Does Higher Education Expansion Reduce Credentialism and Gender Discrimination in Education?

This paper investigates the effects of higher education expansion on the phenomena of credentialism and gender discrimination in education. Using the survey data of Family Income and Expenditure by DGBAS, Taiwan from 1980 to 2009, we examine the time path of the effect of higher education expansion on household expenditures for children??s education in Taiwan for five sub-periods: 1980?C1990, 1991?C1995, 1996?C2000, 2001?C2005, and 2006?C2009. We show that, surprisingly, although the higher education expansion during the 1990s lowers the requirement of college entrance, credentialism seems to continue to prevail in the Taiwanese society. However, the higher education expansion does change parents?? attitude on female children??s education and increase the possibility for female children to attain higher education.     

Does Trust Always Help Gender Role Attitudes? The Role of Individualism and Collectivism

Social trust has a complex interrelationship with attitudes toward gender equality. Social trust has its origins in exchange relationships in preindustrial societies, lowering uncertainty in transactions and easing interpersonal exchanges. The degree to which this trust was extended to opportunities for women in commercial and societal roles, however, differed across cultures. Prior literature finds attitudes toward individualism and collectivism have significant implications for gender equality and patriarchal attitudes. We combine these ideas arguing that the degree to which social trust fosters gender equality depends upon the degrees of individualism and collectivism. Employing World Values Survey data across countries over time, we find that with low levels of individualism, and high degrees of collectivism, higher levels of trust are not effective in reducing the prevalence of gendered patriarchal attitudes—in fact it entrenches them further, worsening gender equality. However, as individualism rises, and collectivism falls, higher levels of trust become effective in reducing the prevalence of patriarchal beliefs. Thus, collectivistic beliefs stand as a barrier to future improvements in women’s equality and economic rights in many societies; preventing social trust from being extended beyond traditional gendered roles.

     

Does More Schooling Reduce Hospitalization and Delay Mortality? New Evidence Based on Danish Twins

Schooling generally is positively associated with better health-related outcomes—for example, less hospitalization and later mortality—but these associations do not measure whether schooling causes better health-related outcomes. Schooling may in part be a proxy for unobserved endowments—including family background and genetics—that both are correlated with schooling and have direct causal effects on these outcomes. This study addresses the schooling-health-gradient issue with twins methodology, using rich data from the Danish Twin Registry linked to population-based registries to minimize random and systematic measurement error biases. We find strong, significantly negative associations between schooling and hospitalization and mortality, but generally no causal effects of schooling.     

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...     

Does the recording of parallel activities in Time Use Diaries affect the way people report their main activities?

It is widely recognised that studies based ontime diaries form the most valid and reliabledata source concerning peoples' timeallocation, but it is also documented thatvarious designs give somewhat divergentresults. Usually both main activities andpossible parallel activities are captured intime diaries. Much research has been undertakento evaluate various aspects of the design ofsuch surveys, but there has been littlesystematic investigation on the possibleeffects of recording parallel activities on theway people report their main activities. Asmost analyses focus mainly on primaryactivities, validity in this area is of utmostimportance. Utilising the Norwegian Time UseStudy from 1990–1991 we discuss in this paper if,and possibly how, the registration of secondaryactivities influences the picture we get ofpeople's main activities. Also the role of theexamples presented to participants isinspected. Our findings indicate that therecording of parallel activities does affectthe way people report their main activities.Especially indistinct and fuzzy activities likechildcare, socialising and television viewingseem to be sensitive, but effects differ forwomen and men. Undoubtedly, information onsecondary activities is needed in order tofully reflect people's time patterns, but it isimportant that guidelines for diary keeping andexamples presented to participants aredeveloped carefully so that information onprimary activities is not distorted.     

