The Effects of Cooperation: A Structural Model of Siblings' Caregiving Interactions

This paper analyzes the decision making process of adult children to provide informal care to their parents. First, we develop a structural model to explain the amount of time that only children (without siblings) spend on providing care, taking into account opportunity costs in terms of time and money. The model is estimated using two datasets from 12 European countries and reveals the preferences of adult children for consumption, leisure and informal care. Although we assume that differences in behavior between children with and without siblings are due to dissimilar constraints only, by using only children we do not have to make assumptions about interactions between siblings in the structural model. In the presence of siblings, their choices also play a role in the caregiving decision. A central question is whether siblings make cooperative or noncooperative decisions. The second part of this paper aims to establish whether interactions between siblings are cooperative or noncooperative, by comparing predicted cooperative and noncooperative outcomes with observed outcomes. We use the structural parameter estimates from the first part of the paper and model the noncooperative outcomes using a Quantal Response Equilibrium. The results suggest that the nature of the interactions between siblings has a strong effect on the division of informal care between siblings. For almost three quarters of the families the noncooperative model has a better fit than the cooperative model. When the noncooperative families can be pushed into their cooperative outcome, their parents would on average receive 50% more informal care per week from their children, but this would reduce full-time labor supply by 5.7%-points and increase part-time labor supply by 6.7%.time allocation, (non)cooperation, structural modelling

The age-period cohort problem: set identification and point identification

"Only entropy comes easily" - Anton Chekhov Various methods have been used to overcome the point identification problem inherent in the linear age-period-cohort model. This paper presents a set-identification result for the model and then considers the use of the maximum-entropy principle as a vehicle for achieving point identification. We present two substantive applications (US female mortality data and UK female labor force participation) and compare the results from our approach to some of the solutions in the literature.

The trend in female labour force participation; what can be expected for the future?

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Netherlands experienced a strong increase in the labour force participation of women. This study investigates the increase of participation over the successive generations of women, and produces an educated guess for future participation. For this purpose, we estimate a binary age-period-cohort model for the generations born between 1925 and 1986, using data from the Dutch Labour Force Survey 1992-2004. The results indicate that the increasing level of education, the diminishing negative effect of children, and unobserved cohort effects have played an important role. According to our estimates, the increase in unobserved cohort effects has stopped since the generation born in 1955. This result is in line with results of studies on social norms and attitudes towards the combination of female employment and family responsibilities, which show a similar pattern over the successive generations. We conclude that the growth of female participation is likely to slow down in the near future.

Employment Effects of Incentivized Gradual Retirement Plans

Hervorming Sociale Regelgevin

Inkomensongelijkheid als uitdaging voor een gezonde samenleving:De invloed van geldstress op de volksgezondheid is niet te onderschatten

In arme Rotterdamse wijken komen babysterfte en vroeggeboorte veel meer voor dan in rijke. En ondanks toegankelijke zorg inNederland, leven rijkere mensen aanzienlijk langer. Micro-econoom Marike Knoef en gynaecoloog Eric Steegers pleiten voor actie.De eerste stappen zijn gezet, de babysterfte in Charlois neemt inmiddels af

Prolonged worklife among grandfathers: Spillover effects on grandchildren’s educational outcomes

Recent policies aiming to prolong worklives have increased older males' labor supply. Yet, little is known about their intergenerational effects. Using unique Dutch administrative data covering three consecutive generations, this paper studies the impact of increased grandfathers' labor supply following a reform in unemployment insurance for persons aged 57.5+ on grandchildren's educational performance. We find that increased grandfathers' labor supply increases grandchildren's test scores in 6th grade. The effect is driven by substitution of grandparents' informal care by formal childcare

Consumption and time use responses to unemployment: Implications for the lifecycle model

In this study, we analyse the effects of unemployment on consumption and time use. To do so, we employ a micro panel dataset for the Netherlands containing a large set of expenditure and time use categories. Our results show a small negative effect of unemployment on expenditures, and large positive effects on time spent on home production and leisure activities. We do not find evidence for complementarity between leisure and consumption or for substitution between home production and expenditures. We use our results to estimate a ratio of relevant lifecycle parameters, and show that the point estimates and their precision depend strongly on the expenditure and time use categories considered