Economic conditions and public attitudes toward welfare state policies

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Unemployment and partnership dissolution

Does unemployment increase the risk of partnership dissolution? This is investigated for 3,586 marital partnerships (marriages or cohabitations) in 15 waves of the British Household Panel Survey. Both short and long term effects are investigated using discrete time hazard regression models. Results indicate that any form of unemployment predicts partnership dissolution. The effect is similar when unemployment hits either a man or a woman. The effect of male unemployment is to a considerable degree mediated by low financial satisfaction among their partners. We find no indications that the unemployment effect can be explained by unobserved heterogeneity

Have some European countries been more successful at employing disabled people than others?

Have some European countries been more successful at employing disabled people than others? Answering this question requires data about disability that are comparable across countries. This paper investigates three possible sources of survey data. Altogether, the European Social Survey (ESS) appears to be the most suitable data source for comparing disabled people between European countries. Employment rates among disabled people vary a lot between these countries. This variation is investigated in relation to several country-level characteristics: the number of people reporting disability, employment rates among non-disabled people, general unemployment rates, some characteristics of disability policies as well as some general employment policies. It is difficult to explain why particular countries are more or less successful at employing disabled people

Does the nuclear family affect social trust? Longitudinal evidence from Germany

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Employment among female immigrants to Europe

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Can personality predict retirement behaviour? : a longitudinal analysis combining survey and register data from Norway

This study investigates how far personality can predict the timing and routes of people’s retirement. It uses a large comprehensive Norwegian survey, with larger sample size than earlier related studies, providing estimates of personality based on the five-factor model. The survey data are matched with administrative data, allowing observations of retirement over the 2002–2007 period. The analysis distinguishes between the disability and the non-disability retirements. Retirement is investigated using discrete time, competing risk, logistic regression models amongst individuals aged 50–69. Results indicate that personality predicts disability retirement but not non-disability retirement. Neuroticism increases the risk of disability retirement in women. Agreeableness and extraversion may prevent disability retirement, whereas openness may increase the risk of disability in men. Personality effects are generally consistent across models controlling, or not controlling, for well-known predictors of retirement behaviour including education, income and occupational group. The main exception is that poor health explains the effect of neuroticism on women’s disability retirement

Human values and retirement experiences: A longitudinal analysis of Norwegian data.

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Persistent employment disadvantage, 1974 to 2003

The research compares the employment prospects of disadvantaged social groups in Britain over the past 30 years. It uses data from the General Household Survey, conducted almost every year between 1974 and 2003, with a total sample of 368,000 adults aged 20 to 59. A logistic regression equation estimates the probability of having a job for each member of the sample, taking account of gender and family structure, disability, ethnicity and age (and controlling also for educational qualifications and regional unemployment rates). Net differences in employment probabilities are interpreted as employment penalties experienced by the social group in question. Some of these penalties have increased, and others have decreased, over the period

Human values and retirement experiences: A longitudinal analysis of Norwegian data.

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The age and well-being “paradox”: a longitudinal and multidimensional reconsideration

This paper explores qualifcations to the much-discussed paradox that although aging is associated with multiple physical and social losses, subjective well-being (SWB) is stable or increasing in later life. We explore age-related changes in cognitive, afective, and eudaimonic dimensions in three waves of data spanning up to 15 years from the Norwegian NorLAG study (N=4,944, age 40−95). We employ fxed-efect models to examine the nature and predictors of aging efects on SWB. Results indicate a general pattern of stability well into older age, but negative changes in advanced age across well-being measures. Declines in SWB are less pronounced and with a later onset for the cognitive compared with the other measures. Loss of health, a partner, and friends are robust predictors of declining SWB. Women report both more negative afect and engagement than men, and these diferences increase with age. In conclusion, while increasing SWB from midlife to the mid-70 s attests to the adaptive behaviors and coping resources of young-old adults, the signifcant downturns in SWB in advanced age point to limits to psychological adjustment when health-related and social threats and constraints intensify.acceptedVersionpublishedVersio