Contraceptive Knowledge and Use——-Facts and figures from 2003 baseline survey of UNFPA／China RH／FP Project

Introduction One of the principal objectives of the ICPD Program of Action is to provide quality and client-centred reproductive health services to enable women and couples to have informed contraceptive choices and the means to access a wide range of methods, without any form of discrimination or compulsion. The UNFPA launched its fifth country program in China during 2003 in 30 counties selected on the basis of their willingness and leadership commitment to move towards the ICPD prin…     

Marital Status and Social Well-Being: Are the Married Always Better Off?

This study uses pooled cross-section time-series data, over the years 1982, 1992 and 2000, to estimate the impact of various restrictive abortion laws on the demand for abortion. This study complements and extends prior research by explicitly including the price of obtaining an abortion in the estimation. The empirical results show that the real price of an abortion has a statistically and numerically significant negative impact on abortion demand. Over the period 1982–2000 approximately 20% of the decline in the incidence of abortion was due solely to the increase in the real price of obtaining an abortion. A state Medicaid funding restriction of abortion and a parental involvement law reduce the abortion demand, but a state waiting period and a mandatory counseling law have no statistically significant impact on the abortion demand. The empirical results also provide support for the hypothesis that increases in abortion costs not only reduce the number of abortions, but also reduce the number of pregnancies by altering women’s sexual/contraceptive practices.

How Do Classes Make Use of Their Incomes?

Against the backdrop of occasional claims by social scientists that class analysis is no longer relevant this article will study the consumption patterns of different classes. Two hypotheses are derived and tested. These are to assume that classes' consumption differences are due to processes of social closure, or are of a cultural kind. This is investigated using a Swedish family expenditure data-set from 1992. The focus is on classes' different uses of their incomes regarding basic expenditures, expenditures on non-durables and ownership of durables. The most striking result is that 'higher' classes tend to spend a great deal of money on activities outside the home, 'appearance' and information, while other classes' consumption resembles the 'higher' classes, to different degrees. Moreover, the class hierarchy, constructed theoretically from employment factors, resembles a hierarchy constructed from similarities in patterns of consumption. The main conclusion is that class matters, in interesting ways, for consumption, though there are also other powerful factors. The closure hypothesis receives support, even though a combination of the two hypotheses seems sound.     

Does Country Matter for Subjective Well-Being?

It is known that characteristics of individuals explain only a part of the variations in Subjective Well-Being (SWB) between people. The country of origin of an individual accounts for a significant part of these differences. We study what drives the variations in SWB between countries after taking individual characteristics into account. We base our analysis on data from the four waves of the World Values Survey. 64% of the variations between the countries in the sample (64 countries) are explained by the natality rate, life expectancy, the level of corruption and a Muslim culture. This adds to the discussion on the link between economic conditions and SWB. The economic situation is not an explanatory variable in a direct way but indirectly affects SWB through some of the significant variables. Corruption has detrimental effects on SWB beyond its economic consequences.     

What Does Really Drive Consumer Confidence?

We construct a novel index of households’ macroeconomic environment (HOME) based on the data from 22 high-income European countries between 2002 Q1 and 2018 Q4. The resulting index is in line with the broad features of the countries’ business and financial cycles and captures well households’ perception of their underlying economic situation. We discuss joint properties of the HOME index and the widely employed survey-based consumer confidence indicator. We show that households’ expectations are tightly linked to current macroeconomic conditions. This finding echoes the literature linking consumer attitudes and actual economic developments. The HOME index also reflects the importance of asset prices and lending conditions for households’ behavior. In a single-country case study, we provide empirical evidence that links the proposed index to new credit extended to households. The evidence suggests that households need a longer period of good macroeconomic conditions to decide to take on a mortgage than they do in the case of a consumer loan.

     

Does time preference change with age?

