Alcohol Use Disorders And Labor Market Outcomes: An Analysis Using 2001-02 National Epidemiology Survey On Alcohol And Related Conditions

ABSTRACT ALCOHOL USE DISORDERS AND LABOR MARKET OUTCOMES: AN ANALYSIS USING 2001-02 NATIONAL EPIDEMIOLOGY SURVEY ON ALCOHOL AND RELATED CONDITIONS by SHAMMIMA JESMIN May 2010 Advisor: Dr. Allen Goodman Major: Economics Degree: Doctor of Philosophy BACKGROUND Attempt of this research to explore the impact of alcohol use disorders on labor market outcomes is justified on the following grounds. First, alcohol use disorders (alcohol abuse and dependence) became more prevalent among the working age population over the decades (NIAAA: 2004). Second, existence of a large body of research on the nature and extent of relationship between alcohol use and labor market outcomes remained debatable, heterogeneous and counterintuitive with various explanations although it is generally agreed that harmful effects attributed by alcohol consumption may results in short-run and long-run physical and mental impairments, and it may entail enormous economic and non-economic costs to the society. OBJECTIVE The main focus of this research is to obtain the consistent estimates of the impact of alcohol use disorders on labor market outcomes. This also examines to what extent performance of individuals with alcohol use disorders (alcohol abuse and dependence) differ from abstainers and individuals who had no alcohol use disorders (ex-drinkers, ex-abuser/dependents, new-drinkers, and ex-new-drinkers) in terms two labor market outcomes: the probability of full time work participation and annual earnings (annual personal income). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The estimation strategies are as follows. First, using the NESARC 2001-02 survey sample of 43,093, I estimate a Logit model by the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) method where the dependent variable is an indicator variable (LFPFULL) for full-time labor force participation (Chapter 3, Section 3.1). Second, using a sample of 21406 (the observations for individuals who had job), I estimate a model with the logarithm of annual earnings (LINCOME) by the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) method. In these estimations, I include a set of explanatory variables: six binary variables to indicate alcohol use status (see Tables 2A and 2B), and other binary variables for other personal and socio-demographic characteristics (see Table 4), such as individual\u27s age, gender, race, marital status, education level, health status, location (whether individual lived in a central city or not), other source of income, and work related characteristics (industry type). Third, I perform formal tests to detect the existence of potential problems in estimations, the endogeneity and heteroscedasticity in the sample. The estimation strategy (appropriate estimation method) to address endogeneity is required to consider the potential presence of heteroscedasticity in the sample since the sample set is cross-sectional (see details in Chapter 3, section 3.2). Fourth, as the statistical tests confirmed the existence of both problems (endogeneity and heteroscedasticity) in current estimation, I re-estimate labor market outcome equations by addressing endogeneity and heteroscedasticity using GMM-IV method (proposed by Baum et al: 2003, Amemiya: 1985 and Foster: 1997). RESULTS As the statistical tests confirmed the endogeneity of alcohol use related variables and the presence of heteroscedasticity in the sample, the estimation by applying GMM-IV are expected to produce consistent and efficient estimate compared to baseline estimates (from the MLE and OLS ) which do not address the endogeneity and heteroscedasticity problems. Thus, the estimated results by MLE and OLS methods could be biased and not reliable. The followings are the key results of GMM-IV estimations. The key result of GMM-IV regression of LFPFULL is that the marginal effects for alcohol abuse and alcohol dependent are -0.38 and -0.04 respectively (though not significant). indicating that alcohol abusers and alcohol dependents have 38 percent and 4 percent less probability of being employed full-time respectively than life-time abstainers (base category), holding all other variables constant. The marginal effect of being ex-drinker on LFPFULL is negative (statistically significant) and consistent with expectation. Ex-drinkers have 43 percent less probability of being employed full-time than life-time abstainers (base category). The positive marginal effects of being ex-abuser/dependents, new drinkers and ex-new-drinkers on LFPFULL (not significant) are 11 percent, 45 percent and 2 percent respectively though not significant. The key result of the GMM-IV regression of LINCOME is that the marginal effect for alcohol abuse on annual income is -112,057 (though not significant). It indicates that alcohol abusers earned $112,057 less than life-time abstainers (base category), holding all other variables constant. The marginal effects of all other alcohol use status indicating binary variables (ex-drinker, ex-abuser/dependent, new-drinker, ex-new-drinker and alcohol dependents) are found to have positive impacts on annual income (statistically significant for ex-drinkers and new-ex drinkers). The positive impact on annual income for being alcohol dependent is inconsistent with expectation. Compared to GMM-IV estimates, the MLE (without addressing endogeneity and heteroscedasticity) underestimate the effects of alcohol use variables (represent by binary variables) and overestimate the effects of other socio-demographic variables on labor market variables, and the OLS (without addressing endogeneity and heteroscedasticity) underestimate the effects of all explanatory variables on labor market outcomes. Some observed unexpected results should be treated with cautions considering the limitations of this research: there might be measurement errors in proxy earnings variable, there were data limitations on previous drinking record of individuals who had alcohol use disorders and some labor market information such as hours of work and loss of working hours (absence from the job) due to alcohol use. Besides these limitations, overall results are largely consistent with the results that observed in parallel labor and health economics literature and can be considered representative since this research used rich and nationally representative NESARC data source. The results of this study can be useful for policy and management research to face the challenges of having and maintaining productive and healthy work force. The results imply the necessity of adopting clear and well communicated policies concerning recruitment, monitoring, early prevention and access to effective treatment, and maintaining positive work environment. The results also imply that public or private policies addressing related issues of alcohol use and employment should take into account the fact that women react differently to the amount of alcohol consumption and their work decision also different than men

