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.     

Can migration reduce educational attainment? Evidence from Mexico

This paper examines the impact of migration on educational attainment in rural Mexico. Using historical migration rates to instrument for current migration, we find evidence of a significant negative effect of migration on schooling attendance and attainment. IV-censored ordered probits show that living in a migrant household lowers the chances of boys completing junior high school and of boys and girls completing high school. We find that the observed decrease in schooling of 16- to 18-year-olds is accounted for by current migration of boys and increased housework for girls.     

Are there crisis-led fertility declines? Evidence from central Cameroon

Past demographic transitions have beenobserved with and without economic progress, but thereis little empirical record of crisis-driven fertilitytransitions. In recent years, several authors haveargued that conditions for such transitions are met inAfrican countries under economic crisis and structuraladjustment. Using retrospective family histories,this study examines fertility responses to crisis inCameroon, a country with a particularly abrupteconomic reversal. The thesis of a crisis-led declineis tested on the basis of five criteria includingtiming of the decline, statistical and substantivesignificance, rural-urban response differentials andsocial salience. Findings are consistent with acrisis-led effect.     

Do fertility transitions influence infant mortality declines? Evidence from early modern Germany

The timing and sequencing of fertility transitions and early-life mortality declines in historical Western societies indicate that reductions in sibship (number of siblings) may have contributed to improvements in infant health. Surprisingly, however, this demographic relationship has received little attention in empirical research. We outline the difficulties associated with establishing the effect of sibship on infant mortality and discuss the inherent bias associated with conventional empirical approaches. We offer a solution that permits an empirical test of this relationship while accounting for reverse causality and potential omitted variable bias. Our approach is illustrated by evaluating the causal impact of family size on infant mortality using genealogical data from 13 German parishes spanning the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Overall, our findings do not support the hypothesis that declining fertility led to increased infant survival probabilities in historical populations.     

Why the rise in adolescent fertility rates in the Dominican Republic in the 1990s?

Despite concern over high pregnancy rates and levels of risk for sexually transmittedinfections, adolescent fertility rates in the Dominican Republic have not changed substantially since the early 1980's, and actually increased during the early to mid 1990s. The present study was undertaken to assess the factors contributing to the recent rise in fertility among Dominican adolescents. The findings suggest that although contraceptive use among adolescents and young adults has increased, this has been more than offset by ominous trends on other determinants of fertility. Among these are declines in mean age at first sex and first marriage/union without a commensurate decline in mean age at first contraceptive use, and stubbornly high discontinuation rates for oral contraceptives andcondoms. There is also some evidence that rates of induced abortion among adolescents may have increased, without which adolescent fertility rates would have been even higher. Demand for children among Dominican adolescents remains strong, suggesting that efforts to reduce the current high prevalence of risky sexual behaviors need to influence social norms in order to be successful.     

Why do people die in famines? Evidence from three island populations

There is surprisingly little consensus about what people die of during famines. In this paper, the causes of the increases in mortality during the Greek famine of 1941-43 are examined. The focus of the study is three island populations: Syros, Hios, and Mykonos. Death registration for these islands was not disrupted during the famine and the records give cause for death, certified by a doctor. Archival material and hospital records are utilized to assess public health during the famine. The findings point to the overwhelming importance of starvation for increased mortality during the famine and the virtual absence of either significant epidemics of infectious diseases or a breakdown in the public health system. The paper concludes by comparing the findings for the Greek famine with those for other famines. A model that attempts to explain the different courses that famine mortality can take is proposed.     

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.     

Why do English-speaking countries have relatively high fertility?

In broad terms, the division in Europe between countries with very low fertility and countries with sustainable fertility matches Esping-Anderson’s classification of the same countries into ‘conservative’ and ‘social democratic’ (Esping-Anderson 1990). A central difference between these two types relates to their preferred models of the family. The conservative countries hold more to the ‘breadwinner’ model of the family while the social democratic countries seek higher levels of gender equity within the family and in the workplace. State support in both conservative and social democratic countries is designed to be consistent with these differing views of the family. Would we then not expect fertility to be very low in Esping-Anderson’s third group of countries, the ‘liberal’ countries, essentially English-speaking countries? By the Esping-Anderson definition, liberal countries are notable for their lack of support for families from public sources. Instead, according to Esping-Anderson, families must rely upon market provision for the services that they may need to combine work and family and they must rely on market employment to generate the income required to support their children. Contrary to this theory, whether measured by contemporary cross-sectional fertility or completed cohort fertility, with the exception of Canada, English-speaking countries now have the highest fertility rates among the countries that were classified by Esping-Anderson. Given the strength of theoretical explanation that arises from comparative studies of fertility in Europe, the paper examines why fertility in English-speaking countries seems not to follow expectation.     

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.     

Can fertility be estimated from current pregnancy data?

Summary This paper explores the feasibility of estimating fertility from reports on current pregnancies collected in single-round sample surveys. Data from 15 countries in the World Fertility Survey are used to evaluate the possibilities. The results indicate that neither the age pattern of fertility nor the total fertility ratio can be reliably estimated from current pregnancy data. For almost all countries, the total fertility ratio based on recent births is higher than that based on current pregnancies, even when the latter estimate is restricted to higher durations of pregnancy.     

