Economic development and labor force participation of older persons

The effect of economic development on labor force participation rates of older men and women is examined using national data for 134 countries. The analysis provides new insights into the evolution of retirement patterns with rising personal income, slowing population growth, the aging of the population, and shifts in the composition of employment. The analysis indicates a negative relationship between per capita income and labor force participation rates. This relationship is stronger for older men than for older women and is most apparent among middle income countries. An older population is associated with lower participation rates for older men and higher widow rates produce higher participation rates among older women. Industrial changes such as a decline in the proportion of the labor force employed in agriculture lower the proportion of older persons in the labor force. Finally, national social security policies are shown to impact the proportion of older persons that remains in the labor force.     

Child poverty and changes in child poverty

This article offers a cross-country overview of child poverty, changes in child poverty, and the impact of public policy in North America and Europe. Levels and changes in child poverty rates in 12 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries during the 1990s are documented using data from the Luxembourg Income Study project, and a decomposition analysis is used to uncover the relative role of demographic factors, labor markets, and income transfers from the state in determining the magnitude and direction of the changes. Child poverty rates fell noticeably in only three countries and rose in three others. In no country were demographic factors a force for higher child poverty rates, but these factors were also limited in their ability to cushion children from adverse shocks originating in the labor market or the government sector. Increases in the labor market engagement of mothers consistently lowered child poverty rates, while decreases in the employment rates and earnings of fathers were a force for higher rates. Finally, there is no single road to lower child poverty rates. Reforms to income transfers intended to increase labor supply may or may not end up lowering the child poverty rate.     

Mobility,Stagnation, or Attrition? Diverse Earning Trajectories in a Cohort of Foreign‐born Men

Researchers and policymakers frequently debate about the integration of immigrants into the US economy. These debates are often based on limited data that do not capture the diversity of immigrants who arrived in the later twentieth century. Related research has also struggled to incorporate the experience of short‐term immigrants or immigrants who move in and out of the labor force. Using records from the Social Security Administration, we track the complete cohort of foreign‐born men who received social security numbers in 1978 through their subsequent working years and characterize their earning trajectories. We find that the share of foreign‐born men with low earnings declined over time, mainly due to attrition from the formal labor force. We also show, for the first time, that immigrants’ employment and earning histories vary considerably by their countries of origin: while those from several countries in Asia and Africa experienced substantial earnings growth and tended to stay in the United States for the long term, men from Central America and the Caribbean experienced more stagnation and had high levels of temporary and permanent attrition from the formal labor force. We end by discussing the historical contingencies and socioeconomic contexts—in sending countries and the United States—that shaped these trajectories.     

黑龙江省农村剩余劳动力转移问题研究

黑龙江省是中国粮食主产区,粮食综合生产能力在一定程度上取决于该省农民就业程度与效果。目前,黑龙江省农村剩余劳动力不但数量大,而且,转移时遇到的困难和问题多。剩余劳动力转移问题的解决,对黑龙江农村经济的发展尤为重要,剩余劳动力转移出去,才能提高农业生产率,实现农业的适度规模经营,才能提高农业吸收现代技术的能力,真正实现农业的现代化,把黑龙江省农村建成社会主义新农村。     

Individual mobility,population growth and labor force participation

Trends in labor force participation rates and the age of retirement are shown to be important determinants of upward mobility. Reductions in age specific participation rates increase the speed of movement through the employment hierarchy. In conjunction with economic development, the falling labor force participation of older men acts to offset the adverse effects of slowing population growth on promotional prospects. These conclusions are reached by extending a model of employment status developed by Keyfitz to limit employment competition to only those actually in the labor force.     

Personnel policies and the age structure of an occupation: the case of the academic labor market

Population projection techniques are used to project the size and age structure of the academic labor force. Age specific coverage data from Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association are used to proxy academic employment. Hiring, quit, retirement and death rates are calculated for 1981 and 1982. Projections of the future academic labor force are made holding these rates constant. The results show the importance of these entry and exit rates and also indicate how these rates can fluctuate from year to year.Estimates of the future demand for teachers are used to determine a target rate of growth of the academic labor force. Alternative personnel policies are incorporated into the projections. This analysis indicates that the personnel policies chosen to meet the desired labor force size have substantially different effects on the age structure of the labor force.The authors wish to acknowledge the cooperation of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association in providing the data used in this study and specifically Francis King for his assistance and encouragement. Helpful comments on this paper were provided by John Dutton, Ronald Schrimper, Jack Wilson, and Bryan Boulier.     

