Vocational education and employment over the life course using a new measure of occupational specificity

Vocational education is seen as beneficial for the labor market allocation of young people. However, recent studies point to disadvantages later in the life course, where the specific skills that are obtained from vocational education decrease employability. This paper re-evaluates this hypothesis for the Netherlands with an improved measure for the vocational specificity of educational programs, utilizing both vertical (level) and horizontal (field) information on education. More specifically, we use a gradual measure for the linkage strength between education and occupation to predict employment over the life course. Using data from the national Dutch labor force surveys, we show that there is considerable heterogeneity in occupational specificity within the categories of vocational and general educational programs that is masked when using a dichotomous classification of general versus vocational education. In the life course analyses we find that the large early benefits of having vocational education disappear later in the career and turn into a small disadvantage before retirement.     

How much longer would men work if there were no employment dislocation? Estimates from cause-elimination work life tables

The impact of labor demand on the decline in labor force participation of older males too young to qualify for Social Security is often acknowledged but seldom measured or incorporated into models of retirement. Using data from Current Population Survey March Demographic files and the periodic employment dislocation supplements, a series of cause-eliminated increment–decrement work life tables captures the impact of employment dislocation and early (before age 65) pension receipt on the employment of older males in a simple overall summary measure: expected work life. Employment dislocation and being offered an early pension are two of the most obvious manifestations of shifts in labor demand that can affect the labor force withdrawal of older males. Consistent with earlier research, I find early pension receipt to be an important factor in early labor force withdrawal but, in addition, employment dislocation has a sizeable direct impact on labor force participation. The findings suggest that employment dislocation and other, yet unmeasured, labor demand factors need to be incorporated into models of retirement.     

人口老龄化与延迟退休关系的定量研究

文章基于个人养老金财富的视角,根据中国现行养老保险制度,构建延迟退休的养老金财富损益模型,定量考察人口老龄化对养老金财富的影响,从而判断其对延迟退休的激励效应。测算结果：人口老龄化对延迟退休具有正激励效应,但激励程度取决于参数组合水平。在可能的参数组合下,养老金财富都存在上升的区间;随着预期寿命的延长,同一退休年龄对应的养老金财富更多,且养老金财富达到最大时的退休年龄相应更高;当预期寿命一定时,延迟退休的最高年龄具有一定稳定性和可预见性,且男女最高退休年龄的一致性更具显著性;女性延长退休年限的空间大于男性,延长相同年限时,女性利益增进程度高于男性。在此基础上,提出相应的政策建议。     

Varieties of indebtedness: Financialization and mortgage market institutions in Europe

During the global housing boom that preceded the 2007–9 financial crisis, household debt increased substantially in many European countries, posing a challenge for literature on financialization and the institutional heterogeneity of mortgage markets. This paper examines recent institutional shifts in European mortgage markets and specifies three analytically distinct models of debt accumulation: inclusion, extension and intensity. While existing research has emphasized inclusion (access to homeownership), we show that financial intensification is an important determinant of cross-national variation in debt. We assess the variation in financial intensity in six European countries (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) using household-level survey data. Our results show that inclusion and expansion explain only part of the cross-national variation in mortgage debt to income ratios. Furthermore, household financial behavior is consistent with the financial intensity model, and variation in the degree of financial intensification explains a substantial portion of the cross-national difference in debt levels.     

金融知识差异与我国家庭财富积累

通过应用中国城市家庭消费金融调研数据,本文系统的实证检验了改进后的金融知识指标、经济学专业、金融学专业以及家庭理财规划等因素对家庭各项财富积累的影响,并通过使用合适的工具变量进行两阶段估计,验证了这种正向影响的稳健性。此外,实证结果中家庭理财规划以及理财规划时间跨度的正向边际效应表明,理财规划可能是金融知识差异影响家庭财富积累的重要机制。研究结论有利于更准确地理解居民金融知识差异对于家庭福利,特别是退休福利的影响。     

Pathways of disadvantage: Explaining the relationship between maternal depression and children’s problem behaviors

A large body of literature documents that children of depressed mothers have impaired cognitive, behavioral, and health outcomes throughout the life course, though much less is known about the mechanisms linking maternal depression to children’s outcomes. In this paper, I use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to estimate and explain the consequences of maternal depression for 5-year-old children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. Ordinary least squared (OLS) regression models and propensity score models show that children exposed to both chronic and intermittent maternal depression have more problem behaviors than their counterparts with never depressed mothers. Results also show that economic resources and maternal parenting behaviors mediate much of the association between maternal depression and children’s problem behaviors, but that relationships with romantic partners and social support do little to explain this association. This research extends past literature by illuminating some mechanisms through which maternal depression matters for children; by utilizing longitudinal measures of depression; by employing rigorous statistical techniques to lend confidence to the findings; and by using a large, diverse, and non-clinical sample of children most susceptible to maternal depression. Given that early childhood problem behaviors lay a crucial foundation for short- and long-term life trajectories, the social consequences of maternal depression may be far-reaching.     

