matching |
| JEL: | I10 I12 I14 |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6898&r=dem |
| By: | Cordoba, Juan Carlos; Ripoll, Marla |
| Abstract: | The Barro-Becker model of fertility has three controversial predictions: (i) fertility and schooling are independent of family income; (ii) children are a net financial burden to society; and (iii) individual consumption is negatively associated to individual income. We show that introducing credit frictions into the model helps overturn these predictions. In particular, a negative relationship between fertility and individual wage income can be obtained when the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is larger than one. The credit constrained model can also explain the quantity-quality trade-off: individuals with higher wage income choose more schooling and fewer children. |
| Keywords: | Fertility; credit frictions; parental altruism; elasticity of intertemporal substitution |
| JEL: | D J |
| Date: | 2012–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:35531&r=dem |
| By: | Cordoba, Juan Carlos; Ripoll, Marla |
| Abstract: | The Barro-Becker model of fertility has three controversial predictions: (i) fertility and schooling are independent of family income; (ii) children are a net financial burden to society; and (iii) individual consumption is negatively associated to individual income. We show that introducing credit frictions into the model helps overturn these predictions. In particular, a negative relationship between fertility and individual wage income can be obtained when the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is larger than one. The credit constrained model can also explain the quantity-quality trade-off: individuals with higher wage income choose more schooling and fewer children. |
| Keywords: | Fertility; credit frictions; parental altruism; elasticity of intertemporal substitution |
| JEL: | D J |
| Date: | 2012–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:35532&r=dem |
| By: | Mark E. McGovern (Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies and University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | Early life conditions have been linked to various domains of later life health, including cardiovascular outcomes. Using life history data from 13 European countries, I find that childhood socioeconomic status and measures of childhood health are related to hypertension, although there is cross country heterogeneity in these effects. I account for potential omitted variable bias by using aggregate measures of public health at birth, which are plausibly exogenous to the individual. I find that infant mortality at birth is positively related to hypertension, even allowing for cohort effects, and controlling for GDP at birth. Results imply that improvements in early life conditions in Europe led to an overall reduction in the hypertension rate of between 3 and 6 percentage points, for the cohort born 1931-1935, relative to the cohort born 1956-1960. An alternative strand of literature in epidemiology links contemporaneous factors, such as work place environment, to heart disease. However, theories of life cycle decision making suggest that individuals may be selected into these adverse environments and behaviours on the basis of their initial conditions. I demonstrate a strong association between early environment and these risk factors. Results imply that these should therefore be viewed as outcomes which lie on the causal pathway between initial conditions and later outcomes, in which case ignoring this selection will misattribute at least part of the effects of early life environment to current circumstance. This has important policy implications for targeting hypertension as it indicates that emphasis should also be placed on combatting disadvantage across the life course, rather than just factors which only manifest themselves in adulthood. |
| Keywords: | Early life conditions, hypertension, work stress, infant mortality, health behaviour |
| JEL: | I12 I14 N34 J11 |
| Date: | 2012–10–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucd:wpaper:201223&r=dem |
| By: | Mark E McGovern (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | Early life conditions have been linked to various domains of later life health, including cardiovascular outcomes. Using life history data from 13 European countries, I find that childhood socioeconomic status and measures of childhood health are related to hypertension, although there is cross country heterogeneity in these effects. I account for potential omitted variable bias by using aggregate mea- sures of public health at birth, which are plausibly exogenous to the individual. I findnd that infant mortality at birth is positively related to hypertension, even allowing for cohort effects, and control- ling for GDP at birth. Results imply that improvements in early life conditions in Europe led to an overall reduction in the hypertension rate of between 3 and 6 percentage points, for the cohort born 1931-1935, relative to the cohort born 1956-1960. An alternative strand of literature in epidemiology links contemporaneous factors, such as work place environment, to heart disease. However, theories of life cycle decision making suggest that individuals may be selected into these adverse environments and behaviours on the basis of their initial conditions. I demonstrate a strong association between early environment and these risk factors. Results imply that these should therefore be viewed as outcomes which lie on the causal pathway between initial conditions and later outcomes, in which case ignoring this selection will misattribute at least part of the effects of early life environment to current circumstance. This has important policy implications for targeting hypertension as it indi- cates that emphasis should also be placed on combatting disadvantage across the life course, rather than just factors which only manifest themselves in adulthood. |
