Economics & Human Biology最新文献

{"title":"Childhood circumstances, social mobility and the obesity transition: Evidence from South Africa","authors":"Kate Rich,&nbsp;Dieter von Fintel","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101336","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101336","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The distribution of obesity tends to shift from rich to poor individuals as countries develop, in a process of shifting sociodemographic patterns of obesity that has been called the ‘obesity transition’. This change tends to happen with economic development, but little is known about the specific mechanisms that drive the change. We propose that improvements in childhood circumstances with economic development may be one of the drivers of the obesity transition. We explore whether the social gradient in body weight differs by childhood socioeconomic status (SES), proxied by the respondent’s mother having Grade 12, using South Africa’s nationally representative panel National Income Dynamics Study. In support of our hypothesis, we find that the social gradient in body weight is less positive for adults who had a high childhood SES, and already appears to have reversed among high-SES women who also had a high childhood SES. Upward social mobility over an individual’s life course or across a single generation is associated with higher body weight compared to a stable high SES. But a high SES sustained in childhood and adulthood – or across more than one generation – may decrease adult obesity risk, and result in a reversal of the social gradient in body weight. Random effects within-between models show that the social gradient in body weight and its interaction with childhood SES are driven more by differences in income between individuals than by short-run changes in income within individuals, again suggesting that the obesity transition is driven by long-run changes rather than by very short-run changes. Our results are broadly robust to using several alternative measures of body weight, childhood SES and adult SES. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that widespread improvements in childhood circumstances and nutrition with economic development may contribute to the shift to later stages of the obesity transition.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101336"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X2300117X/pdfft?md5=8311d2def03e592970d242dd0edb00c1&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X2300117X-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138527353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Feeding for a brighter future: The long-term labor market consequences of school meals in rural China","authors":"Yanran Zhou ,&nbsp;Jingru Ren ,&nbsp;Xiaodong Zheng","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101335","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101335","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study examines the impacts of childhood exposure to the Nutrition Improvement Program (NIP), which provides free school meals to eligible students in rural China, on adult labor market outcomes. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies, we employ a cohort difference-in-differences (DID) design to identify the NIP’s long-term effects. The results show that early-life exposure to the NIP has increased adulthood employment probability by 6.5 percentage points. Childhood exposure to the NIP has also resulted in an average increase of 12.4% in adult hourly wages and 10.3% in annual income. These findings remain robust to a battery of validity checks. Our heterogeneous analysis demonstrates that these effects are more pronounced among those who are females and from households with low socioeconomic status. Further, we find that exposure to the NIP yields lasting beneficial effects on adult education attainment, cognitive and non-cognitive skills, as well as health and health behaviors. This suggests that improvements in human capital accumulation and health behaviors are potential mechanisms contributing to the long-term labor market consequences of the NIP. Our study sheds light on the enduring impacts of school-based nutrition intervention on individuals’ economic well-being in developing countries.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101335"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138527318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Economic incentives surrounding fertility: Evidence from Alaska’s permanent fund dividend","authors":"Nishant Yonzan ,&nbsp;Laxman Timilsina ,&nbsp;Inas Rashad Kelly","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101334","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101334","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend provided an incentive that increased fertility. This paper estimates the impact of the dividend transfer on fertility rates in Alaska compared to other states using the synthetic control methodology. For the period from 1982 to 1988, fertility on average increased annually in Alaska by 11.3 </span>births per 1000 women aged 15–44—a 13.1 percent increase over the counterfactual. This was driven by women over 20. Fertility increased for women aged 20–24 by 12.4 percent, those aged 25–34 by 14.3 percent, and those aged 35–44 by 16.9 percent. The paper also finds support that narrowing the gap between births, increase in total fertility rate, and no change in abortion are potential channels for the observed increase in fertility. No change in the fertility for the adolescents combined with no change in abortion suggests that the increase in fertility in Alaska was planned.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101334"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138527401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Parental gender preferences over three centuries: Evidence from Argentina","authors":"Fernando Antonio Ignacio González","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101320","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101320","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this paper I examine the evolution of parental gender preferences in Argentina (i.e., parents who prefer a certain gender composition in their children). To do this, I use census microdata that spans the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. The estimation strategy exploits the plausibly random assignment in the gender of children. The results show a persistent preference for a mixed gender composition (i.e., having at least one boy and one girl) instead of children of the same gender. This translates into an increase in the probability of having a third child, conditional on already having two children of between 9%−23% for those couples who have children of the same gender -in relation to couples with children of opposite genders-. These preferences are heterogeneous over time and have important implications in terms of fertility (i.e., the reduction of these mixed gender preferences -in favor of greater gender-neutrality- could contribute to reducing the number of children per couple). In addition, the findings of this work support the empirical literature that uses the gender composition of the first two children as an instrumental variable to study the impact of fertility on labor participation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101320"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138527320","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Is household shock a boon or bane to the utilisation of preventive healthcare for children? Evidence from Uganda","authors":"Susmita Baulia","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101333","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101333","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper investigates how poor households in low-income countries trade off time investment in their children’s preventive healthcare vis-à-vis labour force participation during household-level health shocks. By using the reported illness or death of any household member as the indicator for an adverse health shock, I examine its effect on the intake of Vitamin A Supplementation (VAS) by children. Using four waves of the Uganda National Panel Survey, I find that children between 12–24 months are significantly more likely to get VAS when the household is under a health shock. I argue that this effect works through an <em>economies of scale</em> mechanism, by which the household adult(s) utilise the released time from the labour force during the shock to access remedial care from the healthcare facility and simultaneously obtain VAS for their children during the same visit. This arguably results from the high opportunity cost of time-constrained households, which is exacerbated by a mediocre service delivery side. To distinguish the unique mechanism of the health shock in this context, the effect and channels of an income shock are also explored. By proxying a negative income shock with the household-reported incidence of flood or drought, the study cautiously hints that VAS adoption may increase among the relatively wealthy who experience a dominating substitution effect of the income shock.