Qualitative Risk Assessment of Chemical Hazardous to Health in Electronic Industry

The objective of tbis project, in short, is to identify, evaluate and control any health risk associated with the work activities that involves the use of hazardous chemicals. Other than that, this project seek to find out if the method provided by OSHA in the CHRA manual is sufficient in ensuring the safety of employees while exposed to hazardous chemicals. The problem to the project is to protect employees in Motorola Penang from the adverse effects of hazardous chemicals usage. It is mandatory to do this under the Occupational Safety and Health (Use and Standard of Exposure of Chemicals Hazardous to Health) Regulations 2000. The scope of my project would be limited to the two production floors of Motorola Penang, an electronic company chosen as my case study. The CHRA method would be used in conducting the assessment in the four work units namely, CGISS Battery- Jedi Cenelec, MDI Glue Machine and TPM for Reflow. In order to achieve the end product of my project, a step-by-step methodology is deployed. First of all, a multi-national company was identified as a case study. Then, literature review on the chemical health risk assessment and other related issues are done. On-site work needs to be carried out to detennine the risks or hazards that exist in each of the work units and then further embark on the analysis and evaluation of the information obtained

Stability Analysis of Phase-Locked Bursting in Inhibitory Neuron Networks

Networks of neurons, which form central pattern generators (CPGs), are important for controlling animal behaviors. Of special interest are configurations or CPG motifs composed of reciprocally inhibited neurons, such as half-center oscillators (HCOs). Bursting rhythms of HCOs are shown to include stable synchrony or in-phase bursting. This in-phase bursting can co-exist with anti-phase bursting, commonly expected as the single stable state in HCOs that are connected with fast non-delayed synapses. The finding contrasts with the classical view that reciprocal inhibition has to be slow or time-delayed to synchronize such bursting neurons. Phase-locked rhythms are analyzed via Lyapunov exponents estimated with variational equations, and through the convergence rates estimated with Poincar\\u27e return maps. A new mechanism underlying multistability is proposed that is based on the spike interactions, which confer a dual property on the fast non-delayed reciprocal inhibition; this reveals the role of spikes in generating multiple co-existing phase-locked rhythms. In particular, it demonstrates that the number and temporal characteristics of spikes determine the number and stability of the multiple phase-locked states in weakly coupled HCOs. The generality of the multistability phenomenon is demonstrated by analyzing diverse models of bursting networks with various inhibitory synapses; the individual cell models include the reduced leech heart interneuron, the Sherman model for pancreatic beta cells, the Purkinje neuron model and Fitzhugh-Rinzel phenomenological model. Finally, hypothetical and experiment-based CPGs composed of HCOs are investigated. This study is relevant for various applications that use CPGs such as robotics, prosthetics, and artificial intelligence

