Working After Retirement and Life Satisfaction: Cross-National Comparative Research in Europe

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (7) ◽  
pp. 648-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Dingemans ◽  
Kène Henkens

This study examines differences in life satisfaction between full retirees and working retirees in Europe. We hypothesize that these differences depend on the financial resources of retirees and the resources available in the household and country context. We selected retirees from the “Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe” project and estimated country fixed effects models to explain their life satisfaction. The results indicate a positive relationship between working after retirement and life satisfaction for retirees with low pension income without a partner. Additionally, working after retirement seems to be most important for life satisfaction in relatively poor countries.

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 536-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Curran ◽  
Matthew C. Mahutga

Cross-national empirical research about the link between income inequality and population health produces conflicting conclusions. We address these mixed findings by examining the degree to which the income inequality and health relationship varies with economic development. We estimate fixed-effects models with different measures of income inequality and population health. Results suggest that development moderates the association between inequality and two measures of population health. Our findings produce two generalizations. First, we observe a global gradient in the relationship between income inequality and population health. Second, our results are consistent with income inequality as a proximate or conditional cause of lower population health. Income inequality has a 139.7% to 374.3% more harmful effect on health in poorer than richer countries and a significantly harmful effect in 2.1% to 53.3% of countries in our sample and 6.6% to 67.6% of the world’s population but no significantly harmful effect in richer countries.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katja Moehring

Multilevel models that combine individual and contextual factors are increasingly popular in comparative social science research; however, their application in country-comparative studies is often associated with several problems. First of all, most data-sets utilized for multilevel modeling include only a small number (N<30) of macro-level units, and therefore, the estimated models have a small number of degrees of freedom on the country level. If models are correctly specified paying regard to the small, level-2 N, only a few macro-level indicators can be controlled for. Furthermore, the introduction of random slopes and cross-level interaction effects is then hardly possible. Consequently, (1) these models are likely to suffer from omitted variable bias regarding the country-level estimators, and (2) the advantages of multilevel modeling cannot be fully exploited.The fixed effects approach is a valuable alternative to the application of conventional multilevel methods in country-comparative analyses. This method is also applicable with a small number of countries and avoids the country-level omitted variable bias through controlling for country-level heterogeneity. Following common practice in panel regression analyses, the moderator effect of macro-level characteristics can be estimated also in fixed effects models by means of cross-level interaction effects. Despite the advantages of the fixed effects approach, it is rarely used for the analysis of cross-national data.In this paper, I compare the fixed effects approach with conventional multilevel regression models and give practical examples using data of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) from 2006. As it turns out, the results of both approaches regarding the effect of cross-level interactions are similar. Thus, fixed effects models can be used either as an alternative to multilevel regression models or to assess the robustness of multilevel results.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Sheppard ◽  
Christiaan Willem Simon Monden

Objective: In this study, we examine how individuals are affected by the change in status to grandparenthood for the first time.Background: Being a grandparent, especially an active and involved grandparent, is positively linked to the well-being of individuals with grandchildren, however little is known about how becoming a grandparent affects well-being.Method: We use longitudinal data from fifteen countries in Europe (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe - SHARE) to analyse if becoming a grandparent is associated with three measures of subjective well-being. We use fixed effects models to account for unobserved heterogeneity.Results: We found evidence that becoming a first-time grandparent is associated with fewer depressive symptoms among women, although there was no effect on subjective life expectancy or life satisfaction. For men, we found no evidence for an impact on any outcome tested, although there is an association with increased subjective life expectancy conditional on employment status; only if men were employed when transitioning to grandparenthood. We also found no evidence that actively looking after the grandchild is important for either gender.Conclusion: These results suggest that, at least for women, it is the life transition itself that impacts on well-being, rather than active grandchild-care. More research is needed to verify these findings in other contexts, and over longer periods of time.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Lakshmanasamy ◽  
K. Maya

Most often the social comparison or relative income hypothesis has been used as an explanation for the lack of systematic relationship between income and happiness, using the ordered probit regression method. The identification of relevant reference group and the estimation of the differential effects of comparison income have been controversial. To overcome these twin issues, this paper uses an ordinal comparison income approach based on rich/poor dichotomy and rank income. The rank income of an individual is defined as his relative position in the income distribution within the reference group and the average income of the reference group is used to define the rich/poor classification. The differential effects of ordinal incomes across life satisfaction distribution is estimated by the panel fixed effects ordered profit regression model using the WVS data for India. The estimated results show that ordinal income comparison, rather than cardinal average reference income, is a better predictor of life satisfaction levels. Raising income level is relatively important for less satisfied people while increasing rank status is important for highly satisfied people in India.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095001702110042
Author(s):  
Aleksander Å Madsen ◽  
Idunn Brekke ◽  
Silje Bringsrud Fekjær