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101333"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X23001144/pdfft?md5=92680a3145a8ff727057015687084e1c&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X23001144-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138527316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Socioeconomic mortality differences during the Great Influenza in Spain","authors":"Sergi Basco ,&nbsp;Jordi Domènech ,&nbsp;Joan R. Rosés","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101318","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101318","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Despite being one of the deadliest viruses in history, there is limited information on the socioeconomic factors that affected mortality rates during the Great Influenza Pandemic. In this study, we use occupation-province level data to investigate the relationship between influenza excess mortality rates and occupation-related status in Spain. We obtain three main results. Firstly, individuals in low-income occupations experienced the highest excess mortality, pointing to a notable income gradient. Secondly, professions that involved more social interaction were associated with a higher excess of mortality, regardless of income. Finally, we observe a substantial rural mortality penalty, even after controlling for income-related occupational groups. Based on this evidence, it seems that the high number of deaths was caused by not self-isolating. Some individuals did not quarantine themselves because they could not afford to miss work. In rural areas, home confinement was likely more limited because their inhabitants did not have immediate access to information about the pandemic or fully understand its impact due to their limited experience handling influenza outbreaks.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101318"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X23000990/pdfft?md5=be5c8605c7631596897498c71e1a5679&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X23000990-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138549959","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The health consequences of returning to work after retirement: Evidence from a Japanese longitudinal survey","authors":"Masaaki Mizuochi","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101330","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Prolonged and active old age provides individuals with more chances to work again after full retirement. Returning to work is an increasingly common form of the retirement process and influences the sustainability of social security systems. Previous studies show a beneficial relationship between returning to work and health; however, little is known about the causal effect of returning to work on health. This study used data from men and women aged 50 and older (11,991 individuals) in the Longitudinal Survey of Middle-aged and Older Adults, conducted annually from 2005 to 2019 in Japan. The effects of three types of labor force transitions (continued work, full retirement, and return to work) on physical and mental health were examined. To obtain the causal effects, an instrumental variable approach was used by exploiting the Japanese pension reform and labor market settings as instruments. Compared with full retirement, returning to work showed significantly worse mental health but no significant difference in physical health. The negative effect of returning to work was pronounced among men, former nonmanual workers, and low-wealth individuals. Contrary to the findings in previous studies, insignificant or detrimental effects of returning to work were found in this study. The rigorous causal analysis adds new evidence to the literature. The findings provide important implications for labor and health policy in aging societies.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101330"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X23001119/pdfft?md5=5d6616fc26958689d3f5a8eb0c539a28&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X23001119-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138474292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Predicting depression in old age: Combining life course data with machine learning","authors":"Carlotta Montorsi ,&nbsp;Alessio Fusco ,&nbsp;Philippe Van Kerm ,&nbsp;Stéphane P.A. Bordas","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101331","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101331","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>With ageing populations, understanding life course factors that raise the risk of depression in old age may help anticipate needs and reduce healthcare costs in the long run. We estimate the risk of depression in old age by combining adult life course trajectories and childhood conditions in supervised machine learning algorithms. Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we implement and compare the performance of six alternative machine learning algorithms. We analyse the performance of the algorithms using different life-course data configurations. While we obtain similar predictive abilities between algorithms, we achieve the highest predictive performance when employing semi-structured representations of life courses using sequence data. We use the Shapley Additive Explanations method to extract the most decisive predictive patterns. Age, health, childhood conditions, and low education predict most depression risk later in life, but we identify new predictive patterns in indicators of life course instability and low utilization of </span>dental care services.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101331"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138464131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Genetic endowments for social capital: An investigation accounting for genetic nurturing effects","authors":"Michael Lebenbaum ,&nbsp;France Gagnon ,&nbsp;Claire de Oliveira ,&nbsp;Audrey Laporte","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101316","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101316","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Despite social capital having been shown to be important for health and well-being, relatively little research has examined genetic determinants. Genetic endowments for education have been shown to influence human, financial, and health capital, but few studies have examined social capital, and those conducted have yet to account for genetic nurturing. We used the Add-Health data to study the effect of genetic endowments on individual social capital using the education polygenic score (PGS). We used sibling fixed effects models and controlled for the family environment to account for genetic nurturing. After accounting for the family environment, we found moderately large significant associations between the education PGS and volunteering, but associations with religious service attendance and number of friends were completely attenuated in sibling fixed effects models. These findings highlight that genetic endowments play an important role in influencing volunteering and the importance of accounting for genetic nurturing.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101316"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138484371","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The economics of aging with infectious and chronic diseases","authors":"Holger Strulik ,&nbsp;Volker Grossmann","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101319","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101319","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We develop an economic model of aging in which the susceptibility and severity of infectious diseases depend on the accumulated health deficits (immunosenescence) and the life history of infections affects the accumulation of chronic health deficits (inflammaging). Individuals invest in their health to slow down health deficit accumulation and take measures to protect themselves from infectious diseases. We calibrate the model for an average American and explore how health expenditure, life expectancy, and the value of life depend on individual characteristics, medical technology<span>, and the disease environment. We then use counterfactual computational experiments of the U.S. epidemiological transition 1860–2010 to show that the decline of infectious diseases caused a substantial decline of chronic diseases<span> and contributed more to increasing life expectancy than advances in the treatment of chronic diseases.</span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101319"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138467323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}