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Articles 1 - 30 of 39
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Lifetime Adversity Predicts Depression, Anxiety, And Cognitive Impairment In A Nationally Representative Sample Of Older Adults In The United States, Sangnam Ahn, Kim, Hongmei Zhang, Aram Dobalian, George Slavich
Lifetime Adversity Predicts Depression, Anxiety, And Cognitive Impairment In A Nationally Representative Sample Of Older Adults In The United States, Sangnam Ahn, Kim, Hongmei Zhang, Aram Dobalian, George Slavich
Research Collection School Of Economics
Objective: Although life stress and adversity have emerged as risk factors for mental health problems and cognitive impairment among older adults, prior studies on this topic have been cross-sectional and based on relatively homogeneous samples. To address these issues, we examined prospective associations between lifetime adversity and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and cognitive impairment in a nationally representative, longitudinal sample of older adults in the U.S. Method: We analyzed data from the Health and Retirement Study (1992-2016). The sample included 3,496 individuals (59.9% female), aged ≥64 years old (M age=76.0 ±7.6 years). We used the individual-level panel data and ordinary …
Gender Divergence In Premarket Skill Acquisition And Wage Inequality, Sunha Myong
Gender Divergence In Premarket Skill Acquisition And Wage Inequality, Sunha Myong
Research Collection School Of Economics
I study the changes in premarket skills and the evolution of the wage distribution across two cohorts using the NLSY79 and NLSY97. To estimate the relative importance of changes in premarket skills and changes in skill prices in explaining the evolution of the wage distribution, I apply the DiNardo, Fortin, and Lemieux decomposition method (DiNardo et al. 1996). I find a substantial gender divergence in premarket skill acquisition and wage gain across the two cohorts. Women's wage gain associated with changes in premarket skills is greater than that of men's at all levels of the wage distribution. Changes in premarket …
Young Women In Cities, Yumi Koh, Li Jing, Yifan Wu, Junjian Yi, Hanzhe Zhang
Young Women In Cities, Yumi Koh, Li Jing, Yifan Wu, Junjian Yi, Hanzhe Zhang
Research Collection School Of Economics
Young women outnumber young men in cities in many countries during periods of economic growth and urbanization. This gender imbalance among young urbanites is more pronounced in larger cities. We use the gradual rollout of special economic zones across China as a quasi-experiment to establish the causes of this gender imbalance. Our analysis suggests that a key contributor is gender-differential incentives to migrate due to rural women’s higher likelihood of marrying and marrying up in cities when urbanization creates more economic opportunities and an abundance of high-income marriage-age men.
Brothers, Sisters, And Support To Older Parents: Separate Spheres Across And Within Support Types?, Christine Ho, Kathleen Mcgarry
Brothers, Sisters, And Support To Older Parents: Separate Spheres Across And Within Support Types?, Christine Ho, Kathleen Mcgarry
Research Collection School Of Economics
Parents in many countries exhibit a strong preference for sons over daughters; a preference that is often observed regarding transfers to children. Here, we ask whether son preference also drives differences in behavior regarding transfers from sons and daughters. We use data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) to examine the patterns of giving to parents and find strong evidence of such differentiation. Coresidential support comes almost exclusively from sons as do large transfers, while daughters are more likely to make small transfers. Moreover, crowding-out of financial transfers by siblings occurs primarily within gender: sons give less …
Associations Of The Covid-19 Pandemic With Older Individuals' Healthcare Utilization And Self-Reported Health Status: A Longitudinal Analysis From Singapore, Sangnam Ahn, Seonghoon Kim, Kanghyock Koh
Associations Of The Covid-19 Pandemic With Older Individuals' Healthcare Utilization And Self-Reported Health Status: A Longitudinal Analysis From Singapore, Sangnam Ahn, Seonghoon Kim, Kanghyock Koh
Research Collection School Of Economics
Background: The COVID–19 pandemic has challenged the capacity of healthcare systems around the world and can potentially compromise healthcare utilization and health outcomes among non-COVID–19 patients. Objectives: To examine the associations of the COVID-19 pandemic with healthcare utilization, out-of-pocket medical costs, and perceived health among middle-aged and older individuals in Singapore. Method: Utilizing data collected from a monthly panel survey, a difference-in-differences approach was used to characterize monthly changes of healthcare use and spending and estimate the probability of being diagnosed with a chronic condition and self-reported health status before and during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. Subjects: Data were …
