{"title":"Migrant well-being in Australia: Does locus of control matter?","authors":"Anita Staneva, Andreas Chai","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101447","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101447","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using rich longitudinal data from Australia, we investigate the mental health impacts and behaviours of migration resettlement in Australia, focusing on age, gender and locus of control as possible modifiers. We find that age profiles in mental health differ significantly between migrant and native populations. Our analysis of second-generation migrants supports the ‘healthy migrant paradox’, suggesting favourable mental health outcomes. Additionally, we show that immigrants with an internal locus of control exhibit a lower likelihood of mental health issues, which suggests that an internal locus of control amplifies the beneficial effects in the case of mental health outcomes for immigrant populations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"56 ","pages":"Article 101447"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142755889","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":"Shattered ground, shaken minds: Mental health consequences of earthquakes","authors":"Andika Ridha Ayu Perdana , Judit Vall Castelló","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101448","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101448","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite growing recognition of the importance of mental health status for the achievement of the global development goals, substantial challenges persist in addressing this issue in both developed and developing countries. The literature has pointed to a variety of conditions as triggers for mental health problems, including exposure to unexpected natural disasters. Contributing to the literature, our study quantifies the mental health consequences of the devastating 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake in Indonesia. We combine the Modified Mercalli Intensity from the United States Geological Survey with individual-level data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey to assess the impacts on municipalities with varying earthquake intensities. Employing a difference-in-differences approach, we identify a significant and persistent deterioration in the mental health condition for individuals in municipalities with stronger earthquake severity. To explore the mechanisms underlying this impact, we analyze the roles of family casualties, physical health declines, and socio-economic disruptions, identifying family loss and worsened physical health as particularly influential factors driving the observed mental health outcomes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"56 ","pages":"Article 101448"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142758750","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":"Does early-life famine exposure lead to healthy later-life dietary behavior: Evidence from the great Chinese famine","authors":"Yiru Wang , Ting Shi , Wenbin Zang","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101446","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101446","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates the long-run effect of early-life exposure to famine on survivors’ dietary behavior. By exploiting exogenous variations in local severity of the Great Chinese Famine and variations of different cohorts, we conduct a difference-in-differences analysis. Based on detailed three-day food intake records from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, we find that famine exposure led the famine cohort who was conceived or born during the famine to adopt healthier dietary behaviors, as evidenced by a higher healthy eating score and a healthier dietary composition. Additionally, the pre-famine cohort exposed to the famine at ages 9–12 in late childhood exhibited a healthier food composition, characterized by a higher share of aquatic products. However, no statistically significant effects were observed for the pre-famine cohorts that experienced the famine in early and middle childhood. The results remain robust across various sensitivity checks. We propose that early-life famine exposure influences dietary behavior through mechanisms such as awareness of healthy eating, diet knowledge and risk aversion.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101446"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142683444","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":"Employee well-being in the digital age: Assessing the impacts of a smartphone application in the workplace","authors":"Toshiaki Aizawa , Hiroko Okudaira , Ritsu Kitagawa , Sachiko Kuroda , Hideo Owan","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101445","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101445","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recently, providing smartphone-based health-improving applications to employees has emerged as a promising strategy for sustaining their well-being. This study estimates the impact of the routine use of an application, introduced in 2020 by a Japanese manufacturing company, on various health-related behaviours and outcomes among employees by exploiting a distinctive large-scale longitudinal dataset and personnel records. The analysis addresses potential selection biases arising from the non-random nature of application usage by employing the instrumental variable approach. Regular application use generates significant positive impacts on health-related habits, including moderate alcohol consumption, regular breakfast intake and refraining from eating two hours before bedtime. Furthermore, regarding physical and psychological stress, noteworthy reductions in physical burden and less frequent experiences of annoyance are observed. Employees also report a lower frequency of dizziness, headaches and palpitations, albeit an increase in the frequency of strained eyes is noted. Additionally, application use is associated with lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure, as well as decreased levels of triglycerides and gamma-GTP.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101445"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142640207","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":"Fiscal externalities and underinvestment in early-life human capital: Optimal policy instruments for a developing country","authors":"Nicholas Lawson , Dean Spears","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101444","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101444","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study policy instruments to correct inefficiently low investment in maternal nutrition in India, where one-fifth of all births occur. We focus on fiscal externalities: healthier babies become more productive adults, who pay more tax. However, parents do not internalize this externality, which, combined with other distortions, results in mothers weighing too little during pregnancy. We calibrate the first sufficient-statistics policy model for the quantitatively important case of fiscal externalities and maternal nutrition in developing countries. The optimal subsidy is large. Yet, welfare gains are even greater from public investment in state capacity to monitor nutrition, enabling targetted incentives.