Labor market institutions and demographic employment patterns

We study collective bargaining’s effect on relative employment for youth, women, and older individuals. Our model of collective wage setting predicts that unionization reduces employment more for groups with relatively elastic labor supply: youth, older individuals, and women. We test this implication using data from 17 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries over the 1960–1996 period. We find that time-varying indicators of unionization decrease the employment–population ratio of young and older individuals relative to the prime-aged, and of prime-aged women relative to prime-aged men, and unionization raises the unemployment rate of prime-aged women and, possibly, young men compared to prime-aged men.

Why are Children with Married Parents Healthier? The Case of Pediatric Asthma

Among a recent birth cohort in U.S. cities, young children were far more likely to be diagnosed with asthma and to experience an asthma-related emergency if their parents were unmarried. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, I find that the child health benefits of marriage seem to stem from the benefits of parental coresidence and the demographic and socioeconomic correlates of marriage. Children whose parents live apart appear to be at heightened risk of asthma even after taking into account demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The child health benefits of marriage are only weakly related to mothers’ health behaviors and are not related to father involvement. An analysis of relationship transitions suggests that marital disruption may be more harmful for children than the disruption of cohabiting unions. The results provide some cautions and considerations for the U.S. government’s Healthy Marriage Initiative.

What Characterises Women Vulnerable to Chronic Energy Deficiency?

Weight-for-squared height or body mass index (BMI) is often considered as an effective predictor of morbidity and mortality rates. This study uses BMI data from a sample of ever-married women in the age group of 15–49 years in the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh for the year 1998–1999, to analyse the determinants of chronic energy deficiency (CED) and estimate the population vulnerable to CED. The results highlight that CED rates and vulnerability rates can be very different, emphasizing need for policy intervention to focus on ‘potential’ CED persons. The characteristics of vulnerable population identified would be appropriate channels for policy intervention.

The Elderly and the Extended Household in Portugal: An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis

Portugal, a southern European country, is expected to exhibit a relatively large proportion of extended households. However, following some general trends associated with large social transformations, Portugal is also expected to have an increasingly larger proportion of nuclear families. We use data from the eight waves of ECHP (European Community Household Panel), covering the years from 1994 to 2001, to establish whether these expectations are justified. Among the nuclear households that include elderly members, we isolate those corresponding to single-person households, since they are particularly relevant for policy purposes. Separate analyses are carried out for the elderly with health problems and for those with no health problems, in order to detect different patterns of living arrangements. We also project the living arrangements until 2005, based on an age-period-cohort analysis. We find that the extended households are a very significant form of living arrangement with reference to the Portuguese elderly, and a living arrangement whose importance is not declining over time. In particular, the oldest old constitutes the group that tends to be found living most frequently in extended households, while those with health problems start much earlier than those with no health problems to live in extended households as they grow older. The proportion of individuals aged 65+ living alone has somewhat decreased, but the proportion of this type of household largely increases with age.

Parental Cohabitation Experiences and Adolescent Behavioral Outcomes

Children are increasingly spending time in cohabiting parent families. Most studies that examine the implications of parental cohabitation focus on parental living arrangements at a single point in time. Using data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), we assess whether and how parental cohabitation during childhood influences adolescent girls’ well-being. This work moves beyond prior studies by specifically considering the effects of the exposure to, transitions, and age at which children lived in cohabiting parent families. The results indicate living in cohabiting parent families is consequential for earlier sexual initiation, likelihood of having a teen birth, and high school graduation. Prior work suggests that the explanation for the negative effect of parental cohabitation is family instability. Yet, our empirical work shows that family instability does not explain the relationship between cohabitation and negative child outcomes. We conclude that the best way to understand the implications of parental cohabitation is to adopt a dynamic family experience model.

Avowed Happiness in Confucian Asia: Ascertaining its Distribution,Patterns, and Sources

This study reviewed three philosophical accounts of happiness, and then tested those accounts with the Asiabarometer surveys conducted in six Confucian societies during the summer of 2006. Statistical analyses of these surveys reveal that East Asians tend to experience happiness to a greater extent when they experience enjoyment together with achievement and/or satisfaction. The preponderance of such multi-dimensional conceptions in all those societies poses a direct challenge to a single dimensional account of happiness in the West. The analyses also reveal that positive assessments of interpersonal relationships matter more than the amount of knowledge or wealth in living a happy life in Confucian societies.

