Social Security and Retirement during Transition: Microeconometric Evidence from Slovenia. ENEPRI Research Reports No. 57, 2 September 2008

This paper analyses old-age retirement decisions of Slovenian men and women eligible to retire in the period 1997-2003. In addition to established market economies, relatively high hazard rates of retirement are found, which decline with age. This peculiar pattern can be partly attributed to weak incentives to work inherent in the design of social security and is reflected in predominantly negative values of accruals and to transition-specific increases in wage inequality in the late 1980 and early 1990s. The authors also find that the probability of retirement increases with social security wealth and decreases with net wages, although the response to option value to work, with controlling for wage differences, is rather weak. The results also imply that less educated persons, persons with great private wealth and persons entitled to severance payment are more likely to retire

Refugees’ Transition from Welfare to Work: A Quasi-Experimental Approach of the Impact of the Neighbourhood Context

This study analyses the impact of the neighbourhood context on the likelihood that refugees move from social assistance to paid employment. It makes use of Dutch policy that resulted in an exogenous placement of refugees in their first regular housing. This natural quasi-experiment allows us to estimate intent-to-treat effects of initial neighbourhood characteristics on the likelihood of transitioning from welfare to work. We consider the impact of the employment share and the median level of income among natives and co-ethnics, using Dutch longitudinal administrative data and discrete time event-history modelling. Our findings indicate that refugees are more likely to enter the labour market when the neighbourhood’s employment share among natives is higher. A similar effect for employment among co-ethnics is not found. There is also no evidence that the placement of refugees in an area with a higher median income among co-ethnics or natives facilitates the transition from welfare to work

A capital-based approach to better understand health inequalities: Theoretical and empirical explorations

Background: The persistence of health inequalities may be driven by differences in education and income, but also by other economic and non-economic factors. Our aim was to explore how the association between single-dimensional health and socioeconomic status (SES) changes when including health-related person capital, economic capital, social capital, cultural capital and attractiveness and personality capital. Methods: We used a capital-based approach to understand health inequalities. It presumes intertwined relationships between broadly measured health (‘health-related person capital’) and embodied resources (‘attractiveness and personality capital’) on the one hand, and ESC capital, i.e., economic, social, and cultural resources on the other. We used cross-sectional data on 152,592 participants from the Dutch Lifelines cohort study and estimated correlations using partial least squares structural equation modelling. Results: The correlation between SES and health-related person capital (r = 0.15) was stronger than the correlations between SES and single-dimensional health (physical and mental health; r = 0.12 and r = 0.04, respectively). ESC capital, combining economic, social and cultural capital, showed a correlation of 0.34 with health-related person capital. This was stronger than the correlation between health-related person capital and economic capital alone (r = 0.19). Lastly, the correlation between health-related person capital and ESC capital increased when health related, attractiveness and personality resources were combined into a single person capital construct (from r = 0.34 to r = 0.49). Conclusions: This exploratory study shows the empirical interconnectedness of various types of resources, and their potential role in the persistence of health inequalities. Our findings corroborate the idea of considering health as a multidimensional concept, and to extend conventional SES indicators to a broader measurement of economic and non-economic resources

A Comparative Typology of Pension Regimes. ENEPRI Research Reports No. 54, April 2008

This report presents an empirical typology of pension regimes in the European Union, the US, Canada, Australia and Norway. The categorisation is based on 34 quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the mandatory parts of the pension systems in these countries. The empirical analysis shows that Esping-Andersen’s classical distinction between liberal, corporatist and social-democratic welfare regime types does not entirely hold in the case of pension systems. The empirical traits of the various pension systems can be summarised on two main dimensions: the general level of pension provision and the existence of private schemes within the mandatory part of the pension system. On these dimensions four clusters of countries, or pension regime types, have been identified empirically. Two of those are as one would theoretically expect: the corporatist group has rather high earnings-related pension benefits, while the liberal pension regime type provides a more basic, means-tested pension. However, two other clusters are not in line with the standard classification of welfare regimes. In the ‘moderate pensions’ cluster, the level of pension provision is lower than in the corporatist countries, but it surpasses the standards attained by countries with a liberal pension regime. In countries belonging to the ‘mandatory private’ cluster, the government obliges employees to participate in private pension schemes, which are generally funded and based on defined contributions. The pension level in this group is moderate or high

