Estimating, and interpreting, retirement income replacement rates. ESRI WP575, November 2017

Longitudinal data are used to estimate retirement income replacement rates of employees in Ireland who transition into retirement over the period 2010 to 2014. The median replacement rate is estimated at 50 per cent, with the mean at 78 per cent. The mean estimate seems high relative to stated policy goals but further analysis shows that the estimate results in part from very high replacement rates at the lower end of the income distribution. This in turn results from the flat-rate nature of social welfare pensions in Ireland. More broadly, Ireland’s pension system is shown to produce a more equal distribution of replacement rates compared to pre-retirement income. However, this leads to a question as to whether policy goals in the areas of pension adequacy should be set with respect to income or consumption levels as opposed to replacement rates

COVID-19 pandemic and the gender divide at work and home

Publication metadata The COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated inequalities in many dimensions of European societies, including inequalities between women and men in several key domains. This report looks at gender inequalities that existed prior to the COVID-19 crisis and describes in what ways the pandemic has impacted on gender divides. It also analyses the various policy responses of national governments across the EU to address gender divides, and to prevent their widening during the pandemic. The effects of the pandemic on employment at EU-level has been remarkably gender-neutral on the whole, with nuances emerging within different sectors and socioeconomic groups. The pre-existing gender gaps in unpaid work have persisted, leading to work–life conflicts, especially among teleworking mothers of young children. Finally, the report describes the outlook for gender inequalities in Europe, pointing to factors that will shape the future of equality between women and men: gender segregation in labour markets, gender divides in telework and hybrid work, and gender mainstreaming in policymaking – especially in relation to caregiving and care services

The Exchange Motive in Intergenerational Transfers The Exchange Motive in Intergenerational Transfers

Abstract This article examines the exchange motive in intergenerational monetary transfers, namely current inter vivos transfers and planned bequests. The focus is on the causal effect of child-provided help on transfers from parents to adult children. Cross-sectionally, small transfers and help are positively correlated, with the findings robust to inclusion of child-parent relationship controls and lagged help. In an analysis of first-differenced data, the effect is statistically significant at the 10 per cent level. The analysis of planned bequests reveals no effect of child-provided help, suggesting that inter vivos transfers are better suited to exchange

Essays on the income, wealth and family tranfers of the older generation

THESIS 10559This thesis consists of three core chapters which contain empirical analyses of financial decision-making among older people. The chapters focus on pension coverage, retirees? incomes and replacement rates, subjective life expectancy and its effect on wealth and the exchange motive in intergenerational transfers from parents to their adult children. The data used in the examination of these topics come from the first two waves of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA)

The Exchange Motive in Intergenerational Transfers

This article examines the exchange motive in intergenerational monetary transfers, namely current inter vivos transfers and planned bequests. The focus is on the causal effect of child-provided help on transfers from parents to adult children. Cross-sectionally, small transfers and help are positively correlated, with the findings robust to inclusion of child-parent relationship controls and lagged help. In an analysis of first-differenced data, the effect is statistically significant at the 10 per cent level. The analysis of planned bequests reveals no effect of child-provided help, suggesting that inter vivos transfers are better suited to exchange

Public service activities among University staff

University staff frequently engage in Public Service Activities (PSAs), over and above their core roles, making a valuable contribution to society and the economy, although little is known about such activity. This study examines the extent of PSA among university staff — both academic and non-academic. The data come from a survey carried out in 2014 of the staff of University College Dublin (UCD), an Irish research university with a wide disciplinary coverage. The survey collected information about whether staff have taken part in PSAs and the amount of time spent engaging in these activities. Overall, 59 per cent of UCD academics and senior administrative staff report having taken part in PSAs over the past 12 months. The most common type of PSA is public engagement which encompasses talks, lectures and involvement in public debate through various media. Academic staff are much more likely than administrative staff to engage in PSA, but there is a significant contribution also from senior administrative staff. PSA engagement varies by discipline (with Arts and Humanities staff having the highest rates of PSA), by seniority and by length of tenure. Among those who have taken part in PSAs, the mean total yearly number of hours engaged in these activities is 167, ranging from 122 hours among researchers to 218 hours among professors. We estimate that all academics and senior administrators at UCD contributed over 150,000 hours in PSA over the course of the 2013-14 academic year, with an estimated value of nearly e11.5 million

