Studying informal care during the pandemic: mental health, gender and job status

Unexpected negative health shocks such as COVID-19 put pressure on households to provide more care to relatives and friends. This study uses data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study to investigate the impact of informal caregiving on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a difference-in-differences analysis, we find that individuals who started providing care after the pandemic began reported more mental health issues than those who never provided care. Additionally, the gender gap in mental health widened during the pandemic, with women more likely to report mental health issues. We also find that those who began providing care during the pandemic reduced their work hours compared to those who never provided care. Our results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on the mental health of informal caregivers, particularly for women

Studying informal care during the pandemic: mental health, gender and job status

Unexpected negative health shocks such as COVID-19 put pressure on households to provide more care to relatives and friends. This study uses data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study to investigate the impact of informal caregiving on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a difference-in-differences analysis, we find that individuals who started providing care after the pandemic began reported more mental health issues than those who never provided care. Additionally, the gender gap in mental health widened during the pandemic, with women more likely to report mental health issues. We also find that those who began providing care during the pandemic reduced their work hours compared to those who never provided care. Our results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on the mental health of informal caregivers, particularly for women

Public Pension Generosity and Old-Age Poverty in OECD countries

Pension adequacy is gaining importance as old-age poverty remains a pressing problem. In many advanced welfare states, the population is ageing rapidly and recent pension reforms have led to cuts in public pension provision. There are, however, few comparative longitudinal studies on the relationship between pension generosity and old-age poverty. This study provides a comparative empirical assessment of how the prevalence and depth of old-age poverty relates to generosity of public pension benefits in 14 advanced OECD welfare states from 1980-2010. We focus on the role of mandatory public pension provision of mainly first tier schemes that grant the major share of retirees’ income in most countries. We use data on theoretical pension replacement rates for retirees who had different working-age incomes. In order to address endogeneity issues, we adopt an instrumental-variable approach. Our main finding shows that pensions systems and earnings-related schemes, in particular, are quite efficient in reducing the risk of old-age poverty. Yet they still do very little to alleviate poverty among those pensioners in the most disadvantaged situations. We also found that redistribution within the pension system does not substantially contribute to poverty alleviation

Immigration and health outcomes: a study on native health perception and limitations in Europe

This study examines the impact of immigration on the self-perceived health of natives in 16 European countries from 2006 to 2018. Utilizing data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) and the European Union Labor Force Survey (EU-LFS), we focus on two health outcomes: natives’ self-perceived health and health-related limitations in daily activities. Contrary to concerns, our findings indicate a positive influence of immigration on natives’ health perception and a reduction in health-related limitations. Noteworthy variations by gender and age emerge, with more pronounced benefits in countries with lower human capital. These results underscore the potential health advantages of immigration, emphasizing the necessity for nuanced immigration policies that consider societal impact and call for a comprehensive evaluation of immigration’s effects

The impact of school exclusion in childhood on health and well-being outcomes in adulthood:Estimating causal effects using inverse probability of treatment weighting

BackgroundPrevious evidence has suggested a strong association between school exclusion and health outcomes. However, as health risks are themselves related to the risk of experiencing a school exclusion, it has been challenging to determine the extent to which school exclusion impacts later health outcomes, as opposed to reflecting a marker for pre-existing risks.AimThe aim of the current study was to address this challenge in estimating the medium-to-long-term impact of school exclusion of health and well-being outcomes.MethodsTo this end, we used an inverse propensity weighting approach in the Next Steps data set (N = 6534, from wave 1, 2014, to wave 8, 2015).ResultsWe found that after weighting for propensity of treatment scores estimated based on a wide range of factors, including previous health indicators, there was a significant effect of school exclusion on a wide range of health and well-being outcomes.DiscussionThese results provide some of the most robust evidence to date that school exclusion harms long-term health outcomes.ConclusionThe findings suggest that policies should aim to reduce exclusion and ensure access to preventative health support for those who experience a school exclusion

Long-term labour market and economic consequences of school exclusions in England:Evidence from two counterfactual approaches

