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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Lorenti, Angelo; Jessica, Nisen; Mencarini, Letizia; Myrskylä, Mikko |
| Abstract: | Women’s labor force participation has increased remarkably in western countries, but important gender gaps still remain, especially among parents. This paper uses a novel comparative perspective assessing women’s and men’s mid-life employment trajectories by parity and education. We provide new insight into the gendered parenthood penalty by analyzing the long-term implications, beyond the core childbearing ages by decomposing years lived between ages 40 to 74 into years in employment, inactivity, and retirement. We compare three countries with very different institutional settings and cultural norms: Finland, Italy, and the U.S. Our empirical approach uses the multistate incidence-based life table method. Our results document large cross-national variation, and the key role that education plays. In Finland years employed increase with parity for women and men and the gender gap is small; in the U.S. the relation between parity and years is relatively flat, whereas among those with two or more children a gender gap emerges; and in Italy, years employed decreases sharply with parity for women, and increases for men. Education elevates years employed similarly for all groups in Finland; but in the U.S and Italy, highly educated mothers experience only half of the gender gap compared to low-educated mothers. The employment trajectories of childless women and men differ greatly across countries. |
| Date: | 2023–03–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:gmqd9_v1 |
| By: | Ermisch, John |
| Abstract: | The paper introduces to comparative cross-national fertility research a method to formalise what is meant by the TFR’s of countries ‘moving together’. It is based on the estimation of long run fertility relationships which are stationary series (so called ‘cointegrating equations’). Six sets of countries with similar TFR movements within each were identified: Northwest Europe (England and Wales, France, Netherlands and Belgium); (2) Southern Europe (Italy, Spain and Portugal); (3) the Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland); (4) Germany and Austria; (5) the Eastern Europe group of Poland, Czechia, Hungary and Estonia); and (6) the group of Russia, Belarus and Lithuania. There are unique features of TFR movements in each region. But Northwest Europe, the Nordic countries and Southern Europe all share a decline in their TFR during the past decade, albeit from different levels of fertility. This strongly suggests that factors influencing fertility during this period do not stem from particular features in each country but broader influences, whether social or economic. |
| Date: | 2023–09–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:nej84_v1 |
| By: | Graziani, Rebecca; NIGRI, ANDREA |
| Abstract: | Though pivotal in longevity studies, multi-outcome modelling is largely neglected in the associated statistical literature. Here, we focus on the case of compositional data, especially relevant in longevity analysis, where overall mortality can be described as the composition of several causes of death. We propose an age–period–cohort model within the Dirichlet framework with a specific interest in its use for modelling longevity with multiple causes of death. We introduce a flexible approach to incorporating the Dirichlet distribution into the age–period– cohort framework. Then, using US cause-specific mortality data, we provide a comprehensive discussion and comparison of alternative modelling approaches. |
| Date: | 2023–11–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:856yw_v1 |
| By: | Breen, Casey; Seltzer, Nathan (University of California, Berkeley) |
| Abstract: | There are striking disparities in longevity across sociodemographic groups in the United States. Yet, can sociodemographic characteristics meaningfully explain individual-level variation in longevity? Here, we leverage machine-learning algorithms and large-scale administrative data to predict individual-level mortality using an array of social, economic, and demographic predictors measured in early adulthood. We conduct two distinct analyses: a cohort analysis, which predicts the exact age of death for individuals in the same birth cohort, and a period analysis, which predicts whether individuals age 54–95 will die within the next 10 years. We are not able to make accurate predictions in either our cohort analysis (R2= 0.014) or our period analysis (R2= 0.166).Together, these analyses demonstrate that later life longevity is unpredictable using sociodemographic characteristics alone, and underscore the crucial need to account for stochastic processes in demographic theory |
| Date: | 2023–04–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:znsqg_v1 |
| By: | Shubhashrita Basu; Jason Fletcher; Qiongshi Lu; Jiacheng Miao; Lauren L. Schmitz |