This study explores women’s attrition from male-dominated workplaces based on Norwegian public administrative records, covering individuals born 1945–1983, in the period between 2003 and 2013. It examines sex differences in rates of attrition and tests the significance of two commonly proposed explanations in the literature, namely the degree of numerical minority status and motherhood. It also investigates whether these explanations vary by occupational class. Selection into male-dominated workplaces is accounted for by using individual fixed effects models. The results show that attrition rates from male-dominated workplaces are considerably higher among women than among men. Moreover, the risk of female attrition to sex-balanced workplaces increases, regardless of occupational class, with increases in the percentage of males. Childbirth is associated with an increased risk of attrition to female-dominated workplaces, while having young children (⩽ 10 years old) lowered the risk. This association, however, was primarily evident among working-class women in manual occupations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xujia Liu ◽  
Zehua Jiang ◽  
Guihua Zhang ◽  
Tsz Kin Ng ◽  
Zhenggen Wu

Abstract Background Genetic association of uncoupling proteins (UCPs) variants with the susceptibility of diabetic retinopathy (DR) in diabetes mellitus (DM) patients has been reported but with controversy. Here we aimed to conduct a meta-analysis to confirm the association of different UCPs variants with DR. Methods Three databases (Medline Ovid, Embase Ovid and CENTRAL) were applied in the literature search. Five genetic models, including allelic, homozygous, heterozygous, dominant and recessive models, were evaluated. Odds ratios (OR) were estimated under the random or fixed-effects models. Subgroup analyses, publication bias and sensitivity analyses were also conducted. Results Eleven studies on 2 UCPs variants (UCP1 rs1800592 and UCP2 rs659366) were included. Our meta-analysis showed that UCP1 rs1800592 was not associated with DR in type-2 DM patients, and UCP2 rs659366 also showed no association with DR. In the subgroup analyses on the stage of DR, allele G of UCP1 rs1800592 significantly increased the susceptibility of proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) in type-2 DM patients in the allelic (OR = 1.26, P = 0.03) and homozygous models (OR = 1.60, P = 0.04). Subgroup analysis on ethnicity did not found any significant association of rs1800592 and rs659366 with DR. Conclusion Our meta-analysis confirmed the association of UCP1 rs1800592 variant with PDR in patients with type-2 DM, suggesting its potential as a genetic marker for PDR prediction in population screening.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824402110101
Author(s):  
Xheni Simaku

The global society which we live in nowadays makes us rethink about media system, global dynamics, and the operation of the influences that these dynamics have on national media systems. Starting from the book by Hallin and Mancini’s (2004) Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics, and under the Polarized Pluralist Model they proposed, the aim of this work is to compare Turkish and Italian journalists’ professionalization. This research has been conducted under the concept of professionalization that these authors suggested in their work and, more specifically, under the Polarized Pluralist Model, in which Hallin and Mancini recognize countries like Italy have the main characteristics described by the model; Turkey can also be included. The main goal of this work is to underline not only the similarities but also the differences that are encountered in these two countries in the journalistic professionalization. The methodology used is in-depth interviews with 10 journalists: five Italian and five Turkish journalists chosen from the biggest journals in their respective countries. Main topics taken into consideration were autonomy, clientelism, and professionalization in journalism based on ethics values. Even if the Polarized Pluralist Model seems to fit in both countries from a macro perspective, with the in-depth interviews, it is clearly seen that different cross-national nuances come out.


2019 ◽  
Vol 286 (1902) ◽  
pp. 20190359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Kolk ◽  
Kieron Barclay

We examine the relationship between cognitive ability and childbearing patterns in contemporary Sweden using administrative register data. The topic has a long history in the social sciences and has been the topic of a large number of studies, many reporting a negative gradient between intelligence and fertility. We link fertility histories to military conscription tests with intelligence scores for all Swedish men born 1951–1967. We find a positive relationship between intelligence scores and fertility, and this pattern is consistent across the cohorts we study. The relationship is most pronounced for the transition to a first child, and men with the lowest categories of IQ scores have the fewest children. Using fixed effects models, we additionally control for all factors that are shared by siblings, and after such adjustments, we find a stronger positive relationship between IQ and fertility. Furthermore, we find a positive gradient within groups at different levels of education. Compositional differences of this kind are therefore not responsible for the positive gradient we observe—instead, the relationship is even stronger after controlling for both educational careers and parental background factors. In our models where we compare brothers to one another, we find that, relative to men with IQ 100, the group with the lowest category of cognitive ability have 0.56 fewer children, and men with the highest category have 0.09 more children.


2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402199717
Author(s):  
Charles T. McClean

How can incumbent governments benefit when they control the timing of elections? The conventional wisdom is that incumbents gain an advantage by timing elections to coincide with favorable economic conditions. An alternative mechanism that has received less attention is the element of surprise: the incumbent’s ability to exploit the opposition’s lack of election preparedness. I theorize and empirically test this surprise mechanism using candidate-level data from Japanese House of Representatives elections (1955–2017). The results show that in surprise elections, opposition parties recruit fewer, lower-quality candidates, spend less money campaigning, coordinate their candidates less effectively, and ultimately receive fewer votes and seats. Evidence from fixed effects models and exogenously timed by-elections further suggest that surprise matters more in shorter, competitive election campaigns and helps incumbents more with confronting inter-party as opposed to intra-party electoral competition. These findings add to our understanding of how strategic election timing can undermine electoral accountability.


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