Scaled, Citizen-Led, And Public Qualitative Research: A Framework For Citizen Social Science, Amirah Amirrudin, Nicholas Harrigan, Ijlal Naqvi
Scaled, Citizen-Led, And Public Qualitative Research: A Framework For Citizen Social Science, Amirah Amirrudin, Nicholas Harrigan, Ijlal Naqvi
Research Collection School Of Economics
We propose a framework for citizen social science that brings together three reinforcing elements of a research project – scale, citizen-leadership, and publicness – to improve qualitative research. Our framework was born out of necessity; a desire to involve ordinary citizens, in researching public issues, with limited funding. We illustrate the application of our framework using insights from research we have led, involving first, a series of qualitative studies of state and civil society organizations working on community engagement by three separate years of public policy students; and second, a qualitative study on the system for processing salary and injury …
Social Norms And Fertility, Sunha Myong, Junghae Park, Junjian Yi
Social Norms And Fertility, Sunha Myong, Junghae Park, Junjian Yi
Research Collection School Of Economics
We document three stylized facts on marriage and fertility patterns in East Asian societies: (i) their marriage rates are among the highest in the world, but their total fertility is the lowest; (ii) although they have the lowest total fertility, almost all married women have at least one child; and (iii) almost no single women have any children. As these societies have been influenced by Confucianism over millennia, marriage and fertility decisions are potentially shaped by two social norms: the unequal gender division of childcare and the stigma attached to out-of-wedlock births. We present a model incorporating the two social …
Challenges To Social Mobility In Singapore, Kong Weng Ho, Marcus Kheng Tat Tan
Challenges To Social Mobility In Singapore, Kong Weng Ho, Marcus Kheng Tat Tan
Research Collection School Of Economics
Singapore had achieved impressive economic growth together with a high level of upward mobility since her independence in 1965. However, the growth process might have become more uneven, in addition to diminishing growth for a matured economy like Singapore, which is also a highly open city state subject to competitive forces from other economies. Singapore has fared well recently,
evident from the 2020 social mobility findings reported by the World Economic Forum and the decline in Gini coefficients for the past decade. We discuss the education system in Singapore and the recently formed National Jobs Council, both important institutions for …
Providing Childcare, Christine Ho, Sunha Myong
Providing Childcare, Christine Ho, Sunha Myong
Research Collection School Of Economics
Women’s economic empowerment has been hailed as one of the most remarkable revolutions in the past 50 years. Yet, women still face the lion’s share of the burden of childcare despite major progress in their education and earnings capacity. This is particularly salient in many Asian countries. This chapter proposes a synthesis of the state of knowledge on childcare and discusses policy-relevant issues applicable to the Singapore context. Selected policies are documented and lessons from the international landscape are discussed. Raising children incurs both direct costs in the form of childcare and opportunity costs in the form of career costs. …
High-Frequency Internet Survey Of A Probability Sample Of Older Singaporeans: The Singapore Life Panel, Rhema Vaithianathan, Bryce Hool, Michael D. Hurd, Susann Rohwedder
High-Frequency Internet Survey Of A Probability Sample Of Older Singaporeans: The Singapore Life Panel, Rhema Vaithianathan, Bryce Hool, Michael D. Hurd, Susann Rohwedder
Research Collection School Of Economics
Facing a rapidly ageing population, Singapore is presented with urgent policy challenges. Yet there is very little data on the economic, health and family circumstances of older Singaporeans. In response, the Centre for Research on the Economics of Ageing (CREA) at Singapore Management University has been collecting monthly data on a panel of Singaporeans aged between 50 and 70 years. We detail the methodology by which the Singapore Life Panel® (SLP) was constructed using a population-representative sampling frame from the Singapore Department of Statistics. Contact was made with 25,000 households through postal, phone and in-person canvassing. More than 15,200 respondents …
Teaching In The Right Context: Textbook Supply Program, Language, And Vocabulary Ability In Vietnam, Tomoki Fujii, Maki Nakajima, Sijia Xu
Teaching In The Right Context: Textbook Supply Program, Language, And Vocabulary Ability In Vietnam, Tomoki Fujii, Maki Nakajima, Sijia Xu
Research Collection School Of Economics