Information and vaccine hesitancy: evidence from the early stage of the vaccine roll-out in 28 European countries

The success of mass vaccination programs against SARS-CoV-2 hinges on the public's acceptance of the vaccines. During a vaccine roll-out, individuals have limited information about the potential side-effects and benefits. Given the public health concern of the COVID pandemic, providing appropriate information fast matters for the success of the campaign. In this paper, time-trends in vaccine hesitancy were examined using a sample of 35,390 respondents from the Eurofound's Living, Working and COVID-19 (LWC) data collected between 12 February and 28 March 2021 across 28 European countries. The data cover the initial stage of the vaccine roll-out. We exploit the fact that during this period, news about rare cases of blood clots with low blood platelets were potentially linked to the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine (or Vaxzeveria). Multivariate regression models were used to analyze i) vaccine hesitancy trends, and whether any trend-change was associated with the link between the AstraZeneca vaccine ii) and blood clots (AstraZeneca controversy), and iii) the suspension among several European countries. Our estimates show that vaccine hesitancy increased over the early stage of the vaccine roll-out (0·002, 95% CI: [0·002 to 0·003]), a positive shift took place in the likelihood of hesitancy following the controversy (0·230, 95% CI: [0·157 to 0·302]), with the trend subsequently turning negative (-0·007, 95% CI: [-0·010 to -0·005]). Countries deciding to suspend the AstraZeneca vaccine experienced an increase in vaccine hesitancy after the suspensions (0·068, 95% CI: [0·04 to 0·095]). Trust in institutions is negatively associated with vaccine hesitancy. The results suggest that SARS-CoV-2 vaccine hesitancy increased steadily since the beginning of the vaccine roll-out and the AstraZeneca controversy and its suspension, made modest (though significant) contributions to increased hesitancy

The relative roles of early life, physical activity, sedentarism and diet in social and economic inequalities in body mass index and obesity risk between 9 and 18

Background: Studies in many middle and high-income countries describe an increasing prevalence of adiposity and obesity among children and adolescents. Prevalence is higher among families of low socioeconomic position (SEP) and systematic reviews have identified relevant factors, but have not quantified their relative importance to SEP differentials. This paper examines the relative importance of different factors to Body Mass Index (BMI) and obesity trajectories from age 9 to age 17/18. Methods: Multi-level models of child BMI/obesity risk trajectory by maternal education were conducted using a nationally representative cohort of children born in Ireland in 1998 and aged 9 at baseline (N = 8568), with follow-up at 13 and 17/18 years (88% and 73% response rate respectively). Models were stratified by sex and both time-varying (e.g. child physical activity, diet, sedentary activity) and time-invariant (e.g. early life) factors were tested. Results: Significant inverse gradients in BMI and obesity risk by level of maternal education were present across both sexes and at each age; unadjusted absolute differentials in obesity risk between highest/lowest education groups increased by 56% for males and 42% for females between age 9 and 17/18. Early life factors accounted for 22% of the differential in obesity risk between the lowest and highest education groups among males at age 9, falling to 13% at 17/18. Among females the proportion fell from 33 to 23%. Unadjusted absolute high/low maternal education group differentials in BMI were 7.5 times higher among males and 11 times higher among females at 17/18 than at age 9. Conclusions: Given the importance of early life exposures to subsequent differentials in BMI and obesity risk our findings suggest that policy makers should focus resources on primary prevention during the prenatal and early life period if they wish to reduce the prevalence of child and adolescent obesity

Parallel trend assumption.

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Vaccine hesitancy time-trend.

Notes: the graph shows the time-trend of the vaccine hesitancy during the period from 12 February 2021 to 28 Marrh 2021 The blue dashed line represents the moment of the AstraZeneca controversy, coinciding with 11 March 2021, while the green dashed line represents the date when the AstraZeneca vaccine was suspended across a number of countries (16 March 2021).</p