This study looks at compensating differentials in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to derive estimates of the levels of time preference for labor force participants in each of 15 waves of data from 1979 to 1994. With these estimates the evolution of time preference over the life course is described. Future utility among labor force participants appears to be valued more highly by subjects who are older, more schooled, white, or male. Controlling for schooling level, a higher IQ is associated with a preference for more immediate rewards.If social rates of time preference are correlated with individual rates of time preference then population aging could create intergenerational asymmetries in the social rate of time preference.This phenomenon could make the optimal investments of young populations appear selfish to future generations that are older.Support from Hopkins Population Center (R24) is gratefully acknowledged. I am thankful for helpful comments received from Jim Burgess, Mike Grossman, Bruce Hamilton, Fritz Laux, Athanasios Orphanides, Katie Roche, and Eric Slade. All errors are my own. Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno.     

Does Horizontal Inequality Matter in Vietnam?

This paper examines the issue of horizontal inequalities in Vietnam over the past 20 years. Using data from three recent Vietnam population censuses (1989, 1999, and 2009) and three Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys (1998, 2008, 2012), we estimated numerous measures on inequalities between five groups against four welfare indicators. Our results show that horizontal inequality matters in Vietnam, in particular for ethnicity, region, and rural/urban groups. While there has been an improvement in horizontal inequality in education, this paper shows little change in other welfare indicators, in particular poverty. We also found that horizontal inequality does matter for poverty reduction in Vietnam and it needs more attention when designing poverty policies in the future.

     

Intrahousehold Resource Allocation: Do Parents Reduce or Reinforce Child Ability Gaps?

Do parents invest more or less in their high-ability children? We provide new evidence on this question by comparing observed ability differences and observed investment differences between siblings living in the United States. To overcome endogeneity issues, we use sibling differences in handedness as an instrument for cognitive ability differences. We find that parents invest more in high-ability children, with a 1 standard deviation increase in child cognitive ability increasing parental investments by approximately one-third of a standard deviation. Consequently, differences in child cognitive ability are enhanced by differential parental investments.     

Do the Privileged Always Win? Economic Consequences of Divorce by Income and Gender Groups

Social Indicators Research - The heterogeneous economic results of divorce have received limited attention. The current study analyzes such consequences from an intersectionality perspective, where...     

Ethnic Diversity and Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa: Do Institutions Reduce the Noise?

Studies on the causes of income differences between the rich and the poor have received an extensive attention in the inequality empirics. While ethnic diversity has also been identified as one of the fundamental causes of income inequality, the role of institutions as a mediating factor in the ethnicity-inequality nexus has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. To this end, this study complements the existing literature by investigating the extent to which institutional framework corrects the noisy influence originating from the nexus between “ethnic diversity” and inequality in 26 sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1996–2015. The empirical evidence is based on pooled OLS, fixed effects and system GMM estimators. The main findings reveal that the mediating influences of institutional settings are defective, thus making it extremely difficult to modulate the noisy impacts of ethno-linguistic and religious heterogeneity on inequality. In addition, the negative influences orchestrated by ethno-linguistic and religious diversities on inequality fail to attenuate the impact of income disparity even when interacted with institutions. On the policy front, institutional reforms tailored toward economic, political and institutional governances should be targeted.

     

Does Public Investment Promote Intergenerational Mobility? Who Really Benefits?

Social Indicators Research - The conventional model of intergenerational income mobility suggests child’s income is a function of his human capital investment determined by parental income,...     

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 Education Affect Happiness? Evidence for Spain

In this paper we study the impact of education on happiness in Spain using individual-level data from the European Social Survey, by means of estimating Ordinal Logit Models. We find both direct and indirect effects of education on happiness. First, we find an indirect effect of education on happiness through income and labour status. That is, we find that people with a higher education level have higher income levels and a higher probability of being employed, and thus, report higher levels of happiness. Second, and after controlling by income, labour status and other socio-economic variables, we find that education has a positive (and direct) impact on happiness. We interpret this result as evidence of a ??self-confidence?? or ??self-estimation?? effect from acquiring knowledge. Finally, we find that the direct impact of education on happiness does not depend of the level of education (primary, secondary or tertiary).