While past two decades have witnessed a remarkable educational progress in Vietnam, ethnic minority children consistently lagged behind ethnic majority children in academic performance. The government of Vietnam has stepped up efforts to assist ethnic minority students in their learning by lowering the linguistic and cultural barriers they face. Among such efforts is the textbook supply program, and we examine its impact on the learning of children proxied by vocabulary test. We apply difference-in-differences estimation to four rounds of the Young Lives data between 2006 and 2015 in order to investigate how the textbook supply program narrowed the gap between …
Natural Disasters And Domestic Violence: A Study Of The 2015 Nepal Earthquake, Arpita Khanna, Tomoki Fujii
Natural Disasters And Domestic Violence: A Study Of The 2015 Nepal Earthquake, Arpita Khanna, Tomoki Fujii
Research Collection School Of Economics
This study explores the link between exposure to an earthquake and the incidence of intimate partner violence using two rounds of Demographic and Health Surveys data in Nepal. Using a differences-in-differences estimation, we find that exposure to the earthquake lead to a statistically and economically significant increase in the incidence of intimate partner violence in urban areas, which is attributable to the increase in stress felt by the victims. We argue that the heterogeneity of the impact between the urban and rural areas would be partly due to the differences in the reconstruction processes and assistance provided.
Between Lives And Economy: Optimal Covid-19 Containment Policy In Open Economies, Wen-Tai Hsu, Hsuan-Chih Luke Lin, Yang Han
Between Lives And Economy: Optimal Covid-19 Containment Policy In Open Economies, Wen-Tai Hsu, Hsuan-Chih Luke Lin, Yang Han
Research Collection School Of Economics
This paper studies optimal containment policy for combating a pandemic in an open-economy context. It does so via quantitative analyses using a model that incorporates a standard epidemiological compartmental model in a multi-country, multi-sector Ricardian model of international trade with full-fledged input-output linkages. We devise a novel approach in computing optimal national policies in the long run, and contrast these policies with a baseline in which countries maintain their current policies until vaccine availability. The welfare gains under optimal policies are asymmetric as the gains for the set of countries which should tighten up the containment measures are much larger …
Providing Child Care, Christine Ho, Sunha Myong
Providing Child Care, Christine Ho, Sunha Myong
Research Collection School Of Economics
Women’s economic empowerment has been hailed as one of the most remarkable revolutions in the past 50 years (Dunlop, 2010). Access to affordable childcare is one of the key determinants of fertility and maternal employment, with grandparents and governments often stepping up to provide much needed support to families. This chapter proposes a synthesis of the state of knowledge on child care and discusses policy relevant issues applicable to the Singapore context. Selected policies are documented and lessons from the international landscape are discussed. The chapter discusses how child care costs may affect fertility and maternal labour supply in Section …
Job Duration And Match Characteristics Over The Business Cycle, Ismail Baydur, Toshihiko Mukoyama
Job Duration And Match Characteristics Over The Business Cycle, Ismail Baydur, Toshihiko Mukoyama
Research Collection School Of Economics
This paper studies the cyclical behavior of job separation and the characteristics of matches between workers and jobs. We estimate a proportional hazard model with competing risks, distinguishing between different types of separations. A higher unemployment rate at the start of an employment relationship increases the probability of job-to-job transitions, whereas its effect on employment-to-unemployment transitions is negative. We then build a simple job ladder model to interpret our empirical results. A model with two-dimensional heterogeneity in match (job) characteristics has the same qualitative features as the data. Once the model is extended to include cyclicality in the offered match …
The Aging Of A Young Nation: Population Aging In Singapore, Rahul Malhotra, Andre M. Muller, Su Aw, Gerald Choon Huat Koh, Yin-Leng Theng, Stephen James Hoskins, Chek Hooi Wong, Chunyan Miao, Wee-Shiong Lim, Chetna Malhotra, Angelique Chan
The Aging Of A Young Nation: Population Aging In Singapore, Rahul Malhotra, Andre M. Muller, Su Aw, Gerald Choon Huat Koh, Yin-Leng Theng, Stephen James Hoskins, Chek Hooi Wong, Chunyan Miao, Wee-Shiong Lim, Chetna Malhotra, Angelique Chan
Research Collection School Of Economics
The juxtaposition of a young city-state showing relative maturity as a rapidly aging society suffuses the population aging narrative in Singapore and places the “little red dot” on the spotlight of international aging. We first describe population aging in Singapore, including the characteristic events that shaped this demographic transition. We then detail the health care and socioeconomic ramifications of the rapid and significant shift to an aging society, followed by an overview of the main aging research areas in Singapore, including selected population-based data sets and the main thrust of leading aging research centers/institutes. After presenting established aging policies and …
