nep-dem New Economics Papers
on Demographic Economics
Issue of 2022‒08‒22
four papers chosen by
Héctor Pifarré i Arolas
University of Wisconsin

  1. Spillover Effects of Old-Age Pension across Generations: Family Labor Supply and Child Outcomes By Katja Maria Kaufmann; Yasemin Özdemir; Han Ye
  2. Does Growing up in Economic Hard Times Increase Compassion? The Case of Attitudes towards Immigration By Maria Cotofan; Robert Dur; Stephan Meier
  3. At the intersection of adverse life course pathways: the effects on health by nativity By Silvia Loi; Peng Li; Mikko Myrskylä
  4. Health and Economic Growth: Reconciling the Micro and Macro Evidence By David E. Bloom; David Canning; Rainer Kotschy; Klaus Prettner; Johannes Schünemann; Rainer Franz Kotschy

  1. By: Katja Maria Kaufmann; Yasemin Özdemir; Han Ye
    Abstract: We study the impact of grandparental retirement decisions on family members’ labor supply and child outcomes by exploiting a Dutch pension reform in a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity design. A one-hour increase in grandmothers’ hours worked causes adult daughters with young children to work half an hour less. Daughters without children, with older children and sons/daughters-in-law are not affected. We show important long-run impacts on maternal labor supply and on the child penalty. Test score effects are positive for children aged 4-7 (substitution from grandparental to maternal care), and negative for children aged 11-12 (substitution from grandparental to formal childcare).
    Keywords: spillover effects, retirement, grandparental childcare, maternal labor supply, child development
    JEL: J13 J22 J26 I38 D64
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9813&r=
  2. By: Maria Cotofan (Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics); Robert Dur (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Tinbergen Institute, CESifo, and IZA); Stephan Meier (Columbia Business School, CESifo, and IZA)
    Abstract: Recent evidence shows that people who grew up in economic hard times more strongly favor government redistribution and are more compassionate towards the poor. We investigate how inclusive this increase in compassion is by studying how macroeconomic conditions experienced during young adulthood affect immigration attitudes. Using US and global data, we show that experiencing bad macroeconomic circumstances strengthen anti-immigration attitudes for life. Moreover, we find that people become generally more outgroup hostile. Our results thus suggest that the underlying motive for more government redistribution is not a universal increase in compassion, but more self-interested and restricted to one’s ingroup.
    Keywords: Immigration, Attitudes, Social preferences, Parochialism, Redistribution, Macroeconomic conditions, Impressionable years
    JEL: J1 D9 E7
    Date: 2022–07–28
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20220047&r=
  3. By: Silvia Loi (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Peng Li (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Mikko Myrskylä (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)
    Abstract: Adverse life events are major causes of declining health and well-being, but the effects are not the same across subpopulations. We analyze how the intersection of nativity and two main adverse life events, job loss and divorce, affect individual health and well-being trajectories. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-2017), we apply descriptive techniques and individual fixed-effects regressions to analyze how job loss and divorce influence health. Our results support the hypothesis of the intersectional effects of disadvantage and adversities on health and well-being, with immigrants suffering more from adverse life events than natives in both the short and the long run. Compared to natives, immigrants have a health advantage at younger ages, which turns into a disadvantage at older ages. The observed health declines are particularly steep among immigrants who experienced adverse life events. These results help to explain the vanishing health advantage of immigrants by showing that they are exposed to a double disadvantage over the life course: i.e., immigrants are more likely than natives to suffer from adverse life events, and such events typically have a larger impact on the health of immigrants than of natives. Our findings are the first to provide evidence on the effects of different adverse life events intersecting with each other and with nativity. Moreover, our results highlight the importance of intersectional analyses in research on immigrant health.
    Keywords: Germany, health, inequality, migrants
    JEL: J1 Z0
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2022-018&r=
  4. By: David E. Bloom; David Canning; Rainer Kotschy; Klaus Prettner; Johannes Schünemann; Rainer Franz Kotschy
    Abstract: Economists use micro-based and macro-based approaches to assess the macroeconomic return to population health. The macro-based approach tends to yield estimates that are either negative and close to zero or positive and an order of magnitude larger than the range of estimates derived from the micro-based approach. This presents a micro-macro puzzle regarding the macroeconomic return to health. We reconcile the two approaches by controlling for the indirect effects of health, which macro-based approaches usually include but micro-based approaches deliberately omit when isolating the direct effect of health. Our results show that the macroeconomic return to health lies in the range of plausible microeconomic estimates, demonstrating that both approaches are in fact consistent with one another.
    Keywords: productivity, population health, human capital, economic development
    JEL: I15 I25 J11 O11 O15
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9806&r=

This nep-dem issue is ©2022 by Héctor Pifarré i Arolas. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, please include this notice.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.