Health and Labor Force Participation of Older Men, 1900-1991

I investigate how the relationship between health status and retirement among older men has changed since 1900 using weight adjusted for height or Body Mass Index (BMI) as a proxy for health. I find that both in 1900 and in 1985-1991 the relative risk of labor force non-participation increases for the excessively lean and obese and that the BMI level that minimizes the relative risk of labor force non-participation remains unchanged. However, in 1900 both the relative risk of non-participation among men at low and high BMI levels and the elasticity of non-participation with respect to BMI were greater than today, suggesting that health is now less important to the retirement decision than in the past. The difference in the relative risk of non-participation is especially pronounced at high BMI levels. Declining physical job demands and improved control of chronic conditions may explain the difference. The findings suggest that the impact of improvements in health on participation rates is increasingly more likely to be outweighed by the impact of other factors. Greater efforts made to increase the incorporation of the old and disabled into the labor force may therefore have a minimal impact on retirement rates. The findings also imply that in the past the economic costs of poor health were substantial.

Homeownership and Unemployment Duration

We examine the effects of homeownership on individuals' unemployment durations in the USA. We take into account that an unemployment spell can terminate with a job or with a non-participation transition. The endogeneity of homeownership is addressed through the estimation of a full maximum likelihood function which jointly models the competing hazards and the probability of being a homeowner. Unobserved factors contributing to the probability of being a homeowner are allowed to be correlated with unobservable heterogeneity in the hazard rates. We find that unemployed homeowners are less likely to find a job than renters. The effect is small but statistically significant for most specifications. The effect is stronger for outright owners and weaker for mortgage holders. We also find that outright owners have a higher and mortgage holders a lower probability of exiting to non-participation than renters

The BME male sex offender in prison: overrepresentation and under-participation

This paper is derived and developed from two recent papers that I prepared jointly with two colleagues (Cowburn, Lavis, &amp; Walker, 2008b; Cowburn, Lavis, &amp; Walker, 2008a). This paper uses and re-works some of this material. The paper will first present a demographic profile of the male sex offender population in the prisons of England and Wales. It will then present evidence in relation to the non-participation of the Black minority ethnic (BME) group of offenders in the Prison Service’s Sex Offender Treatment Programme (SOTP). Following this data relating to BME sex offenders who have participated in the SOTP will also be discussed. The paper will then move onto develop a theory to understand some aspects of this non-participation and to suggest ways in which the participation of BME sex offenders in the SOTP may be encouraged and developed.</p

America\u27s share in Japan\u27s war guilt

https://stars.library.ucf.edu/prism/1556/thumbnail.jp

Risk of selection bias due to non-participation in a cohort study on pubertal timing.

BackgroundNon-participation in aetiologic studies of pubertal timing is frequent. However, little effort has been given to explore the risk and potential impact of selection bias in studies of pubertal timing.ObjectiveWe aimed to explore the risk of selection bias due to non-participation in a newly established puberty cohort.MethodsWe evaluated whether three maternal exposures chosen a priori (pre-pregnancy obesity, smoking, and alcohol drinking during pregnancy) were associated with participation, whether pubertal timing was associated with participation, and whether selection bias influenced the associations between these exposures and pubertal timing. In total, 22 439 children from the Danish National Birth Cohort born 2000-2003 were invited to the Puberty Cohort and 15 819 (70%) participated. Exposures were self-reported during pregnancy. Pubertal timing was measured using a previously validated marker, "the height difference in standard deviations" (HD:SDS), which is the difference between pubertal height and adult height, both in standard deviations. For this study, pubertal height at around 13 years in sons and around 11 years in daughters was obtained from an external database, and adult height was predicted based on parental height reported by mothers.ResultsParticipation was associated with most exposures but not with pubertal timing, measured by HD:SDS. The associations between exposures and HD:SDS were comparable for participants only and all invited for participation.ConclusionIn conclusion, the risk of selection bias in aetiologic studies on pubertal timing in the Puberty Cohort appears minimal