Housing Equity And Household Consumption In Retirement: Evidence From The Singapore Life Panel, Lipeng Chen, Liang Jiang, Sock Yong Phang, Jun Yu
Housing Equity And Household Consumption In Retirement: Evidence From The Singapore Life Panel, Lipeng Chen, Liang Jiang, Sock Yong Phang, Jun Yu
Research Collection School Of Economics
We utilize data from the Singapore Life Panel© survey to empirically investigate the impact of housing equity on consumption of elderly households. Based on panel analysis, we find housing equity value has no significant impact on non-durable consumption for elderly people. The conclusion holds for a battery of robustness check. Moreover, heterogeneity analyses based on subsamples by age of household head, house type, and number of property possessed also show no significant impact of housing equity on consumption in general. Finally, we use scenario analysis to study the Lease Buyback Scheme (LBS), a novel housing equity monetization scheme which allows …
Illusion Of Gender Parity In Education: Intrahousehold Resource Allocation In Bangladesh, Sijia Xu, Abu S. Shonchoy, Tomoki Fujii
Illusion Of Gender Parity In Education: Intrahousehold Resource Allocation In Bangladesh, Sijia Xu, Abu S. Shonchoy, Tomoki Fujii
Research Collection School Of Economics
A target in the Millennium Development Goals—gender parity in all levels of education—is widely considered to have been attained. However, measuring gender parity only through school enrollment is misleading, as girls may lag behind boys in other educational measures. We investigate this with four rounds of surveys from Bangladesh by decomposing households’ education decisions into enrollment, education expenditure, and share of the education expenditure allocated for the quality of education like private tutoring. We find a strong profemale bias in school enrollment but promale bias in the other two decisions. This contradirectional gender bias is unique to Bangladesh and partly …
Monthly Spending Dynamics Of The Elderly Following A Health Shock: Evidence From Singapore, Terence C. Cheng, Jing Li, Rhema Vaithianathan
Monthly Spending Dynamics Of The Elderly Following A Health Shock: Evidence From Singapore, Terence C. Cheng, Jing Li, Rhema Vaithianathan
Research Collection School Of Economics
We use novel longitudinal data from 19 monthly waves of the Singapore Life Panel to examine the short-term dynamics of the effects health shocks have on household health and non-health spending and income by the elderly. The health shocks we study are the occurrence of new major conditions such as cancer, heart problems, and minor conditions (e.g. diabetes, and hypertension). Our empirical strategy exploits unanticipated changes in health status through the diagnosis of new health conditions, combined with an individual fixed effect framework. We find that major shocks have large and persistent effects while minor shocks have small and mainly …
Labour Research Conference 2018: Upskilling Of Mature Workers, Stephen Hoskins, Luca Facchinello
Labour Research Conference 2018: Upskilling Of Mature Workers, Stephen Hoskins, Luca Facchinello
Research Collection School Of Economics
Many developed countries are approaching an era of ageing population due to an increase in longevity and decrease in fertility rates. Singapore is no exception, having one of the fastest ageing populations in Asia, which is driven by low fertility rates and the third longest life expectancy in the world. The number of elderly citizens, defined as those aged 65 and above, is expected to triple to 900,000 by 2030, making up about 28% of the total population in Singapore (Population SG, 2016). This changing population age profile, combined with a competitive labour market, means it makes business sense to …
Has The Development Gap Between The Ethnic Minority And Majority Groups Narrowed In Vietnam?: Evidence From Household Surveys, Tomoki Fujii
Has The Development Gap Between The Ethnic Minority And Majority Groups Narrowed In Vietnam?: Evidence From Household Surveys, Tomoki Fujii
Research Collection School Of Economics
Using household data for rural northern Vietnam between 1993 and 2014, we find that the ethnic minority group continued to lag behind the majority group in various development indicators despite the overall improvement in living standards. Our regression and decomposition analyses show that the structural differences between the two groups are an important cause of persistent development gap. However, the nature of structural differences changed over time and no single source of structural difference explains the persistent gap. We argue that more minority‐appropriate policies are needed to lift poor minority households out of poverty further and reduce the development gap.
