| 1. |
- Hesselius, Patrik, 1972-
(författare)
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Sickness Absence and Labour Market Outcomes
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three self-contained essays.Essay I examines whether a worker’s sickness absence behaviour influences the risk of becoming unemployed. Swedish panel data are used to estimate the relationship between the incidence and the duration of sick leaves and subsequent unemployment. The results indicate that an increase in the number of sick leaves as well as an increase in the duration of sick spells are associated with a higher risk of unemployment. Women run a significantly higher risk of unemployment than men in connection with sick-leave spells longer than 28 days. An implication of the results is that less absence-prone workers are more likely to remain employed in a recession. This, in turn, may partly explain the pro-cyclical pattern of aggregate Swedish sickness absence rates.Essay II investigates the effect of sickness absence on subsequent wages, which is estimated using a rich Swedish panel data set covering 1996 to 2001. The main results of this paper are that for both genders, full-time sickness absence has a short-term and a long-term negative effect on wages. One year of full-time sick absence yields a long-run wage penalty of 5.7 percent for men and 4.7 percent for women. The wage penalty of full-time sick leave is significantly higher in the private than in the public sector. Separately estimating the wage equation for four age groups yields a pattern of a decreasing negative wage effect of full-time sick leaves over age. Furthermore, an increasing wage penalty of full-time sickness absence in the years of education is also found.Essay III studies the relationship between sickness absence and spousal retirement. Swedish panel data have been used to estimate the effects of both old-age retirement and disability retirement on average sickness absence during 1996 to 2001 for both men and women. Spousal old-age retirement significantly increases female average long-term sickness absence by approximately one week, while spousal disability retirement yields a significant increase in average sickness absence for men by approximately one week and for women by approximately two weeks. Some evidence of increased incidence of long-term sickness absence due to spousal retirement is found.
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| 2. |
- Lindeboom, Maarten, et al.
(författare)
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Long-run effects on longevity of a nutritional shock early in life : The Dutch Potato famine of 1846-1847
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of Health Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0167-6296 .- 1879-1646. ; 29:5, s. 617-629
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Nutritional conditions in utero and during infancy may causally affect health and mortality during childhood, adulthood, and at old ages. This paper investigates whether exposure to a nutritional shock in early life negatively affects survival at older ages, using individual data. Nutritional conditions are captured by exposure to the Potato famine in the Netherlands in 1846-1847, and by regional and temporal variation in market prices of potato and rye. The data cover the lifetimes of a random sample of Dutch individuals born between 1812 and 1902 and provide individual information on life events and demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. First we non-parametrically compare the total and residual lifetimes of individuals exposed and not exposed to the famine in utero and/or until age 1. Next, we estimate survival models in which we control for individual characteristics and additional (early life) determinants of mortality. We find strong evidence for long-run effects of exposure to the Potato famine. The results are stronger for boys than for girls. Boys and girls lose on average 4, respectively 2.5 years of life after age 50 after exposure at birth to the Potato famine. Lower social classes appear to be more affected by early life exposure to the Potato famine than higher social classes. These results confirm the mechanism linking early life (nutritional) conditions to old-age mortality. Finally, higher food prices at birth appear to reduce later life mortality of children of farmers from higher social classes. We interpret this as an income effect.
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| 3. |
- Linnros, Evelina, 1990-
(författare)
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Essays on Fertility and Health
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Infertility Risk and Child MarriageThe high infertility rates observed in some developing countries may have broad societal impacts, for example by people marrying and having children at a young age to increase their chances of reaching their fertility target. I study the link between infertility risk and marriage timing using data from Madagascar. Specifically, I focus on how infertility risk affects the probability of child marriage, a practice associated with adverse outcomes for young brides and their children. I use spatial variation in exposure to the parasite schistosomiasis. The empirical strategy compares two strains of this parasite, similar in their transmission mechanisms and health impacts, except that one of the two strains causes infertility. In my data, exposure to this strain increases the probability that a woman is infertile by 40%. I find that exposure to the infertility-causing strain increases the probability of child marriage and early fertility by 22%.Maternal Health and Labor Market OutcomesWe study how severe injuries related to childbirth affect mothers' labor market outcomes. 1 in 20 first-time mothers who have a vaginal delivery suffer a severe birth tear, which can have long-lasting adverse impacts on their health and quality of life. Using a difference-in-differences design with a matched control group, we find that severe birth tears lead to a 6% higher earnings loss in the first five years after childbirth compared to the control group. The effect is larger for mothers from low SES backgrounds, while high SES mothers are found to seek more healthcare following their injury.Alcohol Availability, Prenatal Conditions and Midlife Mental Health We examine the long-term mental health effects of an 8.5-month policy experiment that led to a sharp and unexpected increase in alcohol availability, focusing on individuals exposed to the policy in utero. We use administrative healthcare and drug prescription records to identify individuals who have received treatment for a mental health disorder. Prenatal exposure to the policy had a large and persistent effect on mental health: the exposed cohort is 16% more likely to be treated for a mental disorder in midlife. The effect is largest for those exposed from the second trimester and is only partly explained by the lower earnings observed among exposed individuals.The Value of Monitoring for Disaster Prevention: The Desert LocustMonitoring systems are meant to detect early signs of potentially disastrous outbreaks of diseases and pests, in time for preventative action. These monitoring systems are costly, and identifying their economic value requires estimating damages from outbreaks in empirical settings where monitoring is neither uniform nor exogenous. We estimate the value of monitoring systems for desert locusts, known to devour entire agricultural fields. We leverage conflict and weather events in breeding areas to detect the effects of monitoring interruptions on swarm outbreaks. We then reconstruct the spatial patterns of locust migrations to propagate these effects on swarm outbreaks beyond breeding areas. Finally, we show that in-utero exposure to a swarm increases the probability of stunting by 16%. These estimates allow us to quantify the effects of a change in monitoring efforts on subsequent locust swarms and on human health.