| Abstract: | We examine whether genome-wide summary measures of genetic risk known as polygenic indices (PGIs) provide new insights into the efficacy of the Lung Health Study (LHS)–a large, randomized controlled trial (RCT) that evaluated the effect of a smoking cessation intervention program on cessation maintenance and lung function. Results indicate that the intervention was less successful for participants with higher PGIs for smoking initiation and intensity. Given the increasing availability and affordability of genomic data, we argue that in the context of RCTs, PGIs can further our understanding of heterogeneous treatment effects and the mechanisms that may be driving them. |
| JEL: | I1 I10 I18 J10 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33473 |
| By: | Ngai, L. Rachel; Olivetti, Claudia; Petrongolo, Barbara |
| Abstract: | Women's contribution to the economy has been markedly underestimated in predominantly agricultural societies, due to their widespread involvement in unpaid agricultural work. Combining data from the US Census and several early sources, we create a consistent measure of male and female employment and hours for the US for 1870-2019, including paid work and unpaid work in family farms and non-farm businesses. The resulting measure of hours traces a U-shape for women, with a modest decline up to mid-20th century followed by a sustained increase, and a monotonic decline for men. We propose a multisector economy with uneven productivity growth, income effects, and consumption complementarity across sectoral outputs. During early development stages, declining agriculture leads to rising services - both in the market and the home - and leisure, reducing market work for both genders. In later stages, structural transformation reallocates labor from manufacturing into services, while marketization reallocates labor from home to market services. Given gender comparative advantages, the first channel is more relevant for men, reducing male hours, while the second channel is more relevant for women, increasing female hours. Our quantitative illustration suggests that structural transformation and marketization can account for the overall decline in market hours from 1880-1950, and one quarter of the rise and decline, respectively, in female and male market hours from 1950-2019. |
| Keywords: | hours; work; gender; structural transformation |
| JEL: | J16 J20 N12 N14 O41 |
| Date: | 2024–06–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:126797 |
| By: | Alexander, Monica; Root, Leslie |
| Abstract: | We discuss different frameworks to conceptualize age in the gestational period and in the first year of life, and then apply two conceptualizations to quantify racial/ethnic differences on a range of different fetal and infant outcomes in the United States. In particular, we focus on the extended approach, which combines gestational age and age in the first year of life onto a continuum of adjusted age since conception, and the gestational approach, which takes the viewpoint of gestation but considers both fetal outcomes and eventual outcomes in the first year of life. Both approaches use a multiple-decrement life table framework, accounting for decrements that related to all potential outcomes, including birth, fetal death, and infant death or survival. We find that the risks of both fetal and infant death are non-linear over the gestational age period and early weeks of life, with the highest risks at the beginning of the period (at 20 weeks) but also at around 37-40 weeks. The relative risks of different race/ethnic groups also change across age; in particular, the non-Hispanic Black population has a heightened risk of all adverse outcomes, but the magnitude of the difference in risk depends on gestational age, and in general, disparities are lowest in the mid-range of gestational ages. |
| Date: | 2023–03–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:k5qp7_v1 |
| By: | Sandra Aguilar-Gomez; Joshua S. Graff Zivin; Matthew J. Neidell |
| Abstract: | Extreme heat imperils health and results in more emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations. Since temperature affects many individuals within a region simultaneously, these health impacts could lead to surges in healthcare demand that generate hospital congestion. Climate change will only exacerbate these challenges. In this paper, we provide the first estimates of the health impacts from extreme heat that unpacks the direct effects from the indirect ones that arise due to hospital congestion. Using data from Mexico’s largest healthcare subsystem, we find that ED visits rise by 7.5% and hospitalizations by 4% given daily maximum temperatures above 34◦C. As a result, more (and sicker) ED patients are discharged home, and deaths within the hospital increase. While some of those hospital deaths can be directly attributed to extreme heat, our analysis suggests that approximately over half of these excess deaths can be viewed as spillover impacts due to hospital congestion. Additional analyses also reveal an increase in the share of deaths occurring outside hospitals, consistent with congestion-related health harms arising from the discharge of sicker patients from the ED. Our findings highlight an important new avenue of adaptation to climate change. If hospital congestion contributes to excess health damages from a changing climate, then expanding labor and capital investments and improving surge management tools can help reduce those damages. |
| JEL: | I15 I18 Q54 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33491 |