Contributors Of Singaporean Youths' Wellbeing: Life Goals, Family-Community-Nation Capitals, Opportunity And Social Mobility, Kong Weng Ho
Contributors Of Singaporean Youths' Wellbeing: Life Goals, Family-Community-Nation Capitals, Opportunity And Social Mobility, Kong Weng Ho
Research Collection School Of Economics
Life goals induce one’s current investment and set one’s expectations of future outcomes, affecting one’s current state of subjective wellbeing. Using National Youth Survey (NYS) 2016, which has a representative sample of Singaporean youths, we find that non-zero-sum life goals such as family-oriented life goals and altruism-oriented life goals enhance happiness and life satisfaction of Singaporean youths while career-oriented life goals, zero-sum in nature, reduce subjective wellbeing. Apart from personal motivations or life aspirations, perceived social mobility (in terms of career opportunity and meritocracy) matters positively in the subjective wellbeing of both youths in school and in the workforce. Family …
Love, Money, And Parental Goods: Does Parental Matchmaking Matter?, Fali Huang, Ginger Zhe Xu, Lixin Colin Xu
Love, Money, And Parental Goods: Does Parental Matchmaking Matter?, Fali Huang, Ginger Zhe Xu, Lixin Colin Xu
Research Collection School Of Economics
While parental matchmaking has been widespread throughout history and across countries, we know little about the relationship between parental matchmaking and marriage outcomes. Does parental involvement in matchmaking help ensure their needs are better taken care of by married children? This paper finds supportive evidence using a survey of Chinese couples. In particular, parental involvement in matchmaking is associated with having a more submissive wife, a greater number of children, a higher likelihood of having any male children, and a stronger belief of the husband in providing old age support to his parents. These benefits, however, are achieved at the …
Child's Gender, Parental Monetary Investments And Care Of Elderly Parents In China, Christine Ho
Child's Gender, Parental Monetary Investments And Care Of Elderly Parents In China, Christine Ho
Research Collection School Of Economics
Son biased investments are common in many Asian countries where sons are customarily responsible for providing old age support to parents. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, I find that parents invested nearly twice more in sons than in daughters in terms of college education spending and marriage gifts value. Conversely, parents received relatively higher marginal returns to investment from daughters than from sons in terms of living proximity, monetary and in-kind transfers, and help with instrumental activities of daily living. Family fixed effects models as well as an instrumental variable strategy are employed to control …
Retirement Adequacy Of Mature Workers In Singapore, Rhema Vaithianathan, Stephen Hoskins
Retirement Adequacy Of Mature Workers In Singapore, Rhema Vaithianathan, Stephen Hoskins
Research Collection School Of Economics
In the last decade, the Singapore resident population has grown older with more elderly and fewer younger people. As Singapore Department of Statistics noted, the proportion of residents aged 65 years and over has increased from 9% to 13% over the past ten years. There are now fewer working-age adults to support each resident aged 65 years and over as indicated by the falling resident old-age support ratio from 7.7 in 2007 to 5.1 in 2017. The support ratio is expected to halve to 2.5 by 2030. As Singaporeans are both living and working longer, it is vital for the …
Changes In Depressive Symptoms Among Older Adults With Multiple Chronic Conditions: Role Of Positive And Negative Social Supports, Sangnam Ahn, Seonghoon Kim, Hongmei Zhang
Changes In Depressive Symptoms Among Older Adults With Multiple Chronic Conditions: Role Of Positive And Negative Social Supports, Sangnam Ahn, Seonghoon Kim, Hongmei Zhang
Research Collection School Of Economics