| Keywords: | Early Life Conditions, Hypertension, Work Stress, Infant Mortality, Health Behaviour |
| JEL: | I12 I14 N34 J11 |
| Date: | 2012–10–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201227&r=dem |
| By: | Sahlgren, Gabriel H. (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | Declining fertility rates and increasing life expectancy necessitate a higher labor participation rate among older people in order to sustain pension systems and boost economic growth. At the same time, researchers have only recently begun to pay attention to the health effects of a longer working life, with rather mixed results thus far. Utilizing panel data from eleven European countries, and two distinct identification strategies to deal with endogeneity, we provide new evidence of the health effects of retirement.In contrast to prior research, we analyze both the impact of being retired and the effect of spending longer time in retirement. Using spouses’ characteristics as instruments, while taking precautions to ensure validity, we find a robust, negative impact of being retired and spending longer time in retirement on selfassessed, general, mental and physical health.In addition, we show that the impact on selfassessed health remains similar in models using instruments from previous research while also including individual- and time-fixed effects to remove time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity between individuals as well as common health shocks.Overall, the results suggest that this innovation and the fact that we take lagged effects into account explain the differences in comparison to prior multi-country research using these instruments. While the short-term health impact of retirement in Europe remains uncertain, the medium- to long-term effects appear to be negative and economically large. |
| Keywords: | Health; Retirement; SHARE; SHARELIFE |
| JEL: | I10 J14 J26 |
| Date: | 2012–09–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0928&r=dem |
| By: | John P. Conley (Vanderbilt University); Ali Sina Onder (Uppsala University); Benno Torgler (QUT) |
| Abstract: | Using life cycle publication data of 9,368 economics PhD graduates from 127 U.S. institutions, we investigate how unemployment in the U.S. economy prior to starting graduate studies and at the time of entry into the academic job market affect economics PhD graduates' research productivity. We analyze the period between 1987 and 1996 and find that favorable conditions at the time of academic job search have a positive effect on research productivity (measured in numbers of publications) for both male and female graduates. On the other hand, unfavourable employment conditions at the time of entry into graduate school affects female research productivity negatively, but male productivity positively. These findings are consistent with the notion that men and women differ in their perception of risk in high skill occupations. In the specific context of research-active occupations that require high skill and costly investment in human capital, an ex post poor return on undergraduate educational investment may cause women to opt for less risky and secure occupations while men seem more likely to “double down” on their investment in human capital. Further investigation, however, shows that additional factors may also be at work. |
| Keywords: | Research Productivity, Human Capital, Graduate Education, Gender Differences |
| JEL: | J16 J24 |
| Date: | 2012–10–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qut:dpaper:293&r=dem |
| By: | Hyunjoon Park (Department of Sociology and Education, University of Pennsylvania); Jere R. Behrman (Department of Economics and Sociology, University of Pennsylvania); Jaesung Choi (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | Despite women’s significant improvement in educational attainment, underrepresentation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) college majors persists in most countries. We address whether one particular institution – single-sex schools – may enhance female – or male – students’ STEM careers. Exploiting the unique setting in Korea where assignment to all-girls, all-boys or coeducational high schools is random, we move beyond associations to assess causal effects of single-sex schools. We use administrative data on national college entrance mathematics examination scores and a longitudinal survey of high school seniors that provide various STEM outcomes (mathematics and science interest and self-efficacy, expectations of a four-year college attendance and a STEM college major during the high school senior year, and actual attendance at a four-year college and choice of a STEM major two years after high school). We find significantly positive effects of all-boys schools consistently across different STEM outcomes, whereas the positive effect of all-girls schools is only found for mathematics scores. |
