Journal of Population Economics最新文献

Using data across countries and over time, we show that women have worse mental health than men in negative affect equations, irrespective of the measure used — anxiety, depression, fearfulness, sadness, loneliness, anger — and they have more days with bad mental health and more restless sleep. Women are also less satisfied with many aspects of their lives, such as democracy, the economy, the state of education, and health services. They are also less satisfied in the moment in terms of peace and calm, cheerfulness, feeling active, vigorous, fresh, and rested. However, prior evidence on gender differences in happiness and life satisfaction is less clear cut. Differences vary over time, location, and with model specification and the inclusion of controls, especially marital status. We now find strong evidence that males have higher levels of both happiness and life satisfaction in recent years even before the onset of the pandemic. As in the past, women continue to have worse mental health. A detailed analysis of several data files, with various metrics, for the UK confirms that men now are happier than women and the size of the effect is not trivial.

This paper examines the labour market and health effects of a non-contributory long-term unemployment (LTU) benefit targeted at middle-aged disadvantaged workers. To do so, we exploit a Spanish reform introduced in July 2012 that increased the age eligibility threshold to receive the benefit from 52 to 55. Our results show that men who were eligible for the benefit experience a reduction in injury hospitalisations by 12.9% as well as a 2 percentage points drop in the probability of a mental health diagnosis. None of the results are significant for women. We document two factors that explain the gender differences: the labour market impact of the reform is stronger for men, and eligible men are concentrated in more physically demanding sectors, like construction. Importantly, we also find evidence of a program substitution effect between LTU and partial disability benefits. Our results highlight the role of long-term unemployment benefits as a protecting device for the (physical and mental) health of middle-aged, low-educated workers who are in a disadvantaged position in the labour market.

The rising numbers of young people with disability pension concerns many advanced economies. We present results from a comparative analysis of the neighbouring countries Sweden and Norway on the impacts of differing policy mixes aimed at enhancing the employability of the work disabled. Using rich longitudinal data, we follow unemployed young adults (ages 25-29) with work-impairment up to four years after they became unemployed to investigate the effect of different types of labour market policies. Our results indicate that, despite differences in programme composition and strategies, there are surprisingly small country differences in treatment effect patterns and signs of estimated impacts. In line with previous studies, we find strong lock-in effects of both workplace-related programmes and training/educational programmes. After participation, workplace-related programmes about double the likelihood of entering regular employment or education. Participating in training courses also increases this likelihood, but effect sizes are smaller.

We study the effect of a 12-week maternity leave extension in Chile on the health of infants between 6 and 12 months old. Using unique administrative sick leave data for working women enrolled in the private health insurance system who gave birth between 2011 and 2013, we estimate the effect of this extension on the number of paid sick days taken by the mother due to her child being ill. We find that extending maternity leave improved infant health and decreased the number of sick days by 6.43 (0.18 SD) days on average. Additionally, we show that mothers with extended maternity leave take their infant to the pediatrician less often than mothers without the extended leave. Our results are consistent with a decrease in daycare attendance, which decreases exposure to communicable diseases.

This paper explores trends in time alone and with others in the United States. Since 2003, Americans have increasingly spent their free time alone on leisure at home and have decreasingly spent their free time with individuals from other households. These trends are more pronounced for non-White individuals, for males, for the less educated, and for individuals from lower-income households. Survey respondents who spend a large fraction of their free time alone report lower subjective well-being. As a result, differential trends in time alone suggest that between-group subjective well-being inequality may be increasing more quickly than previous research has reported.

I study the impact of the appointment of female chief police officers on crimes typically committed against females: sexual and rape offenses. Evidence suggests that adding more female chief officers leads to a statistically significant increase in documented sexual crimes in England and Wales. Yet, this rise is good news because it is due not to a rise in actual crimes committed or improved police recording practices but, rather, to more reporting of sexual crimes. I also find that appointing a female chief officer is associated with a reduction of around 1.1 homicides against women, which is equivalent to 21 percent of the mean value. Exploration of mechanisms suggests that the reduction may reflect an increase in policing resources devoted to women’s protection.

We carry out a difference-in-differences analysis of a real-time survey conducted as part of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) survey and show that teleworking had a negative average effect on life satisfaction over the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic. This average effect hides considerable heterogeneity, reflecting gender-role asymmetries: lower life satisfaction is found only for unmarried men and for women with school-age children. The negative effect for women with school-age children disappears in 2021, suggesting adaptation to new constraints and/or the adoption of coping strategies.