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The emigration of immigrants, return vs onward migration: evidence from Sweden

This study analyzes emigration propensities for natives and immigrants delineating among immigrant emigrants between return and onward migration. Results indicate that emigrants are positively selected in terms of upper education. Well-educated immigrants have a higher probability of leaving for third-country destinations than returning to countries of origin. Predicted age–income profiles for immigrants show that return migrants have higher adjusted mean income levels than non-emigrants up to the age of 40. Onward migrants have lower predicted income levels across the age distribution due to this group’s composition and relatively low employment levels in Sweden. Separate estimations by region of origin indicate that within each group, onward migrants are more positively selected then return migrants in terms of income.

Fathers–participation in the domestic activities of everyday life

In this paper, the data from the multi-purpose survey on household “Time Use” conducted by Istat (the Italian National Statistical Institute) in 2002–2003 and the data from this same survey conducted in 1988–1989 will be analysed with the purpose of describing the fathers’ daily participation in the domestic activities and of highlighting the changes that have taken place during the 14 years elapsed between the two survey editions. The analysis will be carried out using standard time-use data analysis’ tool, time budget tables and by applying a multi-variate regression model with the objective of separating the relative contribution of the behavioural and structural factors to explain the variation observed.

Homogamy by education and migration status in Monterrey,Mexico: changes and continuities over time

This paper reviews changes in homogamy by migration status and educational level in Monterrey, Mexico, through the analysis of marriage patterns for two cohorts of men born in 1905–1934 and 1940–1969. Results show a significant increase in educational homogamy, as well as in homogamy by rural origins. The changes suggest that education has played an increasingly important role in the process of mate selection, although certain particularistic characteristics, such as being a rural immigrant, are still important in marriage formation. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the relationship between homogamy and social stratification.

Individual and institutional determinants of multidimensional poverty: A European comparison

In this article we evaluate to what extent between-country differences in the probability of being ‘multidimensional’ poor can be explained by a range of ‘domain-specific’ indicators of welfare regime arrangements. To this end, a so-called micro-macro model is estimated, testing the ‘independent’ effect of institutions, as opposed to alternative explanations such as between-country differences in population composition and economic affluence. Although we conclude that institutional arrangements do influence the risk of multidimensional poverty in the expected direction, we also find that bringing the ‘economy’ back into the analyses has a non-trivial impact. Our results point at several avenues for further discussion and research. First, although the more elaborate welfare regimes generally do a better job in preventing poverty, the level of transfers is not always ‘proportional’ to the general standard of living in these countries. Second, we only find partial confirmation for the often cited ‘negative’ impact of labour market flexibility and the related equality-jobs trade-off. While stricter employment regulations do reduce the poverty risk (be it only after controlling for economic affluence), flexibility in terms of the availability of fixed-term labour seems to be preferable to unemployment, even if at the individual level, labour market flexibility increases the likelihood of being poor quite severely.

Changes in the earnings of Arab men in the US between 2000 and 2002

Using public-use microdata samples from the American Community Survey, we find that Middle Eastern Arab men and Afghan, Iranian, and Pakistani men experienced a significant earnings decline relative to non-Hispanic whites between 2000 and 2002. Further analyses based on the Juhn–Murphy–Pierce wage decomposition technique as well as quantile regression indicate that this earnings decline is not explained by changes in the structure of wages or in observable characteristics beyond ethnicity. Our interpretation is that the unanticipated events of September 11th, 2001 negatively affected the labor-market income of the groups most closely associated with the ethnicity of the terrorists.

Extremism within the family

This paper considers an economic analysis of intergenerational transition of ethnic and social trait. We consider the level of social traits chosen by parents and its effect on their children’s choice of ethnic and social traits when reaching adulthood. We develop a theory that suggests that parents will chose extreme ethnic and social traits to increase the cost that their children will pay if they wish to deviate from their parents’ “ideal.” The extreme choice of the ethnic social traits of parents has an effect on the segregation of minorities and migrants.

Depressive Symptoms Among Native and Immigrant Adolescents in Norway: The Role of Gender and Urbanization

The study investigates depressive symptoms among 3,431 adolescents aged 13–15 years. The sample comprises both native Norwegian and immigrant adolescents living in Norway. The main finding of the study is that the level of depressive symptoms is significantly higher among the immigrant adolescents than their Norwegian counterparts. When analysed separately for boys and girls, the difference is still significant for boys. Generally depressive symptoms are significantly higher among girls than among boys. Depressive symptoms, especially in boys, may also be related to the degree of urbanization of the area they live in. In cities, there is a significant difference between native Norwegian and immigrant boys, with immigrant boys having a higher level of depressive symptoms than native Norwegians. The implications for future research about immigrant adolescents and their psychosocial adjustment are discussed.

