Does welfare reform affect fertility? Evidence from the UK

This paper provides evidence on the effect of welfare reform on fertility, focusing on UK reforms in 1999 that increased per-child spending by 50% in real terms. We use a difference-in-differences approach, exploiting the fact that the reforms were targeted at low-income households. The reforms were likely to differentially affect the fertility of women in couples and single women because of the opportunity cost effects of the welfare-to-work element. We find no increase in births among single women, but evidence to support an increase in births (by around 15%) among coupled women.     

Does welfare reform affect fertility? Evidence from the UK

This paper provides evidence on the effect of welfare reform on fertility, focusing on UK reforms in 1999 that increased per-child spending by 50% in real terms. We use a difference-in-differences approach, exploiting the fact that the reforms were targeted at low-income households. The reforms were likely to differentially affect the fertility of women in couples and single women because of the opportunity cost effects of the welfare-to-work element. We find no increase in births among single women, but evidence to support an increase in births (by around 15%) among coupled women.     

Does the number of sex partners affect educational attainment? Evidence from female respondents to the Add Health

We use data on young women from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to explore the relationship between number of sex partners and educational attainment. Using the average physical development of male schoolmates to generate plausibly exogenous variation in number of sex partners, instrumental variables estimates suggest that number of sex partners is negatively related to educational attainment. This result is consistent with the argument that romantic involvements are time consuming and can impose substantial emotional costs on young women.     

Does the number of sex partners affect educational attainment? Evidence from female respondents to the Add Health

We use data on young women from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to explore the relationship between number of sex partners and educational attainment. Using the average physical development of male schoolmates to generate plausibly exogenous variation in number of sex partners, instrumental variables estimates suggest that number of sex partners is negatively related to educational attainment. This result is consistent with the argument that romantic involvements are time consuming and can impose substantial emotional costs on young women.     

Does child gender affect marital status? Evidence from Australia

Pooling microdata from five Australian censuses, I explore the relationship between child gender and parents’ marital status. By contrast with the USA, I find no evidence that the gender of the first child has a significant impact on the decision to marry or divorce. However, among two-child families, parents with two children of the same sex are 1.7 percentage points less likely to be married than parents with a boy and a girl. This finding is unlikely to be consistent with theories of preference for sons over daughters, differential costs, role models, or complementary costs but is consistent with a theory of mixed-gender preference.

Does emigration benefit the stayers? Evidence from EU enlargement

Around 9 % of the Lithuanian workforce emigrated to Western Europe after the enlargement of the European Union in 2004. I exploit this emigration wave to study the effect of emigration on wages in the sending country. Using household data from Lithuania and work permit and census data from the UK and Ireland, I demonstrate that emigration had a significant positive effect on the wages of stayers. A one-percentage-point increase in the emigration rate predicts a 0.67 % increase in real wages. This effect, however, is only statistically significant for men.     

Is the male marriage premium due to selection? The effect of shotgun weddings on the return to marriage

In standard cross-sectional wage regressions, married men appear to earn 10 to 20% more than comparable never married men. One proposed explanation for this male marriage premium is that men may be selected into marriage on the basis of characteristics valued by employers as well as by spouses or because they earn high wages. This paper examines the selection hypothesis by focusing on shotgun weddings, which may make marital status uncorrelated with earnings ability. We compare the estimated marriage premium between white men whose first marriages are soon followed by a birth and other married white men in the United States. The return to marriage differs little for married men with a premarital conception and other married men, and the results suggest that at most 10% of the estimated marriage premium is due to selection. Received: 19 June 1998/Accepted: 10 July 2000     

Does female participation affect the sharing rule?

I give an empirical answer to whether the sharing patterns of household consumption of participating and nonparticipating wives differ. I use the basic collective model conditioned on female participation to identify the sharing patterns. Using Spanish data, I test the model assumptions and I find significant differences. Nonparticipating wives get larger transfers from their husbands than participating wives. However, while participating wives with at least an equal total share keep a part of their increase in wages for their own consumption, nonparticipating wives cannot benefit from having better labor opportunities. These results complement evidence about intrahousehold distribution of home time.     

Does Intergenerational Educational Mobility Shape the Well-Being of Young Europeans? Evidence from the European Social Survey

The level of accessibility to basic services is an important issue because it is closely related to social inclusion and social capital, key aspects of societal well-being. There is a large and growing literature on access to health care in an era of dwindling public resources due to recent economic downturns. Health care is an essential service, but it is not the only basic service. The literature on access to basic services including, but not limited to, health care is relatively small. The paper aims at contributing to the literature by providing a new index to measure and monitor household accessibility to basic services. A study of Italian regions is presented. It is shown that northern regions have more accessible basic services than central, southern and island regions. A longitudinal comparison has been performed. The results are very worrying because show that policy makers have failed in reducing regional (and in particular north–south) disparities in basic service accessibility. Measuring and monitoring the level of accessibility is central for an adequate provision of basic services and for exploring how the delivery of basic services in the most problematic regions can be improved.     