Testing local level labor force and unemployment projections

The labor force projections perform well, even for small areas, which suggests that changes in local labor force participation rates can be approximated by national changes. In fact, the mean absolute percent errors are low even when the previously calculated population projections are used. The unemployment projections do not do as well, and using 1980 census labor force data instead of previously calculated labor force projections offers no improvement in the results. A two-step study is needed to determine why the errors are so large. First, the state level changes from 1970 to 1980 should be compared with national changes to determine the difference in unemployment rate changes by race and sex. Second, state level data on the occupational mix should be examined for the relationship between this and the changes in state level unemployment rates by race and sex. It is hypothesized that the first step will show that even state level changes in unemployment rates by race and sex cannot be well approximated by the national changes and the second step will show that some of the variation can be explained by state differences in occupational mix. Further studies should be made to determine how the calculation of national changes affects the results. Changes in labor force participation rates seem to follow trends, and therefore extrapolation may not have much effect on the results. Although using the actual changes in unemployment from 1970 to the latest year available as a proxy for the changes from 1970 to the target year may have a serious detrimental effect on the unemployment projections, if some of the variation in the national changes in race and sex can be explained and some adjustments made, the actual changes may be the best proxy to use.     

The Middle East population puzzle

An overview is provided of Middle Eastern countries on the following topics; population change, epidemiological transition theory and 4 patterns of transition in the middle East, transition in causes of death, infant mortality declines, war mortality, fertility, family planning, age and sex composition, ethnicity, educational status, urbanization, labor force, international labor migration, refugees, Jewish immigration, families, marriage patterns, and future growth. The Middle East is geographically defined as Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Gaza and the West Bank, Iran, Turkey, and Israel. The Middle East's population grew very little until 1990 when the population was 43 million. Population was about doubled in the mid-1950s at 80 million. Rapid growth occurred after 1950 with declines in mortality due to widespread disease control and sanitation efforts. Countries are grouped in the following ways: persistent high fertility and declining mortality with low to medium socioeconomic conditions (Jordan, Oman, Syria, Yemen, and the West Bank and Gaza), declining fertility and mortality in intermediate socioeconomic development (Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran), high fertility and declining mortality in high socioeconomic conditions (Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), and low fertility and mortality in average socioeconomic conditions (Israel). As birth and death rates decline, there is an accompanying shift from communicable diseases to degenerative diseases and increases in life expectancy; this pattern is reflected in the available data from Egypt, Kuwait, and Israel. High infant and child mortality tends to remain a problem throughout the Middle East, with the exception of Israel and the Gulf States. War casualties are undetermined, yet have not impeded the fastest growing population growth rate in the world. The average fertility is 5 births/woman by the age of 45. Muslim countries tend to have larger families. Contraceptive use is low in the region, with the exception of Turkey and Egypt and among urban and educated populations. More than 40% of the population is under 15 years of age. The region is about 50% Arabic (140 million). Educational status has increased, particularly for men; the lowest literacy rates for women are in Yemen and Egypt. The largest countries are Iran, Turkey, and Egypt.     

Male-female differences in labor market outcomes during the early transition to market: The cases of Estonia and Slovenia

Changes in women's relative wages and employment are analyzed, using social security data from Slovenia (1987–1992) and a retrospective labor force survey in Estonia (1989–1994). Estonia adopted liberal labor market policies. Slovenia took an interventionist approach. Nevertheless, relative wages for women rose in both countries. Factors favoring women included: returns to human capital rose in transition, benefiting women; relative labor demand shifted toward predominantly female sectors; low-wage women had a disproportionate incentive to exit the labor market, especially in Estonia. However, women were less mobile across jobs in both countries, so men disproportionately filled new jobs in expanding sectors. Received: 27 November 1997/Accepted: 20 December 1998     

Employment and self-employment in the wake of Hurricane Katrina

We use data from the monthly Current Population Survey to examine the short- and longer-term effects of Hurricane Katrina on the labor market outcomes of prime-age individuals in the most affected states—Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi— and for evacuees in any state. We focus on rates of labor force participation, employment, and unemployment, and we extend prior research by also examining rates of self-employment. With the exception of Mississippi, employment and unemployment one year after the hurricane were at similar rates as the end of 2003. This aggregate pattern of labor market shock and recovery has been observed for other disasters but masks important differences among subgroups. Those evacuated from their residences, even temporarily, were a harder-hit group, and evacuees who had yet to return to their pre-Katrina state up to one year later were hit especially hard; these findings hold even after controlling for differences in observable characteristics. We also find evidence of an important role for self-employment as part of post-disaster labor market recovery, especially for evacuees who did not return. This may result from poor job prospects in the wage and salary sector or new opportunities for starting businesses in the wake of Katrina.     