Background: Previous research suggests that school exclusion during childhood is a precursor to social exclusion in adulthood. Past literature on the consequences of school exclusion is, however, scarce and mainly focused on short-term outcomes such as educational attainment, delinquency, and mental health in early adolescence. Moreover, this evidence is based primarily on descriptive and correlational analysis, whereas robust causal evidence is required to best inform policy. Aims: We aimed to estimate the mid-to-long-term impact of school exclusion on labour market and economic outcomes. Sample: The sample included 6,632 young people who at the age of 25/26 in the year 2015 participated in the Next Steps survey of whom 86 were expelled from school and 711 were suspended between the ages of 13/14 and 16/17. Method: Using high quality existing longitudinal data, we utilized four approaches to evaluate the impact of school exclusion: logistic regression-adjustment models, propensity score matching, school fixed-effects analysis, and inverse propensity weighting. The latter two counterfactual approaches were used to estimate causal effects. Results: We found that school exclusion increased the risk of becoming NEET at the age of 19/20, and then remaining economically inactive at the age of 25/26, as well as experiencing higher unemployment risk and earning lower wages also at the age of 25/26. Conclusion: School exclusion has pervasive negative effects into adulthood. Policy interventions should focus on both prevention and mitigating its negative effects. Interventions aimed at re-integrating excluded individuals into education or vocational training could be key in reducing the risk of poor socio-economic outcomes and social exclusion

The Crowdsourced Replication Initiative: Investigating Immigration and Social Policy Preferences. Executive Report.

In an era of mass migration, social scientists, populist parties and social movements raise concerns over the future of immigration-destination societies. What impacts does this have on policy and social solidarity? Comparative cross-national research, relying mostly on secondary data, has findings in different directions. There is a threat of selective model reporting and lack of replicability. The heterogeneity of countries obscures attempts to clearly define data-generating models. P-hacking and HARKing lurk among standard research practices in this area.This project employs crowdsourcing to address these issues. It draws on replication, deliberation, meta-analysis and harnessing the power of many minds at once. The Crowdsourced Replication Initiative carries two main goals, (a) to better investigate the linkage between immigration and social policy preferences across countries, and (b) to develop crowdsourcing as a social science method. The Executive Report provides short reviews of the area of social policy preferences and immigration, and the methods and impetus behind crowdsourcing plus a description of the entire project. Three main areas of findings will appear in three papers, that are registered as PAPs or in process

The paradox of inequalities in the transition to higher education in Chile: a trend analysis of counterfactuals and components of primary effects of social background

This study analyzes to what extent changes in access to higher education in a diversified educational system are influenced by trends in social and achievement inequalities, and how changes in its components influence these inequality trends, in a context of expansion of educational opportunities. We use a unique longitudinal census dataset from entire student cohorts between 2008 and 2018, covering a national standardized assessment in 10th grade and administrative registers of higher education enrolment in Chile, a country with a well-known private provision of education at all levels. By means of decomposition analyses and multinomial logistic models, we focus on access to university tracks, confirming early findings on the major importance of achievement inequalities in explaining socioeconomic differences in enrolments at selective tracks. Social origin, in turn, drives enrollments in non-selective tracks. However, we found that although achievement inequalities between advantaged and disadvantaged students decline over time, the importance of primary effects shows a general increasing tendency. This paradox is explained by the differential rates of change in the relative influence of social origin and the components of achievement inequality. Social differentials influence on enrollments, on top of achievement differences, have declined steeper than achievement inequalities. We discuss how these trends may reflect processes of adaptation and exclusion in achievement inequalities which could drive a regime of effective maintained inequality to one of expanding inequality, even after the free tuition reform of 2016

Informal care, older people, and COVID-19: Evidence from the UK

Table A.3 Table A.4 Show all tables Elsevier Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization Volume 205, January 2023, Pages 468-488 Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization Informal care, older people, and COVID-19: Evidence from the UK☆,☆☆ Author links open overlay panelJoan E. Madia a, Francesco Moscone b c, Catia Nicodemo d e Show more Add to Mendeley Share Cite https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2022.11.020 Get rights and content Abstract The negative health effects and mortality caused by the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately fell upon older and disabled people. Protecting these vulnerable groups has been a key policy priority throughout the pandemic and related vaccination campaigns. Using data from the latest survey of the UK Household Longitudinal Study on COVID-19 we found that people who receive informal care have higher probability of being infected when compared to those not receiving informal care. Further, we found that care recipients who are in the lowest income groups have a higher probability of catching the virus when compared to those in the highest income groups. We also estimated the likelihood of being infected for informal carers versus those who did not provide any care during the pandemic and found no significant differences between these two groups. Our empirical findings suggest that the standard measures introduced with the aim of protecting vulnerable groups, such as closing care homes or prioritising the vaccination of their staff, were not sufficient to avoid the spread of the virus amongst disabled and older people. Informal carers play an important role in the social care sector. As such, protecting vulnerable people by investing in the informal care sector should be a priority for future health policy