Labor force participation by the elderly in Mexico

A brief review of the aging of the Mexican population, the high labor force participation of elderly, and the lack of retirement pensions, is followed by a causal empirical analysis using a panel data set (Mexican Health and Aging Study, MHAS) of Mexicans aged 50 and more. We find that the labor force participation of elderly men is affected by their economic situation; in particular the availability of a retirement pension (after contributions to a pension plan earlier in their life) reduces participation. A better health raises male participation rates, while the health effect is absent for women. The opposite effect, from labor force participation on health status, is negligible for both genders. Access to health services, which is obtained if the partner or a child is working, reduces participation rates. Additional analysis indicates that the same variables influence the choice for a job in the formal or the informal sector, and whether a job is held in addition to a pension. The results suggest that a redesign of the social security including retirement pensions and health care services has implications for the individuals’ participation decisions, and therefore for future contributions to the insurance and pension plans.labor force participation, pension, health, insurance

The role of economic incentives and attitudes in participation and childcare decisions

We analyze the participation and childcare decisions made by mothers in two-parent households with children aged 0-12 in the Netherlands, paying special attention to the role of attitudes regarding work and care. In a multinomial logit model we distinguish between not working, a small parttime job, and a larger job. For working mothers we consider no childcare, informal, and formal childcare. We account for potential endogeneity of attitudes. The results show that the role of the price of formal childcare in the decision-making process is negligible. A higher earnings capacity increases the take-up of larger jobs and formal childcare. Modern attitudes have a strong impact on the decisions to work and to use childcare.labor force participation, childcare use, attitudes about childcare, multinomial logit

Labor Force Participation of Mexican Elderly: The Importance of Health

The determinants of the labor force participation of people in Mexico aged 50 and over are analyzed using data of the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS). In particular we study the importance of health in the participation decision, taking into account the potential endogeneity of health. The results indicate that a better health causes a stronger attachment to the labor market. We find no clear evidence that employment affects health, but it cannot be ruled out that the effects of bad labor circumstances and justification eliminate each other. There are indications that self-assessed health does not capture all relevant aspects of health. For policy decisions the direct importance of financial circumstances could be more relevant than the role of health.labor force participation, health status, pensions, elderly,

Labor Force Participation by the Elderly in Mexico.

Artícul

Health insurance and use of alternative medicine in Mexico

Objectives I analyze the effect of coverage by health insurance on the use of alternative medicine such as folk healers and homeopaths, in particular if it complements or substitutes conventional services.Methods Panel data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS) is used to estimate bivariate probit models in order to explain the use of alternative medicine while allowing the determinant of interest, access to health insurance, to be an endogenous factor.Results The findings indicate that households with insurance coverage less often use alternative medicine, and that the effect is much stronger among poor than among rich households.Conclusions Poor households substitute away from traditional medicine towards conventional medicine.Health insurance Social security Complementary therapies Econometric models Poverty Mexico

Covariate Balancing Inverse Probability Weights for Time-Varying Continuous Interventions

In this paper we present a continuous extension for longitudinal analysis settings of the recently proposed Covariate Balancing Propensity Score (CBPS) methodology. While extensions of the CBPS methodology to both marginal structural models and general treatment regimes have been proposed, these extensions have been kept separately. We propose to bring them together using the generalized method of moments to estimate inverse probability weights such that after weighting the association between time-varying covariates and the treatment is minimized. A simulation analysis confirms the correlation-breaking performance of the proposed technique. As an empirical application we look at the impact the gradual roll-out of Seguro Popular, a universal health insurance program, has had on the resources available for the provision of healthcare services in Mexico

Efectos heterogéneos y distributivos del Seguro Popular sobre la oferta de servicios de salud en México

Antecedentes: poco se ha escrito acerca de los efectos de la expansión del Seguro Popular (SP), el programa de salud pretendidamente universal -según el gobierno mexicano-, sobre los recursos humanos y materiales requeridos para satisfacer la nueva demanda. En este artículo analizamos esta pieza clave en la búsqueda de un sistema universal de atención a la salud.Metodología: a diferencia de las evaluaciones previas, en este trabajo utilizamos las jurisdicciones sanitarias como unidades de análisis y operacionalizamos la intervención del SP como un tratamiento continuo (relativo al número de beneficiarios potenciales).Resultados: según lo sugieren las estimaciones, realizadas con base en una variedad de aplicaciones del método de pareamiento por puntaje de propensión, el SP ha tenido un impacto promedio efectivamente positivo sobre los recursos de salud de México. Sin embargo, los efectos de tratamiento cuantil y de interacción revelan resultados inesperados del programa sobre la distribución de recursos sanitarios.Conclusiones: en general, nuestros resultados sugieren la posibilidad de que el programa no esté cubriendo suficientemente algunas de las zonas geográficas más vulnerables del país

Efectos heterogéneos y distributivos del Seguro Popular sobre la oferta de servicios de salud en México*

Antecedentes: poco se ha escrito acerca de los efectos de la expansión del Seguro Popular (SP), el programa de salud pretendidamente universal -según el gobierno mexicano-, sobre los recursos humanos y materiales requeridos para satisfacer la nueva demanda. En este artículo analizamos esta pieza clave en la búsqueda de un sistema universal de atención a la salud.Metodología: a diferencia de las evaluaciones previas, en este trabajo utilizamos las jurisdicciones sanitarias como unidades de análisis y operacionalizamos la intervención del SP como un tratamiento continuo (relativo al número de beneficiarios potenciales).Resultados: según lo sugieren las estimaciones, realizadas con base en una variedad de aplicaciones del método de pareamiento por puntaje de propensión, el SP ha tenido un impacto promedio efectivamente positivo sobre los recursos de salud de México. Sin embargo, los efectos de tratamiento cuantil y de interacción revelan resultados inesperados del programa sobre la distribución de recursos sanitarios.Conclusiones: en general, nuestros resultados sugieren la posibilidad de que el programa no esté cubriendo suficientemente algunas de las zonas geográficas más vulnerables del país