Are parents altruistic? Evidence from Mexico

Are parents altruistic or selfish? We contribute to the continuing debate of this question by proposing a simple test which is implemented using experimental data from the Mexican anti-poverty programme PROGRESA. Benefit eligibility is randomised. Our estimation strategy explicitly addresses potentially confounding factors and selection bias problems. We reject selfishness of parents in non-urban Mexico as PROGRESA beneficiaries spend more on child-related goods and do not increase spending on adult-related goods compared to parents in the control group. At the same time, we reject some rival theories.     

Escape route to dependency? Female migration from Sri Lanka to the Middle East

This article looks at labor migration with the sex component turned upside down, where the woman leaves hearth and home in search of work in distant lands. The sending country is Sri Lanka, and the women migrate as maids to Arab households in the Gulf area. Labor migration must be understood in the context of the economic and social development that has made migration possible, or rather pushed it forward. Today, the export of labor is the 2nd biggest source of foreign earnings for Sri Lanka, and females constitute the largest single group of labor migrants. There is 1 clear aspect of female migration: it is almost without exception the poorest strata of society that send their women to the Gulf as housemaids. 3 factors tend to reduce the value of wages earned in the Middle East: 1) for a majority of the migrants there are high social costs involved, 2) there are high transaction costs just to obtain a Gulf job, and 3) performing paid housework tends to be regarded as a low-status occupation and is less attractive to households that have alternative means of income. Not only are the migrant women themselves exposed to a very different society, with different values and ways of living, but also the whole community at home gets a concept of "abroad." The Sri Lankan government expects the contingent of female migrants to grow, though against this is the fact that Sri Lanka now faces stronger competition in female labor exports from other Asian countries.     

Why does class matter? Policy attitudes,mechanisms, and the case of the Nordic countries

In most democracies, classes tend to vary with respect to an array of attitudes and behaviours, and differences are large within a number of European polities. What mechanisms lie behind these differences? Do they relate primarily to individuals’ material interests, as assumed by traditional class theories, or instead, to socialization and self-selection factors? This paper seeks to extend theory and research through an analysis of mechanisms behind class differences in policy attitudes. Our focus is on the Nordic countries, where class differences are extensive and well-documented in past scholarship. We take advantage of high-quality European Social Survey data for Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Analyzing three policy arenas and the 9-category European Socio-economic Classification scheme (ESeC), we find evidence that class-related factors help to explain cleavages in attitudes. Comparisons with the more detailed, 103-category International Standard Classification of Occupation scheme (ISCO) suggest that these factors explain less “micro-class” occupational variation. Results shed new light on mechanisms behind class differences, and the empirical foundations of established class theories. These and other implications are discussed in the conclusion.     

Do immigrants working illegally reduce the natives' legal employment? Evidence from Italy

The paper uses estimates, provided by the Central Statistical Office, of standard units of labour to examine how immigrants working (illegally) in the shadow economy affect the employment of (legal) labour in the official economy. The results of our cross sector-time series analysis of the demand for legal labour in the Italian economy between 1980 and 1995 show that the increase of illegal units of labour produces a reduction in the use of legal labour, albeit a very limited one. An analysis by sectors shows that the competitive effect of illegal foreign workers is not homogeneous and is strongest in the agricultural sector, while complementarity between the two categories of labour is evident in the non-tradable services sector. Furthermore, when the effects of illegal foreign and illegal native workers are compared, the former is smaller than the latter one, with illegal foreigners workers just reinforcing the impact of the illegal nationals on the labour market. Received: 27 June 1997/Accepted: 31 August 1998     

Are Theories About Social Capital Empirically Supported? Evidence from the Farming Sector

Social capital is the bond that links societies together and without which there is little opportunity for economic growth or individual well-being. Thus, this paper aims to contribute to the literature by providing an analytically reliable concept of social capital and a methodological tool for empirically testing a theoretical model of how social capital is built. Based upon a decomposition of the concept of social capital characterising three main dimensions (i.e., structural, relational and cognitive), for each specific group of individuals under study the structural equation model allows us: (1) to confirm the multidimensional construct of social capital; (2) to measure the interrelation between its different attributes and; (3) to set a solid basis for additional research on the effects of social capital. This approach has been empirically applied to Andalusian (southern Spain) farmers as case study. We believe this research to be a fundamental starting point for informing social capital policymakers and helping them implement the necessary tools to facilitate sustainable development processes at different moments in time as it takes into account the multidimensional, contextual and dynamic nature of the concept.     

Why does the need for medication become a barrier to breastfeeding? A narrative review

Problem

The need for medication during lactation can contribute to the early cessation of breastfeeding.

Which are the Factors Influencing Innovation Performances? Evidence from Italian Cohesion Policy

Our paper aims at evaluating the role that the local administrations play on Italian regional innovation performance, by using a revised version of Regional Innovation Scoreboard. Carrying out a panel data analysis and a logistic regression, the analysis is based on a combined approach towards institutions, involving socio-political aspects, considered by the institutional quality index, and the capability of regional administrators of expending Structural and Cohesion Funds, by a quantitative index. Firstly, a panel data analysis helped us to highlight the role of institutions and which sectoral themes of EU investments affected the most regional innovative performances in the time span 2007-2015. Secondly, the logistic regression captures which investment is more likely to affect innovation performances within Italian Regions. The results underline that major effect on innovation performance derive from the combined effect of high quality institutions and efficient public expenditure.