中国老龄居民生活质量研究：来自安徽省的证据

中国乡村老龄居民的生活质量在学术界一直没有受到应有的关注。通过对2006年的安徽省问卷调查结果进行分析,发现城乡老龄居民的生活质量与其退休前职业层级存在显著的正向联系,干部与教师和医生的生活质量明显高于其他职业,而农民的生活质量最差。中国的农村老龄居民处在经济转轨与人口转变的双向运动中,这对其生活质量造成了巨大的冲击。     

Offspring education and parental mortality: Evidence from South Asia

Decades of research show that education not only confers individual health benefits, but it also spills over to advantage subsequent generations. More recently, research has confirmed that the intergenerational health benefits of education can also flow upward: aging adults with more highly educated children experience better health and higher survival. Research has documented this finding in high-income settings, and also in select low- and middle-income contexts, raising questions about how having an adult child who attended relatively low levels of education can benefit aging parents' well-being. In this study, we use multilevel, long-term panel data on a cohort of older adults from the Chitwan Valley Family Study in rural Nepal to establish whether the association between offspring education and parents' survival is observable in this extremely poor, agrarian context. Extending past studies, we then leverage additional data on older adults to examine the association between offspring education and two theorized mechanisms: older adults' better health behaviors and their greater support in later life.     

社会法视角的退休年龄延长及其功用

我国现行退休年龄是在建国初期规定的。经过半个多世纪经济社会的快速发展，社会形势发生巨大变化，人均寿命大幅度提高，延长并实行男女相同的退休年龄，是当今世界各国面临的一个不可回避的话题。尽管法定退休年龄延长是在改革进程中遇到的一个富有挑战性的理论和政策问题，但从社会法角度来看，具有极其重要的法律意义，它充分体现了平等的法制理念，有利于实现男女平等就业权，实现劳动者个体的社会保障权，完善退休返聘制度。既可解决我国当前社会保险立法的难题，又可有效解决劳动争议实践中的难题。     

债务重组的内容及方式

由于债务重组在当前经济生活中具有显著的意义 ,债务重组的实践也暴露出许多问题 ,所以 ,试图从会计的角度来研究债务重组的内容、方式以及所采取的会计处理方法 ,同时 ,展望一下当前我国债务重组应如何与世界相接轨     

Friends’ influence on adolescent theft and minor delinquency: A developmental test of peer-reported effects

Most theories about adolescent involvement in delinquent behaviors afford a prominent role to peers or friends and their behaviors. In this article I explore the age-graded role that actual friends’ behavior plays in explaining respondents’ theft and minor delinquency during middle and later adolescence, paying special attention to the potentially mitigating effects of social control measures. Results suggest that the influence of friends’ own reported theft and minor delinquency in explaining respondents’ behavior is relatively modest despite employing several different measures of friends’ behaviors. Family influences proved weaker than expected during middle adolescence. The influence of friends’ behavior was only modestly influential, and slightly more noticeable during later adolescence. The sheer amount of time spent with friends, on the other hand, was influential throughout adolescence. The results reinforce skepticism concerning the accuracy of self-reports about peer behavior, and suggest that perceptions of peers’ behavior may be more influential than the behaviors themselves.     

如何正确理解“债转股”

"债转股"是解决国有企业过度负债经营的新思路,能给企业一种新的生存机遇,但是,"债转股"并非能顺利按照预料的运作机制发挥作用.正确理解"债转股",以此为契机,建立有效管理约束机制,是企业摆脱困境的出路.     

How does gun violence affect Americans’ trust in each other?

This article examines how Americans' actual experience of gun victimization affects their trust in others and how this further connects to the widely-discussed association between gun crime and trust at the place level. Analyzing data from the U.S. General Social Survey (GSS), I find that, regardless when it occurred in life, Americans who were victimized by guns trust much less in others than those who had no such experience. In terms of the size of the effect, repeated gun victimization has the strongest effect, followed by adulthood victimization, and then childhood victimization. I also find that individuals who later achieve higher socioeconomic status are better able to recover from the psychological effect of childhood gun victimization, lending support for the experiential theory of trust that people can update their trust according to changing experiences later in life. Finally, combing the GSS data with data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I also show that higher percentages of nonfatal and fatal gun violence victims lead to lower levels of trust both across and within the U.S. census divisions over time. Findings of this study demonstrate that America's gun violence affects not only just those killed, injured, or present during gunfire, but it can also sabotage the social and psychological well-being of all Americans.     

Life events,genetic susceptibility,and smoking among adolescents

Although stressful life events during adolescence are associated with the adoption of unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, both social circumstances and physical traits can moderate the relationship. This study builds on the stress paradigm and gene–environment approach to social behavior by examining how a polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene 5-HTTLPR moderates the effect of life events on adolescent smoking. Tests of interaction hypotheses use data from the Family Transitions Project, a longitudinal study of 7th graders followed for 5 years. A sibling-pair design with separate models for the gender composition of pairs (brothers, sisters, or brother/sister) controls for unmeasured family background. The results show that negative life events are significantly and positively associated with smoking. Among brother pairs but not other pairs, the results provide evidence of gene–environment interaction by showing that life events more strongly influence smoking behavior for those with more copies of the 5-HTTLPR S allele.     