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101444"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142586834","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":"Teen parent trap? The education and labor implications of motherhood and fatherhood during the transition from adolescence to adulthood in Cebu, the Philippines","authors":"Kritika Sen Chakraborty , Kira M. Villa","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101443","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101443","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>For both males and females, adolescent parenthood can affect human capital investments and labor market choices during the transition from adolescence to adulthood. However, only scant evidence exists on the educational and labor implications of adolescent motherhood in developing countries and there is none on adolescent fatherhood. Using fixed effects, linear, and hazard models on a matched sample, we examine the association between early parenthood and education and labor market outcomes for a cohort of adolescents using longitudinal data from Cebu, the Philippines. While we find that early parenthood is associated with poorer educational outcomes for both teen mothers and fathers, the association is stronger for mothers. Upon becoming parents, labor market participation reduces for teen mothers but increases for teen fathers. Teen parents (both mothers and fathers) face a higher hazard of leaving school early, but teen fathers exhibit a substantially higher hazard of entering the labor market earlier. In young adulthood, conditional on working, both teen mothers and fathers are more likely to be informally employed. This paper highlights the potential gains from delaying first childbirth for adolescent males and females.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101443"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142631952","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 physical well-being of Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest: Anthropometric evidence from British Columbia’s jails, 1864–1913","authors":"Kris Inwood , Ian Keay","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101442","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101442","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper documents the height of Indigenous men from the Pacific Northwest who were incarcerated in British Columbia’s jails during a period of colonization and increasing market access. The average height of adults from a given community reflects the standard of living in that community at the time the adults were growing to maturity. After correcting for the impact of sample selection arising from prisoners’ personal attributes, their home communities’ access to market opportunities, and unobserved height determinants associated with exposure to the colonial criminal justice system, we find that Indigenous men were positively selected into incarceration based on their height. Moreover, the tendency for the tallest men to be incarcerated became stronger over our period of study. Our results suggest that Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest were at a severe bioeconomic disadvantage during the nineteenth century, and their well-being did not improve as market access and colonial institutions spread through the region.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101442"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142565035","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":"Discrimination backfires? Minority ethnic disparities in vaccine hesitancy","authors":"Joan Costa-Font, Fatima Docrat","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101441","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101441","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A number of minority ethnic groups (MEGs) exhibited persistent reluctance to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. This paper attempts to empirically identify and validate some of the contentious behavioral determinants for vaccine hesitancy (VH) that remain unexplained including the role of risk perceptions, trust in government institutions, and prior experiences of racism and trauma. We draw on unique longitudinal data from a minority-boosted sample that was collected in the United Kingdon (UK). We document robust evidence of MEG disparities in VH, which declined between November 2020 and March 2021. While VH is associated to both historical and current distrust in government, risk beliefs, exposure to racism, and an individuals socio-economic background, these factors do not fully explain MEG disparities. Furthermore, similar patterns of inequality are observed when we examine MEG disparities in healthcare use, suggesting that disparities in VH reflect broader unobservable structural barriers to healthcare access.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101441"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142631951","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":"Health benefits of air pollution reduction: Evidence from economic slowdown in India","authors":"Olexiy Kyrychenko","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101437","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101437","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper evaluates health benefits associated with the impact of air pollution reduction on infant mortality in India. Leveraging plausibly exogenous geographic variation in air pollution due to the post-2010 economic slowdown—a period largely overlooked in the literature—I find that improvements in air quality resulted in a significant decline in infant mortality, particularly through respiratory diseases and biological pathways such as in utero and post-birth exposure. The associated health benefits correspond to 1338 saved infant lives, translating to monetary gains of $312.5 million. The paper advances our understanding of the link between air pollution and human health in settings with elevated air pollution and suboptimal regulatory frameworks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101437"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142512271","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":"Social inequalities in adult mortality across Europe (18th-21st centuries): A critical analysis of theories and evidence","authors":"Víctor Antonio Luque de Haro","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101438","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101438","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the historical evolution of socioeconomic disparities in adult mortality, with a focus on European societies. Despite the widespread improvements in population health, social inequalities in mortality are a pervasive phenomenon nowadays. This paper employs a critical analysis of both theoretical and empirical literature to investigate major international studies and their findings on longevity differences associated with socioeconomic status from the nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. Findings reveal that adult mortality trajectories have differed notably across social classes and regions, with some areas exhibiting disparities before the demographic transition and others showing inequalities emerging later. Understanding these long-term health inequality trends sheds light on the changing influence of medical advances and their interplay with economic growth, educational disparities, environmental factors, state roles, and production distribution, which have shaped mortality disparities through different development stages. These factors elucidate the international heterogeneity of results until the mid-twentieth century and offer explanatory insights into observed north-south patterns in Europe. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how advancements in public health, economic development, and social policies have shaped health outcomes over centuries. The implications of this research inform ongoing debates and health policy, emphasizing a nuanced interpretation of historical data to craft effective strategies that address health inequalities today.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101438"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142512273","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}