The puzzle of non-participation in continuing training : an empirical study of chronic vs. temporary non-participation

"Although participation in continuing vocational training is often found to be associated with considerable individual benefits, a puzzlingly large number of people still do not take part in training. In order to solve the puzzle we distinguish between temporary and chronic non-participants. Previous studies have shown that training participants and non-participants differ in unobservable characteristics and therefore self-select into training or not. We show that even non-participants cannot be treated as a homogeneous group: there are those who never take part in training (chronic non-participants) and those who are not currently taking part (temporary (non-)participants). Using a unique data set of non-participants commissioned by the German 'Expert Commission on Financing Lifelong Learning' and covering a very large number of individuals not taking part in training, we separate and compare chronic and temporary non-participants. By estimating a sample selection model using maximum likelihood estimation we take potential selection effects into account: temporary (non-)participants may be more motivated or may have different inherent skills than chronic nonparticipants. We find that chronic non-participants would have higher costs than temporary (non-)participants and their short-term benefits associated with their current jobs would be lower. However, in the long run even chronic non-participants would benefit similarly from participation due to improved prospects on the labor market. The results indicate that chronic non-participants either misperceive future developments or suffer from an exceptionally high discount rate, which in turn leads in their view to a negative cost-benefit ratio for training." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) Additional Information Kurzfassung (deutsch) Executive summary (English)Weiterbildung, Teilnehmer, Bildungsbeteiligung, Bildungsinvestitionen, Bildungsertrag, Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse, Bildungsökonomie

Employee Stock Purchase Plans

Employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs) are designed to promote employee stock ownership broadly within the firm and provide another tax-deferred vehicle for individual capital accumulation in addition to traditional pensions, 401(k)s, and stock options. We outline the individual and corporate tax treatment of ESPPs and the circumstances under which ESPPs will be preferred to cash compensation from a purely tax perspective. We then examine empirically ESPP participation using administrative data from 1997-2001 for a large health services company that employs approximately 30,000 people. The picture that emerges from the analysis of these data suggests that there is substantial non-participation in these plans even though all employees could increase gross compensation through participation. We discuss a number of potential explanations for non-participation.

A welfare analysis of non participation in an export quota scheme: The case of importing countries

It has been largely ignored in the commodity stabilization literature that export quota schemes can cause a co-existence between a controlled and an uncontrolled market. This article analyzes the welfare implications of such a scheme on non-participating importing countries. The determinants of the welfare effects are elaborated. It is shown that non-participation in the export quota scheme may increase or decrease the importing countries' welfare compared to the situation of a liberalized world market. Magnitude and sign of the welfare impacts are shown to depend crucially on the rigidity of the quota policy. From the individual importing country's point of view, it is derived that non-participation instead of entering the agreement may raise national welfare, even if the export quota policy lowers its welfare level compared to a free trade situation.

The Role of Worker Flows in the Dynamics and Distribution of UK Unemployment

Unemployment varies substantially over time and across subgroups of the labour market. Worker flows among labour market states act as key determinants of this. We examine how the structure of unemployment across groups and its cyclical movements across time are shaped by changes in labour market flows. Using novel estimates of flow transition rates for the UK over the last 35 years, we decompose unemployment variation into parts accounted for by changes in rates of job loss, job finding and flows via non-participation. Close to two-thirds of the volatility of unemployment in the UK over this period can be traced to rises in rates of job loss that accompany recessions. The share of this inflow contribution has been broadly the same in each of the past three recessions. Decreased job-finding rates account for around one-quarter of unemployment cyclicality and the remaining variation can be attributed to flows via non-participation. Digging deeper into the structure of unemployment by gender, age and education, the flow-approach is shown to provide a richer understanding of the unemployment experiences across population subgroups.labour market, unemployment, worker flows