Why are fewer married women joining the work force in rural India? A decomposition analysis over two decades

In contrast with global trends, India has witnessed a secular decline in women’s employment rates over the past few decades. We investigate this decline in rural areas, where the majority of Indian women reside. Using parametric and semi-parametric decomposition techniques, we show that changes in individual and household attributes fully account for the fall in women’s labor force participation in 1987–1999 and account for more than half of the decline in 1999–2011. Our findings underscore increasing education levels among rural married women and the men in their households as the most prominent attributes contributing to this decline. We provide suggestive evidence that changes in more educated women’s relative returns to home production compared with market production may have adversely affected female labor force participation in rural India.     

Labor force status life tables for the United States, 1972

As an ordinary life table follows a closed group from birth to the death of its last member, a labor force status life table follows a closed group through life and through the statuses “in the labor force” and “not in the labor force.” Using data from the January 1972 and January 1973 Current Population Surveys, two types of labor force status life tables were calculated for the United States, 1972. One type was a conventional working life table (for males) which started with an ordinary life table and partitioned the life table population into labor force statuses using age-specific proportions in the labor force. The other type was an increment-decrement table, prepared for both males and females, which was calculated so as to be consistent with the rates of labor force accession and separation implied by the data. Increment-decrement labor force status life tables are generally preferable to conventional working life tables. They reflect the implications of a clearly specified set of behavioral rates, provide detailed measures of the flows between labor force statuses, do not introduce seriously biasing approximations into the calculation of summary measures of labor force experience, and can be applied to female data as easily as male data. In practice, incrementdecrement labor force status life tables can be calculated from current and retrospective data generated by a single labor force survey. The increment-decrement labor force status life tables for the United States, 1972 reflected the extent to which the labor force participation of males exceeded that of females, but indicated that, on the average, half a woman’s lifetime between the ages of 16 and 65 was spent in the labor force. There were marked differences in the proportions, by age, of males and females in the labor force, with the male pattern rising to a single, flat peak and the female pattern being bimodal. Nonetheless, the two sexes shared similar age patterns in the proportions changing, or not changing, their labor force status.     

Rising Mortality in Hungary

Although Hungary is not alone in Eastern Europe in experiencing a rising death rate during recent years, this adverse development would seem to have progressed further there than in neighbouring socialist countries, with the possible exception of the Soviet Union. The Hungarian death rate has been rising since the mid-1960s in part because the population was ageing but, more significantly from the health point of view, because of a real increase in mortality among certain sections of the population. The age-specific death rates of males aged 15 and over were all higher in 1980 than in the mid-1960s, the increase being particularly marked for the age group 30–59; moreover, women aged 30–59 are also now beginning to display the same characteristic. In the paper the individual contributions of the various causes of death to these trends are examined and some of the factors that are thought to have enhanced the risk of dying are outlined.     

Labor Supply Prospects in 16 Developed Countries, 2000–2050

Over the past 20 years, policy attention has been focused upon the implications of below‐replacement fertility for the aging of populations. This article argues that another potential consequence, a decline in the absolute size of the labor force, may prove to be an equally compelling issue because of its impact on rates of economic growth. Because the United States will experience both increasing labor productivity and an increase in its labor supply, the growth orientation of the global economy is likely to persist. In this circumstance, given relatively comparable changes in the productivity of labor across countries, countries that face major declines in their labor supply will fare less well than countries that are able to maintain their labor supply at least constant. The article examines the labor supply prospects of 16 developed countries for the period 2000–2050, drawing attention to the ways in which countries may be able to influence the future levels of their labor supply.     

Acomparison between Northern and Southern blacks residing in the North

Differences between Southern and non-Southern blacks living in the North and West are considered for a wide variety of attributes such as employment, occupation, income, marital stability, and offspring's performance in school. Migrant blacks have generally more favorable rates than their Northern- and Western-born compatriots after standard domographic controls are applied to an unusually detailed set of cross-tabulations based on the One-Percent Sample Tapes for 1960. Perhaps the sharpest gap exists with respect to marital conditions; Southern blacks of both sexes are more likely to marry and, among those ever married, live more frequently with their spouses. Some of the results reported by earlier investigators require considerable modification; For example, the fact that Northern black men are less often at work than migrants has led to speculations about regional differences in work orientation among blacks, but a detailed analysis of labor force activity indicates this pattern does not hold for women. Likewise, the migrant income advantage is found to vary by education such that it is confined to those with low educational attainment. The use of sample tapes permits a novel analysis of differences between Northern-born blacks classified by whether they are second or at least third generation residents of the North (children of Southern- or Northern-born parents, respectively). For the attribute measured, school performance, the gap is essentially nil. Finally, an alternative is suggested to the existing causal interpretations of North-South gaps among black residents of the North. Reconsidered in particular are the higher labor force rates of migrant men and their more frequent employment in blue collar jobs;     