| Keywords: | Africa, Economic Shocks, Child Schooling |
| JEL: | N37 E30 I21 |
| Date: | 2012–09–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:12-038&r=dem |
| By: | Jan Worst (Maastricht School of Management, the Netherlands) |
| Abstract: | New technology, pharmaceutical research and therapy development between 2000 and 2005 have contributed to increase globally life expectancy with five years according to the WHO report 2008. Increased life expectancy of youth in developing countries will enhance economic activity in developing countries. Prosperity characteristics such as income, nutrition, education, access to medical services support reduction of mortality of young people. Currently globally an economic slowdown is apparent. So what are the health risks for youth in the context of globally sharing prosperity? |
| Keywords: | technology, therapy, health risks, life expectancy, and prosperity |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:msm:wpaper:2012/23&r=dem |
| By: | Hyoungjong Kim (Department of Economics, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea); Yitaek Park (Department of Economics, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea); Hunchang Lee (Department of Economics, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea) |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with the changes of aged dependency and aged-child ratios across the administrative districts of South Korea between 1992 and 2010. South Korea faces the most rapidly aging population at present. However, the generational imbalance is highly different between the districts. The main results show the dynamics of distribution and the trends of inequality indices for aged dependency and aged-child ratios in South Korea. |
| Keywords: | Aging, Distribution dynamics, Nonparametric estimation, Shift-share analysis |
| JEL: | C14 J11 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iek:wpaper:1209&r=dem |
| By: | Dai, Darong |
| Abstract: | This study is encouraged to apply the methodology of economics to investigate the issue of gender selection of the traditional parents in China, which has been widely noted from the perspective of sociology. It is firstly argued that traditional society of China is a good object for economic analyses owing to its long‐run stability. Secondly,it is obviously seen that traditional parents are highly rational in gender selection owing to the corresponding economic and social environments around them. Hence, economics will play a crucial role in the analyses of gender selection. We have established two simple mathematical models corresponding to two different cases to derive some propositions about the gender selection of the rational parents. |
| Keywords: | Gender selection;Quantity consumption;Quality consumption |
| JEL: | J13 Z10 J16 |
| Date: | 2012–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:41605&r=dem |
| By: | Wilson, E. J. (Asian Development Bank Institute); Jayanthakumaran, K. (Asian Development Bank Institute); Verma, R. (Asian Development Bank Institute) |
| Abstract: | This paper considers two major issues that need to be treated as matters of urgency. First, internal (within country) migrations in the Asian (ACI) region are mostly undocumented and large. Second, the emerging demographic imbalances in the form of aging, which will give dependency ratios that have never been experienced in all of recorded human existence. Whilst it is possible to share the burdens of ageing and dependency through migration, this will not happen under present arrangements. Increasing the mobility of humans is the best way to not only promote economic efficiency, but to provide freedom and significant improvements in their wellbeing and quality of life. |
| Keywords: | demographics; labor mobility; migration; asia; demographic imbalances; aging; productivity |
| JEL: | F22 J31 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2012–10–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0387&r=dem |
| By: | N. Yaduma; M. Kortelainen; A. Wossink |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:man:sespap:1223&r=dem |
| By: | Ana Velasco Unzueta (Fundación ARU) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to offer an alternative to the ethnic and/or racial identity question in the census that helps avoid social fragmentation and that, at the same time, may allow governments to fullfil their own objectives, their social and political commitments at an international, as well at a national level. This alternative is based on the conceptual differentiation between culture and identity and it states that public policy can be more adequate if it is directed to the cultural repertoires instead to the identity groups. Aditionally, it is suggested that the census does not only reflects reality, but it also creates it. This fact helps promoting a groupist vision of society, which means that phenomena such as racism, ethnicity, discrimination, etc. cannot be understood without taking for granted the existence of groups. Such an emphasis on groups breaks the society into impervious and fixed groups, and it has an important impact for social cohesion. |
| Keywords: | censo, mestizaje, identidad, cultura, raza, políticas públicas, census, mestizaje, identity, culture, race, public policy |
| JEL: | J15 Z13 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aru:wpaper:2012014&r=dem |