Explaining Changing Suicide Rates in Norway 1948–2004: The Role of Social Integration

Using Norway 1948–2004 as a case, I test whether changes in variables related to social integration can explain changes in suicide rates. The method is the Box-Jenkins approach to time-series analysis. Different aspects of family integration contribute significantly to the explanation of Norwegian suicide rates in this period. The estimated effect of separations is stronger than the effect of divorces, both for men and women, probably because separations are closer in time to the “real” marital breakup. This difference has not been demonstrated in earlier time-series research. Marriages decrease the suicide rates for males. The unemployment estimate for men has a negative sign, contributing to fewer suicides. Both increasing alcohol (beer) consumption and fewer marriages seem to be implicated in the soaring suicide rate for young men since 1970.

Temporary Employment and Social Inequality in Canada: Exploring Intersections of Gender, Race and Immigration Status

Using data from the 2002–2004 waves of Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, this article investigates the consequences of different types of temporary employment—fixed-term or contract, casual, agency and seasonal employment—for differently situated workers in Canada. Attention to intersecting social locations of gender, race and immigrant status helps capture the complex implications of temporary work for inequality. In particular, it highlights the salience of gender relations in shaping workers’ experience of insecurity in different types of temporary employment.

Understanding sibling differences in child labor

This study considers sibling differences in child labor in Nepal. The data are consistent with a model where parents care equally for all children but siblings differ in comparative advantage in household production, although parental preferences and credit constraints could also be important. Girls, especially older girls, tend to work more than their brothers. This extra work increases with the number of younger siblings and the spacing between siblings. The extra work performed by girls is such that, at modal birth spacing, the younger girl actually spends significantly more time working than her older brother.

Measuring Housework Participation: The Gap between “Stylised” Questionnaire Estimates and Diary-based Estimates

This article compares stylised (questionnaire-based) estimates and diary-based estimates of housework time collected from the same respondents. Data come from the Home On-line Study (1999–2001), a British national household survey that contains both types of estimates (sample size = 632 men and 666 women). It shows that the gap between the two types of estimate is generally smaller in the case of women. But the gap between the estimates in the case of women is associated with the amount of housework performed as secondary activities and the level of irregularity in housework hours. Presence of dependent children, on the other hand, inflates the gap for both men and women. Men holding traditional gender-role attitudes tend to report more housework time in surveys than in diaries, but the tendency is reversed when they undertake long hours of housework. The overall results suggest that there are systematic errors in stylised housework time estimates.

Labor Migration,Remittances and Economic Well-being of Households in the Philippines

Labor Migration has long been viewed as a strategy adopted by the household unit to allocate family resources rationally to increase the flows of income and to raise family standard of living. The research reported here examines the extent to which remittances sent by Filipino overseas workers increase the income and standard of living of households in the Philippines. Data for the analysis were obtained from a representative sample of 2,388 households drawn in 1999–2000 from four major “labor sending” areas in the Philippines. The analysis compares households with and without overseas workers to estimate the contribution of remittances to household income and to household standard of living (measured once by an ‘objective’ indicator and once by a ‘subjective’ assessment). The data reveal that due to remittances the income of households with overseas labor migrants is considerably higher than the income of households without overseas workers. The data also reveal that remittances are used mostly for consumption purposes (e.g. purchase of food, clothing, education, and goods) and that most of the difference in standard of living (whether measured on the ‘objective’ or the ‘subjective’ scale) between households with and without overseas workers are attributed to remittances. The implications of labor migration and the policy that encourages and supports labor migration for the Filipino society are evaluated and discussed.

Imperfect goods and labor markets, and the union wage gap

Existing theoretical literature fails to explain satisfactorily the differences between the pay of workers who are covered by collective agreements and others who are not. This study aims at providing a model framework that is amenable to an analysis of this issue. Our general-equilibrium approach integrates a dual labor market and a two-sector product market. The results suggest that the so-called “union wage gap” is largely determined by the degree of centralization of the bargains and, to a somewhat lesser extent, by the expenditure share of the unionized sector's goods.

Are women over-represented in dead-end jobs? A Swedish study using empirically derived measures of dead-end jobs

It has been claimed that women experience fewer career opportunities than men do mainly because they are over-represented in ‘Dead-end Jobs’ (DEJs). Using Swedish panel data covering 1.1 million employees with the same employer in 1999 and 2003, measures of DEJ are empirically derived from analyses of wage mobility. The results indicate that women are over-represented in DEJs, especially in the public sector. The findings are interesting from (a) a methodological viewpoint, as it is indicated that the career opportunities associated with occupations can be indicated using one measure for both men and women, (b) the glass ceiling perspective, which arguably under-emphasizes gender inequality in relation to low positions, and (c) a class perspective, which basically ignores gender and sector in explaining career chances.