43 research outputs found
Slipping Anchor?: Testing the Vignettes Approach to Identification and Correction of Reporting Heterogeneity
We propose tests of the two assumptions under which anchoring vignettes identify heterogeneity in reporting of categorical evaluations. Systematic variation in the perceived difference between any two vignette states is sufficient to reject vignette equivalence. Response consistency—the respondent uses the same response scale to evaluate the vignette and herself—is testable given sufficiently comprehensive objective indicators that independently identify response scales. Both assumptions are rejected for reporting of cognitive and physical functioning in a sample of older English individuals, although a weaker test resting on less stringent assumptions does not reject response consistency for cognition
Work, Inequality and For Own Consumption in Portugal
Portugal, long a country of emigration, has seen the number of immigrants outstrip the number of emigrants since the mid-1990s. Per capita GDP has been on the constant rise since the country entered the European Union, even though it was still the poorest Member State in 2000. The proportion of over-60s still at work is the highest in the Europe of 15. The unemployment rate plunged to one of the lowest European levels in 2000. Portugal is also the most inegalitarian country in terms of income distribution. Families whose head works in the service sector are less exposed to poverty in terms of living conditions than farm, fishing and industrial workers. For own consumption, when the housing situation so allows, provides greater flexibility of budgetary management and makes those with access to it less pessimistic in terms of subjective poverty.Multiple Dimensions of Poverty, Retirement, Portugal
Inequity in the Face of Death
We apply the theory of inequality in opportunity to measure inequity in mortality. Our empirical work is based on a rich dataset for the Netherlands (1998-2007), linking information about mortality, healt
Who can predict their own Demise? Accuracy of Longevity Expectations by Education and Cognition
__Abstract__
Biased longevity expectations will lead to suboptimal decisions regarding saving, retirement, annuitization and health, with consequences for wellbeing in old age. Systematic differences in the accuracy of longevity expectations may partly explain heterogeneity in economic behaviour by education and cognitive functioning. Analysis of eight waves of the US Health and Retirement Study reveals that individuals with lower levels of education and cognitive functioning report survival probabilities that are less accurate in predicting their in-sample mortality. There is little evidence that the gradients in the veracity of expectations are due to the less educated and cognitively able responding less to changes in objective mortality risks. However, high school dropouts and the least cognitively able report survival probabilities that are less stable and display greater un explained variability. These disadvantaged groups appear to be less confident in their longevity beliefs, which is justified given that their expectations are less accurate
Poor Health Reporting?
In spite of the wide disparities in wealth and in objective health measures
like mortality, observed inequality by wealth in self-reported health appears to be nearly
nonexistent in low- to middle-income settings. To determine the extent to which this is
driven by reporting tendencies, we use anchoring vignettes to test and correct for
reporting heterogeneity in health among elderly South Africans. Significant reporting
differences across wealth groups are detected. Poorer individuals rate the same health
state description more positively than richer individuals. Only after we correct for these
differences does a significant and substantial health disadvantage of the poor emerge.
We also find that health inequality and reporting heterogeneity are confounded by race.
Within race groups—especially among black Africans and to a lesser degree among
whites—heterogeneous reporting leads to an underestimation of health inequalities
between richest and poorest. More surprisingly, we also show that the correction may
go in the opposite direction: the apparent black African (vs. white) health disadvantage
within the top wealth quintile almost disappears after we correct for reporting tendencies.
Such large shifts and even reversals of health gradients have not been documented
in previous studies on reporting bias in health inequalities. The evidence for South
Africa, with its history of racial segregation and socioeconomic inequality, highlights
that correction for reporting matters greatly when using self-reported health measures in
countries with such wide disparities
Does Reporting Heterogeneity Bias The Measurement of Health Disparities?
Heterogeneity in reporting of health by socio-economic and demographic characteristics potentially biases the measurement of health disparities. We use anchoring vignettes to identify reporting heterogeneity in self reports on health for Indonesia, India and China. Correcting for reporting heterogeneity tends to reduce estimated disparities in health by age, sex (not Indonesia), urban/rural and education (not China) and to increase income disparities in health. Overall, while homogeneous reporting by socio-demographic group is significantly rejected, the results suggest that the size of the reporting bias in measures of health disparities is not large