Keberkesanan program pemulihan tingkah laku di Taman Sri Puteri, Batu Gajah dan Kompleks Dar-As-Saadah

Taman Seri Puteri Batu Gajah, Perak dan Kompleks Dar-Assa’dah, Kuala Lumpur. Di institusi ini, delikuen wanita akan menjalani program pemulihan yang bertujuan untuk memberi bimbingan dan pendedahan kepada mereka sebagai persediaan untuk diterima semula oleh masyarakat. Instrument kajian ialah soal selidik yang digunakan ini diubahsuai daripada kajian Azizi(1990) dan Azizi ( 2004). Darjah kebolehpercayaan soal selidik diuji dengan menggunakan Cronbach Alpha di mana nilai keseluruhannya ialah 0.961. Seramai 79 orang pelatih terdiri penghuni yang telah menjalani sekurang-kurangnya 6 bulan program pemulihan tingkah laku di kedua-dua institusi dipilih sebagai responden. Pemboleh ubah yang digunakan dalam kajian ialah Kemudahan dan Kelengkapan yang sedia ada, Program Vokasional, Program Kokurikulum, Program Keagamaan dan Program Bimbingan serta Kaunseling. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan Kemudahan dan Kelengkapan yang tersedia berada di tahap sederhana. Begitu juga Program Vokasional, Program Kokurikulum dan Program Bimbingan dan Kaunseling kurang berkesan. Program Keagamaan adalah berkesan. Tidak terdapat perbezaan yang signifikan antara Kemudahan dan Kelengkapan yang sedia ada, Program Vokasional dan Program Kokurikulum di Taman Seri Puteri Batu Gajah, Perak dan Kompleks Dar-Assa’dah, Kuala Lumpur. Terdapat perbezaan yang signifikan di antara Program Keagamaan dan Program Bimbingan dan Kaunseling di Taman Seri Puteri Batu Gajah, Perak dan Kompleks Dar-Assa’dah, Kuala Lumpur. (katakunci: pusat pemulihan, delikuen wanita, kemudahan dan kelengkapan, program vokasional, program kokurikulum, program keagamaan, program bimbingan dan kaunseling) Abstract: The purpose of this study is to evalute the effectiveness of the programmes conducted by two rehabilitation centres for female delinquents. In these centres, the delinquents undergo programmes which aimed to give guidance and help the delinquents change their unwanted behaviour. The data were collected using questionnaires which was adapted from the research done by Azizi (1999) and Azizi (2004). Alpha Cronbach is used to test the reliability of this research. It showed that the overall Alpha value for the programmes is 0.93. A total of 79 respondents were chosen at simplified random to be the respondents of the research. The variables used in the research are the facilities, Vocational Programme, Co-curriculum Programme, Religious Programme and Counseling Programme. The overall findings of the research indicates that facilities and Counseling programme to be less effective compared to Vocational Programme, Co-curriculum Programme, Religious Programme. The results of the research showed that there is no significant difference in the way the facilities, Vocational Programme and Co-curriculum Programme was carried out in these two institution, namely Taman Seri Puteri Batu Gajah, Perak and Kompleks Dar-Assa’dah, Kuala Lumpur. There are significant differences between the Religious Programme and Counseling Programme in these two institutions