Social Exclusion of the Elderly: A Comparative Study of EU Member States. ENEPRI Research Reports No. 57, 2 September 2008

Combating social exclusion is one of the key objectives of pension systems. This report focuses on social exclusion among the elderly (defined as the 55+ age group) in the EU’s member states. Social exclusion has been conceptualised as a state of individuals in relation to four dimensions. Two of these dimensions – material deprivation and social rights – are of a structural nature. The other two – social participation and normative integration – pertain to social settings and subcultural factors. Theoretically and empirically, the dimensions refer to one latent underlying social exclusion variable. The original method for measuring social exclusion was devised and tested for the Netherlands, making use of a dedicated dataset. In this study, the measuring instrument has been extended to EU member states, performing secondary analyses of various surveys

Institutions of inclusion and exclusion

This thematic issue aims to shed light on the connections between institutions (and related forms of organisation) and social inclusion and exclusion. In this editorial we briefly introduce the concepts, summarise the various articles and provide some general conclusions

Increases in symptoms of depression and anxiety in adults during the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic are limited to those with less resources: Results from the Lifelines Cohort Study

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic may have a differential impact on mental health based on an individual's capital, i.e. resources available to maintain and enhance health. We assessed trajectories of depression and anxiety symptoms, and their association with different elements of capital. METHODS: Data on 65,854 individuals (mean baseline age = 50·4 (SD = 12·0) years) from the Lifelines COVID-19 cohort were used. Baseline mental health symptoms were on average measured 4.7 (SD = 1·1) years before the first COVID-19 measurement wave, and subsequent waves were (bi)weekly (March 30─August 05, 2020). Mental health symptom trajectories were estimated using a two-part Latent Class Growth Analysis. Class membership was predicted by economic (education, income, and occupation) and person capital (neuroticism, poor health condition, and obesity) FINDINGS: Most individuals were unlikely to report symptoms of depression (80·6%) or anxiety (75·9%), but stable-high classes were identified for both conditions (1·6% and 6·7%, respectively). The stable-high depression class saw the greatest increase in symptoms after COVID, and the stable-high anxiety class reported an increase in the probability of reporting symptoms after COVID. At the first COVID-measurement, the mean number of symptoms increased compared to baseline (depression:4·7 vs 4·1; anxiety:4·3 vs 4·2); the probability of reporting symptoms also increased (depression:0·96 vs 0·65; anxiety:0·92 vs 0·70). Membership in these classes was generally predicted by less capital, especially person capital; odds ratios for person capital ranged from 1·10-2·22 for depression and 1·08-1·51 for anxiety. INTERPRETATION: A minority of individuals, possessing less capital, reported an increase in symptoms of depression or anxiety after COVID. FUNDING: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors

Diverging death risks:Mortality as a corollary of economic, social, cultural and person capital

Introduction: Diverging death risks are associated with a wide range of social factors, including not only education and income but also other economic and non-economic resources. The aim of this study was to assess the association of mortality risks with four types of resources: economic, social, cultural and person capital.Methods: We used data of 2,952 participants from the Disparities in the Netherlands survey and annual mortality data from Statistics Netherlands for the period 2014 to 2021. Economic capital was measured through education, income, occupation, home equity, and liquid assets. Social capital was measured by the strength of social ties, the size of the core discussion network, and access to people in resourceful positions; cultural capital by lifestyle, digital skills, and mastery of English, and person capital by self-rated health, impediments to climbing stairs, self-confidence, self-image, people's appearance, and body mass index. To accommodate the fact that each capital was derived from several indicators, we used Partial Least Squares (PLS) Cox Regression.Results: In multiple regression, higher economic, cultural, and person capital were associated with lower mortality (hazard ratio, 0.77; 95% confidence interval [CI, 0.65 to 0.90], 0.77 [0.64–0.93] and 0.80; [0.70–0.92]), adjusted for all capital measures and sex.Conclusion: The finding that more economic, cultural and person capital is associated with lower mortality provides empirical support for an approach that uses a broad spectrum of capital measures - hitherto rarely included simultaneously in epidemiological research - in order to understand diverging death risks. By integrating sociological concepts, cohort data, and epidemiological research methods, our study highlights the need for further research on the interplay between different forms of resources in shaping health inequalities. In designing public health interventions, we advocate the adoption of a multidimensional capital-based framework for tackling social disparities in mortality.</p