Heterogeneity and selection in multistate population analysis

If one subgroup of individuals in a population has a higher death rate than the others, then over time the surviving population will include a larger share of those with the lower death rate. As a result, the aggregate average death rate for this increasingly more robust population will decline. This conclusion, however, can be drawn only for nonrecurrent events experienced by populations that do not exchange members with one another--that is, for noninteracting populations. Studies of changes in marital status, labor force activity, residential location, and active life, for example, all should focus on patterns of recurrent events among interacting populations (that is, multistate populations). Selection arising from heterogeneity will occur, but the consequences for average measures become unpredictable a priori. This paper explores such aspects of the selection effects of heterogeneity in multistate populations and illuminates some of their consequences for commonly used rates.     

Measuring Women’s Empowerment at Household Level Using DHS Data of Four Southeast Asian Countries

Women’s empowerment is important indicator for social development, yet there has not been a practical index on women’s empowerment at household level, especially for developing countries. Previous studies have suggested a theoretical framework of four components of women’s empowerment at household level: women’s labor force participation, women’s household decision-making, women’s use of contraception and women’s education. In this study, a measurement of women’s empowerment is developed using principal axis factoring with micro data from the Demographic and Health Surveys on four Southeast Asia countries including Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Timor-Leste. The results has consistently found three factors including women’s labor force participation, women’s education and women’s household decision-making that affect individual women’s empowerment. Nevertheless, despite the literature suggested by other studies, very little evidence was found to support family planning use as one of the components of women’s empowerment in these countries. The new measurement also provides a solution for the problem of lacking household level data in current indices. More importantly, the construction of the measurement is practically applicable in more than 90 developing countries where the Demographic and Health Surveys are available.     

Mortality Differentials by Marital Status: An International Comparison

Although the greater longevity of married people as compared with unmarried persons has been demonstrated repeatedly, there have been very few studies of a comparative nature. We use log-linear rate models to analyze marital-status-specific death rates for a large number of developed countries. The results indicate that divorced persons, especially divorced men, have the highest death rates among the unmarried groups of the respective genders; the excess mortality of unmarried persons relative to the married has been generally increasing over the past two to three decades; and divorced and widowed persons in their twenties and thirties have particularly high risks of dying, relative to married persons of the same age. In addition, the analysis suggests that a selection process is operating with regard to single and divorced persons: the smaller the proportion of persons who never marry or who are divorced, the higher the resulting death rates.     

Continued Reductions in Mortality at Advanced Ages

Mortality data for 30 mostly developed countries available in the Kannisto–Thatcher Database on Old‐Age Mortality (KTDB) are drawn on to assess the pace of decline in death rates at ages 80 years and above. As of 2004 this database recorded 37 million persons at these ages, including 130,000 centenarians (more than double the number in 1990). For men, the probability of surviving from age 80 to age 90 has risen from 12 percent in 1950 to 26 percent in 2002; for women, the increase has been from 16 percent to 38 percent. In the lowest‐mortality country, Japan, life expectancy at age 80 in 2006 is estimated to be 6.5 years for men and 11.3 years for women. For selected countries, average annual percent declines in age‐specific death rates over the preceding ten years are calculated for single‐year age groups 80 to 99 and the years 1970 to 2004. The results are presented in Lexis maps showing the patterns of change in old‐age mortality by cohort and period, and separately for men and women. The trends are not favorable in all countries: for example, old‐age mortality in the United States has stagnated since 1980. But countries with exceptionally low mortality, like Japan and France, do not show a deceleration in death rate declines. It is argued that life expectancy at advanced ages may continue to increase at the same pace as in the past.     

改革开放以来我国对外劳务输出发展研究

中国正在努力完成从人口大国到人力资源大国的转变,并实施"走出去"战略。在这一背景之下,积极参与国际劳务市场,促进我国的人力资源开发,将具有重要的现实意义。积极开展对外劳务合作,将会促使我国劳动力资源更加有效地参与国际劳务市场。为了更好地开展对外劳务输出,需要认真研究相关各国劳动力资源的未来变化趋势,及时掌握各国劳动力市场供需情况、有关劳务政策新动向以及市场变化情况等。这样才能更好地制定劳务输出计划,扩大劳务输出规模。在增加劳务输出数量的同时,还需要不断提高劳务人员的综合素质。