Economics & Human Biology最新文献

{"title":"People inflows as a pandemic trigger: Evidence from a quasi-experimental study","authors":"Andrea Caria ,&nbsp;Marco Delogu ,&nbsp;Marta Meleddu ,&nbsp;Giovanni Sotgiu","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101341","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101341","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Although it has been established that population density can contribute to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, there is no evidence to suggest that economic activities, which imply a significant change in mobility, played a causal role in the unfolding of the pandemic. In this paper, we exploit the particular situation of Sardinia (Italy) in 2020 to examine how changes in mobility due to tourism inflows (a proxy of economic activities) influenced the development of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we identify a strong causal relationship between tourism flows and the emergence of COVID-19 cases in Sardinia. We estimate the elasticity of COVID-19 cases in relation to the share of tourists to be 4.1%, which increases to 5.1% when excluding local residents. Our analysis suggests that, in the absence of tools preventing the spread of infection, changes in population density due to economic activities trigger the pandemic spreading in previously unaffected locations. This work contributes to the debate on the complex relationship between COVID-19 and the characteristics of locations by providing helpful evidence for risk-prevention policies.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101341"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X23001223/pdfft?md5=d13634d8b719e34f4c7e207257b42cbb&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X23001223-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138685135","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":"Schools and the transmission of Sars-Cov-2: Evidence from Italy","authors":"Salvatore Lattanzio","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101342","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101342","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper studies the effect on the spread of Sars-Cov-2 in Italy of schools’ re-openings and closures. Exploiting different re-opening dates across regions after the summer break of 2020, I show that early-opening regions experienced more cases in the 40 days following school re-openings compared with late-opening ones. However, there is great uncertainty around the estimates, and this suggests a wide dispersion in the effects of school re-openings on Sars-Cov-2 transmission. I also study the effect of school closures in Campania, one of the biggest regions in Southern Italy. Using a synthetic control approach, I show that school closures are associated with lower numbers of cases relative to the counterfactual group, particularly in younger age groups. In contrast, I find no significant effects on older age groups, which are more likely to require hospitalization. Finally, by exploiting survey data, I provide descriptive evidence on the increased incidence rate among teachers and students relative to the general population, following school re-openings.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101342"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138685725","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":"Hypertension effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns: Evidence from a repeated cross-sectional survey in Peru","authors":"Raisa Sara,&nbsp;Vlad Radoias ,&nbsp;Younoh Kim","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101332","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101332","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Using data from Peru and a quasi-experimental approach, we document significant increases in arterial blood pressure<span> and in the incidence of arterial hypertension caused by the restrictive measures employed by the Peruvian authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The effects are more pronounced for women, older respondents, and urban residents. The effects are statistically significant and high in magnitude relative to the pre-pandemic incidence of disease in the Peruvian population. A main channel of disease propagation seems to be the changes in dietary habits and physical activity<span> imposed by the COVID-19 lockdowns<span>, which affected several anthropometric measurements that are common risk factors for hypertension.</span></span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101332"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138575864","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":"Global pain levels before and during the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Lucía Macchia ,&nbsp;Liam Delaney ,&nbsp;Michael Daly","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101337","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101337","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Physical pain has trended upward globally over the last decade. Here, we explore whether the COVID-19 pandemic modified this alarming trend. We used data from 146 countries worldwide (510,247 respondents) to examine whether pain levels changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adjusted regressions across countries revealed that 33.3% of people were in pain in 2019, 32.8% in 2020, 32.5% in 2021, and 34.1% in 2022. The change in pain from 2019 to each of the pandemic years was not statistically significant. This suggests that, on average, there was no significant change in pain during the pandemic. However, from 2019 to 2020 there was a significant <em>decline</em> in pain among individuals over 55 years of age, those who were widowed, and those without children in the household. On a global scale, the COVID-19 pandemic was not associated with a significant change in pain levels. The concerning pre-pandemic elevation in global pain continued during this challenging period.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"52 ","pages":"Article 101337"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X23001181/pdfft?md5=fd4780dbeca2e2e0d97c2cd35013b2b5&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X23001181-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138567016","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":"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}