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| 4. |
- Maarten, Lindeboom, et al.
(författare)
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Assessing the impact of obesity on labor market outcomes
- 2010
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Ingår i: Economics and Human Biology. - : Elsevier BV. - 1873-6130 .- 1570-677X. ; 8:3, s. 309-319
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We study the effect of obesity on employment using rich data from the British National Child Development Study (NCDS) The results show a significant negative association between obesity and employment even after controlling for a rich set of demographic socioeconomic environmental and behavioral variables In order to account for the endogeneity of obesity we use and assess instruments Introduced by Cawley (2004) the obesity status of biological relatives Using parental obesity as an instrument we show that the association between obesity and employment is no longer significant Similar results are obtained in a model of first differences We provide a number of different checks on the instruments by exploiting the richness of the NCDS data The results show mixed evidence regarding the validity of the instruments
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| 5. |
- Mendes, Rute, et al.
(författare)
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An empirical assessment of assortative matching in the labor market
- 2010
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Ingår i: Labour Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0927-5371 .- 1879-1034. ; 17:6, s. 919-929
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In labor markets with worker and firm heterogeneity, the matching between firms and workers may be assortative, meaning that the most productive workers and firms team up. We investigate this with longitudinal population-wide matched employer-employee data from Portugal. Using panel data methods, we quantify a firm-specific productivity term for each firm, and we relate this to the skill distribution of workers in the firm. We find that there is positive assortative matching, in particular among long-lived firms. Using skill-specific estimates of an index of search frictions, we find that the results can only to a small extent be explained by heterogeneity of search frictions across worker skill groups.
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| 6. |
- Scholte, Robert, et al.
(författare)
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Does the Size of the Effect of Adverse Events at High Ages on Daily-Life Physical Functioning Depend on the Economic Conditions Around Birth?
- 2017
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Ingår i: Health Economics. - : Wiley. - 1057-9230 .- 1099-1050. ; 26:1, s. 86-103
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper considers determinants of physical functional limitations in daily-life activities at high ages. Specifically, we quantify the extent to which the impact of adverse life events on this outcome is larger in case of exposure to adverse economic conditions early in life. Adverse life events include bereavement, severe illness in the family, and the onset of chronic diseases. We use a longitudinal data set of individuals born in the first decades of the 20th century. The business cycle around birth is used as an indicator of economic conditions early in life. We find that the extent to which functional limitations suffer from the onset of chronic diseases is larger if the individual was born in a recession. The long-run effect of economic conditions early in life on functional limitations at high ages runs primarily via this life event.
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| 7. |
- Scholte, Robert S., et al.
(författare)
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Long-run effects of gestation during the Dutch Hunger Winter famine on labor market and hospitalization outcomes
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Health Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0167-6296 .- 1879-1646. ; 39, s. 17-30
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Dutch Hunger Winter (1944/45) is the most-studied famine in the literature on long-run effects of malnutrition in utero. Its temporal and spatial demarcations are clear, it was severe, it was not anticipated, and nutritional conditions in society were favorable and stable before and after the famine. This is the first study to analyze effects of in utero exposure on labor market outcomes and hospitalization late in life, and the first to use register data covering the full Dutch population to examine long-run effects of this famine. We provide results of famine exposure by sub-interval of gestation. We find a significantly negative effect of exposure during the first trimester of gestation on employment outcomes 53 or more years after birth. Hospitalization rates in the years before retirement are higher after middle or late gestational exposure.
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| 8. |
- van den Berg, Gerard J., et al.
(författare)
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The Role of Early-Life Conditions in the Cognitive Decline due to Adverse Events Later in Life
- 2010
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Ingår i: Economic Journal. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0013-0133 .- 1468-0297. ; 120:548, s. F411-F428
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Serious life events, such as the loss of a relative or the onset of a chronic condition may influence cognitive functioning. We examine whether the cognitive impact of such events is stronger if conditions very early in life were adverse, using Dutch longitudinal data of older persons. We exploit exogenous variation in early-life conditions as generated by the business cycle.
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| 9. |
- van den Berg, Gerard, et al.
(författare)
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Mortality and the Business Cycle : Evidence from Individual and Aggregated Data
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Health Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0167-6296 .- 1879-1646. ; 56, s. 61-70
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- There has been much interest recently in the relationship between economic conditions and mortality, with some studies showing that mortality is pro-cyclical, while others find the opposite. Some suggest that the aggregation level of analysis (e.g. individual vs. regional) matters. We use both individual and aggregated data on a sample of 20-64 year-old Swedish men from 1993 to 2007. Our results show that the association between the business cycle and mortality does not depend on the level of analysis: the sign and magnitude of the parameter estimates are similar at the individual level and the aggregate (county) level; both showing pro-cyclical mortality.
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| 10. |
- Van Duijn, Mark, et al.
(författare)
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Expected and actual replacement rates in the pension system of the Netherlands: how and why do they differ?
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of Pension Economics and Finance. - 1475-3022. ; 12:2, s. 168-189
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study examines the expected retirement replacement rates (RRs) of several cohorts of Dutch employees at the time of their planned retirements. It also computes RRs based on the available pension records. We find that the expected replacement rate (E(RR)) is, in general, higher than the ones we compute. Larger discrepancies are found for younger cohorts and for individuals with less education and working experience. We also examine the difference between the expected and computed RRs and find that the mismatch is mostly related to poor institutional knowledge. We also show the role of assumptions about institutions and wage profiles in determining our results.
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