How does social security affect economic growth? Evidence from cross-country data

This paper investigates how social security interacts with growth and growth determinants (savings, human capital investment, and fertility). Our empirical investigation finds that the estimated coefficient on social security is significantly negative in the fertility equation, insignificant in the saving equation, and significantly positive in the growth and education equations. By contrast, the estimated coefficient on growth is insignificant in the social security equation. The results suggest that social security may indeed be conducive to growth through tipping the trade-off between the number and quality of children toward the latter.All correspondence to Junsen Zhang. We would like to thank the editor, two anonymous referees, Jim Davies, Frank Denton, Se-Jik Kim, and Mike McAleer for helpful comments and suggestions. Any remaining omissions and errors are the authors responsibility. Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno.     

Does Misery Index Matter for the Persistence of Health Spending? Evidence from OECD Countries

Social Indicators Research - This paper employs the panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) model to investigate the role of Okun’s misery index in the persistence of health spending in 19...     

Does How You Measure Income Make a Difference to Measuring Poverty? Evidence from the UK

Income is regarded as one of the clearest indicators of socioeconomic status and wellbeing in the developed world and is highly correlated with a wide range of outcomes. Despite its importance, there remains an issue as to the best way to collect income as part of surveys. This paper examines differences in how income is collected in a nationally representative UK birth cohort, the Millennium Cohort Study, looking at variations by questions asked and by respondent characteristics before then examining the implications different methods of collecting and reporting income may have for measuring poverty. Results show that less than a third of respondents give consistent information on income between measurement tools. Using multiple questions is associated with a substantially lower response rate but this method generally results in a higher estimate of family income than using a single question. This is particularly true for certain groups of the population—those on means tested benefits, in self-employment and in part-time employment. Not surprisingly then in our analysis of poverty, using a single question produces an inflated proportion of families who could be classified as living in poverty and is less associated with other measures of financial deprivation than the more conservative poverty measure based on multiple questions.     

Does Inequality Cause a Difference in Altruism Between the Rich and the Poor? Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment

Increasing research evidence indicates that economic inequality leads the rich to be less generous than the poor. While compelling, the underling mechanism of the finding remains elusive. We conduct a laboratory experiment to investigate how inequality influences people’s behavior in a sharing game. We test varying causes of inequality to see how people share payoffs with others when inequality is caused respectively by chance, competition, and choice. The experiment result shows that the rich give less than the poor only when inequality is self-chosen. Yet, different from findings in previous studies, increasing inequality does not reinforce, but instead mitigates the negative relationship of income and giving. Our study suggests that research on the consequences of inequality should be careful on discerning whether self-choice of inequality could account for the spurious effect of inequality on people’s prosocial behavior.

     

Why does migration decrease fertility? Evidence from the Philippines

We model the impact of past migration on fertility, assessing the separate effects of relative urbanization of the destination, as a proxy for norms, and post-migration employment, as a proxy for opportunity costs. In the Philippines, we find that large fertility declines accompany post-migration employment. If not followed by work for pay, the estimated fertility impact of migration is small. We find little evidence of migrant selectivity in fertility, and offer speculative evidence that fertility disruption accompanying migration may be large enough to account for much of the apparent effect of normative adaptation.     

How Does Leisure Time Affect Production Efficiency? Evidence from China,Japan, and the US

Labor efficiency is a central concept in economics. Although investigators have studied the influence of some variables (e.g., education time and physical capital) on labor efficiency, most studies overlook the impact of leisure time. This investigation examines the relationship between leisure time and labor efficiency in the world’s three largest economies: China, the US and Japan. Results revealed a significant correlation between leisure time and labor efficiency, and demonstrate that active leisure participation can improve productivity. The findings also demonstrate that, in contrast to the US and Japan, China, as a typical developing country, has seldom seen an apparent positive effect of leisure time on efficiency, which may partially explained by the type of leisure participation (active or passive).     

Does the Census Miss the Native-Born Children of Immigrant Mothers? Evidence from State-Level Undercount by Race and Hispanic Status

Population Research and Policy Review - Despite research going back over a century showing the U.S. census counts some groups more accurately than others at the national level, little is known...     

Does crop diversity at the village level influence child nutrition security? Evidence from 11 sub-Saharan African countries

Population and Environment - Diversifying crop production has been proposed as a means of reducing food and nutrition insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa, but previous empirical studies yield mixed...     

Does Internet Use Affect Netizens’ Trust in Government? Empirical Evidence from China

Social Indicators Research - Although the Internet has had a profound influence on China’s economy and society, the empirical research pertaining to political consequences of the Internet is...     

Can indigenous transborder migrants affect environmental governance in their communities of origin? Evidence from Mexico

Despite high rates of out-migration, Mexican indigenous communities play a crucial role in biodiversity conservation. However, little is known about migrants’ role in environmental management. This research brief explores the case of the Purépecha of San Pedro Ocumicho, Michoacán, and its transborder community in the Coachella Valley of California. We find that migrants maintain strong cultural ties to their community of origin. However, many are undocumented, are unable to access steady and well-paid employment, and would be unable to return to California were they to visit Mexico. Furthermore, government structures in Ocumicho are weak, providing few opportunities for migrants to contribute. These factors currently preclude migrants from influencing environmental decision making in their home community. Our findings point to the need for more comprehensive and longitudinal studies to better document and explain the variations in migrant support for environmental governance in their communities of origin.