Depression severely affects older adults in the United States. As part of the social environment, significant social support was suggested to ameliorate depression among older adults. We investigate how varying forms of social support moderate depressive symptomatology among older adults with multiple chronic conditions (MCC). Data were analyzed using a sample of 11,400 adults, aged 65 years or older, from the 2006–2012 Health and Retirement Study. The current study investigated the moderating effects of positive or negative social support from spouse, children, other family, and friends on the association between MCC and depression. A linear mixed model with repeated measures …
Climate Change And Vulnerability To Poverty: An Empirical Investigation In Rural Indonesia, Tomoki Fujii
Climate Change And Vulnerability To Poverty: An Empirical Investigation In Rural Indonesia, Tomoki Fujii
Research Collection School Of Economics
Scientists estimate that anthropogenic climate change leads to increased surface temperature, sea-level rise, more frequent and significant extreme weather and climate events, among others. In this study, we investigate how climate change can potentially change the vulnerability to poverty using a panel data set in Indonesia. We focus on the effect of drought and flood, two of the commonly observed disasters there. Our simulation results indicate that vulnerability to poverty may increase substantially as a result of climate change in Indonesia.
Concepts And Measurement Of Vulnerability To Poverty And Other Issues: A Review Of Literature, Tomoki Fujii
Concepts And Measurement Of Vulnerability To Poverty And Other Issues: A Review Of Literature, Tomoki Fujii
Research Collection School Of Economics
This paper reviews the growing body of literature on vulnerability. We first provide a survey of existing studies on the concepts and measurements of vulnerability to poverty by classifying them into welfarist, expected poverty, and axiomatic approaches. We then review a number of empirical studies on vulnerability to poverty in Asia and elsewhere. This review shows that poverty and vulnerability are related, but different, and that key determinants of vulnerability often include education and location. We also briefly review other areas of vulnerability analysis such as vulnerability to climate change and offer various policy implications arising from vulnerability analysis.
Love, Money And Old Age Support: Does Parental Matchmaking Matter?, Fali Huang, Ginger Zhe Jin, Lixin Colin Xu
Love, Money And Old Age Support: Does Parental Matchmaking Matter?, Fali Huang, Ginger Zhe Jin, Lixin Colin Xu
Research Collection School Of Economics
Parental involvement in matchmaking may distort the choice of spouse because parents are willing to substitute love for market and household production, which are more sharable between parents and their children. This paper finds supportive evidence in a survey of Chinese couples. In both rural and urban areas, parent matchmaking is associated with less marital harmony between the couple, more submissive wives, and a stronger belief in old age support for the son. In contrast, its association with couple income differs by rural and urban regions, perhaps because of differences in earning opportunities and in the enforcement of the one-child …
Wellbeing Of Singapore’S Youths, Kong Weng Ho
Wellbeing Of Singapore’S Youths, Kong Weng Ho
Research Collection School Of Economics
Given Singapore’s focus on human capital investment in its residents, the nation’s youths have experienced increases in their financial, educational, and physical wellbeing. However, how have our youths fared in their emotional and mental wellbeing? Figures from the World Values Survey show reported a gradual decline in life satisfaction for both general population and youths. Data from four waves of the National Youth Survey confirms this trend. This chapter explores and examines the non-economic channels that may have countered the positive influence of economic success on the wellbeing of youths, namely, changing family structure, heightened stressors, shifting life goals, time …