债权融资下的控制权安排

在控制权具有私人收益的情况下,它对于企业家具有激励作用;同时,由于存在道德风险,债权人可以运用控制权来保障自己的回报,因此,控制权对于债权人又具有承兑作用,这两种作用相互冲突,必然会对债务融资控制权的安排带来影响。债务融资下,最佳的控制权安排取决于控制权两种作用之间的权衡,并非人们通常认为的债务越多,控制权交给债权人的比例就越高     

When children affect parents: Children’s academic performance and parental investment

Sociologists have extensively documented the ways that parent resources predict children’s achievement. However, less is known about whether and how children’s academic performance shapes parental investment behaviors. I use data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) and longitudinal fixed effects models to examine how changes in teacher assessments are related to changes in the conferral of various parent resources. Overall, I find that the relationship between achievement and investment varies based on the directionality in children’s achievement and the type of resource at hand. Children whose performance improves receive a broad range of enrichment resources, while declines in performance are met with corrective educational resources. Results are largely consistent whether language or math assessments are used to predict investment, and also among children whose achievement does not change over time. I discuss these patterns, along with implications for the use of parent resources in education and family research.     

Social mobility in the context of fathering: The intergenerational link in parenting among co-resident fathers

Intergenerational transmissions extend across a number of family-related behaviors, including marriage timing, fertility, and divorce. Surprisingly, few studies investigate the link between the fathering men experience and the fathering they ultimately engage in. I use data on the grandfathers and fathers of the 2001 U.S. birth cohort – measured in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (N = 4050) – to test whether men’s perception of the parenting they received influences their subsequent paternal self-assessments and behaviors. I find a nonlinear association between experiencing warm fathering and men’s self-assessed parenting quality and stress. Men with particularly warm fathers are more likely to report being good fathers themselves. Those who report having the harshest fathers also exhibit better paternal self-perceptions and lower stress. Perceptions of paternal warmth show similar associations with men’s fathering engagement. This research sheds light on the significance of family dynamics and how a legacy of fathering may contribute to inequality.     

Institutionalized collective action and the relationship between beliefs about environmental problems and environmental actions: A cross-national analysis

How do institutions affect the relationship between an individual's beliefs and their actions? Institutionalized strategies are routine ways of addressing problems that become taken-for-granted in a society. Environmental problems constitute a collective action problem in that personal consumption often conflicts with collective interests. I test whether beliefs about environmental problems have a different impact on a person's pro-environmental behaviors, depending on how addressing collective action problems is institutionalized in their society. In particular, I use level of welfare targeting as an observable, organizational difference among societies that reflects different institutionalized strategies for addressing a prominent collective action problem. I use multilevel models on data from the 2010 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) and measures of welfare targeting from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to answer this question. I find that in societies where the institutionalized strategy for dealing with inequality is highly targeted, individuals' beliefs that these problems are important, real, and whether they can do something about them have a greater impact on their actions. The results suggest individuals generalize taken-for-granted strategies of assuring collective welfare to implement their individual beliefs about the environment, making institutional environments important moderators of the strength of the belief-action relationship.     

Are veterans healthier? Military service and health at age 40 in the all-volunteer era

I explore the relationship between active-duty military service and self-reported health measured at age 40. Based on selectivity, veterans of active-duty service might be expected to have better health than civilians. Using data taken from the NLSY-79, I show that this is not the case. Although veterans of reserve-duty service, and nonveterans who passed the military’s physical exam for entrance into the military report better physical health, active-duty veterans do not. The lower than expected self-reported health of active-duty veterans cannot be explained by differences on confounding variables such as income, education, and marital status. In addition, the lower physical health of these veterans cannot be explained by differences in health-related behaviors such as excessive alcohol use, cigarette smoking, and body mass index.     

Parental Family Experiences, the Timing of First Sex, and Contraception

By investigating the intergenerational consequences of multiple aspects of family experiences across the life course this paper advances what we know about the forces shaping children's initiation of sexual and contraceptive behaviors. Our aim is to advance the scientific understanding of early sexual experiences by explicitly considering contraceptive use and by differentiating between the consequences of parental family experiences during childhood and those during adolescence and young adulthood. Thanks to unique, highly detailed data measuring parental family experiences throughout the life course and sexual dynamics early in life it is possible to provide detailed empirical estimates of the relationship between parental family experiences and contraceptive use at first sex-a relationship about which we know relatively little. Findings reveal (1) significant simultaneous consequences of many different dimensions of parental family experiences for the timing of first sex and the likelihood of using contraception at first sex, but the specific dimensions of family important for the specific behavior vary across racial groups; and (2) that parental family experiences influence the timing of sex and contraceptive use differently.