Health

  • Youth sports and the accumulation of human capital

    Positive contributions to cognitive and non-cognitive skills justify public support of youth sports

    Michael A. Leeds, February 2015
    In response to declining budgets, many school districts in the US have reduced funding for sports. In Europe, parents may respond to difficult economic times by spending less on sports clubs for their children. Such cuts are unwise if participating in sports is an investment good as well as a consumption good and adds to students’ human capital. The value of sports is hard to measure because people who already possess the skills needed to succeed in school and beyond might be more likely to participate in sports. Most studies that account for this endogeneity find that participation in youth sports improves academic and labor market performance.
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  • Youth extracurricular activities and the importance of social skills for supervisors

    Social skills developed during extracurricular activities in adolescence can be highly valuable in managerial occupations

    Vasilios D. Kosteas, March 2022
    Youth participation in extracurricular activities is associated with a variety of benefits, ranging from higher concurrent academic performance to better labor market outcomes. In particular, these activities provide avenues through which youth can develop the interpersonal and leadership skills that are crucial to succeed as a manager. A lack of opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities for many youths, particularly those from lower-income backgrounds, may have negative consequences for developing the next generation of managers and business leaders.
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  • Where do immigrants retire to?

    Immigrants’ retirement decisions can greatly affect health care and social protection costs

    Augustin De Coulon, September 2016
    As migration rates increase across the world, the choice of whether to retire in the host or home country is becoming a key decision for up to 15% of the world’s population, and this proportion is growing rapidly. Large waves of immigrants who re-settled in the second half of the 20th century are now beginning to retire. Although immigrants’ location choice at retirement is an area that has barely been studied, this decision has crucial implications for health care and social protection expenditures, both in host and origin countries.
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  • Trans people, well-being, and labor market outcomes Updated

    Transitioning across gender is related to greater life and job satisfaction but also affects acceptance in one’s society

    Nick Drydakis, January 2024
    Acceptance of one’s gender identity and congruence between one’s gender identity and outward appearance are associated with less adverse mental health symptoms, and greater life and job satisfaction. However, trans people are subject to human rights violations, hate crimes, and experience higher unemployment and poverty than the general population. Trans people often feel that they are citizens who are not allowed to be themselves and practice their authentic identity. Many biased treatments of trans people could be attenuated if legal protections and inclusive workplace practices were in place.
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  • The rise of secularism and its economic consequences

    Western societies are increasingly more secular, what are the socio-economic consequences of increased secularism?

    Fernando A. Lozano, September 2017
    The literature on the economics of religion finds that increased religious participation or religious density is associated with positive socio-economic outcomes such as increased earnings, educational attainment, and lower engagement in risky behaviors. The literature suggests that this relationship is causal, and that the gains from religion often tend to be accrued among low-skill or marginalized youth groups. In turn, as education and income increase, societies become more secular. Will the positive outcomes associated with religion disappear as western societies become more secularized?
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  • The relationship between recessions and health Updated

    Economic recessions seem to reduce overall mortality rates, but increase suicides and mental health problems

    Nick Drydakis, December 2021
    Recessions are complex events that affect personal health and behavior via various potentially opposing mechanisms. While recessions are known to have negative effects on mental health and lead to an increase in suicides, it has been proven that they reduce mortality rates. A general health policy agenda in relation to recessions remains ambiguous due to the lack of consistency between different individual- and country-level approaches. However, aggregate regional patterns provide valuable information, and local social planners could use them to design region-specific policy responses to mitigate the negative health effects caused by recessions.
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  • The mortality crisis in transition economies

    Social disruption, acute psychosocial stress, and excessive alcohol consumption raise mortality rates during transition to a market economy

    Giovanni Andrea Cornia, October 2016
    Large and sudden economic and political changes, even if potentially positive, often entail enormous social and health costs. Such transitory costs are generally underestimated or neglected by incumbent governments. The mortality crisis experienced by the former communist countries of Europe—which caused ten million excess deaths from 1990 to 2000—is a good example of how the transition from a low to a high socio-economic level can generate huge social costs if it is not actively, effectively, and equitably managed from a public policy perspective.
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  • The happiness gap between transition and non-transition countries

    Economic progress coupled with political and institutional stability is needed to reduce unhappiness

    Ekaterina Skoglund, May 2017
    Since 1989, post-communist countries have undergone profound changes in their political, economic, and social structures and institutions. Across a range of development outcomes—in terms of the speed and success of reforms—transition is an “unhappy process.” The “happiness gap,” i.e. the difference in average happiness levels between the populations of transition and non-transition economies, is closing, but at a slower pace than the process of economic convergence. Economic growth, as the determinant of a country’s collective well-being, has been superseded by measurements of institutional quality and social development.
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