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There are growing concerns about the impact of pollution on maternal and infant health. Despite an extensive correlational literature, observational studies which adopt methods that seek to address potential biases due to unmeasured confounders draw mixed conclusions. Using a population database of births in Northern Ireland (NI) linked to localized geographic information on pollution in mothers' postcodes (zipcodes) of residence during pregnancy, we examine whether prenatal exposure to PM2.5 is associated with a comprehensive range of birth outcomes, including placental health. Overall, we find little evidence that particulate matter is related to infant outcomes at the pollution levels experienced in NI, once we implement a mother fixed effects approach that accounts for time‐invariant factors. This contrasts with strong associations in models that adjust for observed confounders but without fixed effects. While reducing ambient air pollution remains an urgent public health priority globally, our results imply that further improvements in short‐run levels of prenatal PM2.5 exposure in a relatively low‐pollution, higher‐income country context, are unlikely to impact on birth outcomes at the population level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocational education and training provision for young people is a crucial but often maligned part of the wider education sector. A common criticism, and motivation for numerous reforms across countries where training is predominantly classroom-based, is that too much training is low quality and unrelated to skill needs. This article examines the effects of a major Australian reform--replacing a centrally planned model with a system-wide voucher scheme--aimed at addressing these weaknesses. The reform led to large increases in private college enrollments, improved match between course choice and employer demand, and improved student achievement, with no adverse impact on equity.

Despite an extensive literature on Catholic-Protestant unemployment differentials in Northern Ireland, little is known about wage differentials. This paper provides new evidence using the Earnings and Employees Study for 2011. We find no evidence of an overall Catholic wage penalty, with unadjusted and adjusted differentials no larger than 1.4 log per cent and statistically insignificant. Slightly larger differentials are found in some models for men, 50+ workers, and private sector workers, but again these are statistically indistinguishable from zero. Similar data linkages for 2001 and 1991 would enrich our understanding of the period when other measurable labour market disparities were wider. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines associations between precarious contract types and a range of self‐reported health measures for the UK. We focus on zero hours contracts (ZHCs), an extreme form of precarious employment that has grown rapidly in the UK over the last decade, and on mental health. We demonstrate that workers employed on ZHCs are more likely to report a long‐term health condition than workers employed on other types of contract, with the main driver being that they are almost twice as likely to report mental ill health. These associations survive conditioning on an extensive set of observable individual, job and contextual characteristics, and are robust to sensitivity analysis designed to explore the likely extent of bias due to unobserved confounders. We discuss potential explanations for these associations, from sorting of workers with poor health into ZHC employment to detrimental effects of ZHC employment on health, drawing on additional instrumental variables estimates to do so. Finally, we discuss potential policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impacts of the introduction of the UK National Minimum Wage (NMW) in 1999 and the introduction of the UK National Living Wage (NLW) in 2016 in Northern Ireland (NI) on employment and hours. NI is the only part of the UK with a land border where the NMW and NLW cover those working on one side of the border but not those working on the other side of the border (i.e., Republic of Ireland). This discontinuity in minimum wage coverage enables a research design that estimates the impacts of the NMW and NLW on employment and hours worked using difference-in-differences estimation. We find a small decrease in the employment rate of 22–59/64-year-olds in NI, of up to 2% points, in the year following the introduction of the NMW, but no impact on hours worked. We find no clear evidence that the introduction of the NLW impacted either employment or hours worked in NI.

Suspension from school is a commonly used, yet controversial, school disciplinary measure. This paper uses unique survey data to estimate the impact of suspension on the educational outcomes of those suspended. It finds that while suspension is strongly associated with educational outcomes, the relationship is unlikely to be causal, but rather likely stems from differences in the characteristics of those suspended compared to those not suspended. Moreover, there is no evidence that suspension is associated with larger educational penalties for young people from disadvantaged family backgrounds compared to those from more advantaged family backgrounds. These results hold regardless of whether self-reported suspension or mother-reported suspension is considered. The absence of a clear negative causal impact of suspension on educational outcomes suggests that suspension may continue to play a role in school discipline without harming the educational prospects of those sanctioned.

Northern Ireland has substantially higher rates of disability and disability benefit receipt than England, despite a common institutional context. This paper exploits newly available data from the NICOLA and ELSA surveys to examine potential health and labour market explanations for this gap, specifically among older working-age people. Observable differences in health and labour markets are sufficient to explain the gap in self-reported activity-limiting disability, but only half of the gap in worklimiting disability and income-replacement disability benefit receipt, and only one-third of the gap in additional costs disability benefit receipt. Possible reasons for these remaining unexplained gaps are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the dynamic relationship between disability and welfare benefit receipt in Britain. Exploiting rarely used longitudinal data, it examines the impact of disability onset and disability exit on receipt of a range of beneficial outcomes, utilizing differences in the timing of onset/exit for identification. Disability onset increases receipt of disability insurance (DI), sickness benefits, and non-sickness benefits by 6, 8, and 9 percentage points in the onset year, although almost 70% of those experiencing onset remain independent of the welfare system in the short-run. DI reforms that toughened screening, reduced generosity, and increased conditionality appear to have substantially reduced DI inflows following onset, but without affecting the overall probability of welfare receipt. Disability exit , although neglected in the literature, is common during working-age and leads to a decrease in DI (and total welfare receipt), suggesting DI is not an absorbing state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional disparities in amount of disability benefits, offered in United States and the United Kingdom, are examined.

Ethnic and religious differentials in labour market outcomes within many countries have been remarkably persistent. Yet one very well‐known differential—the Catholic/Protestant unemployment differential in Northern Ireland—has largely (although not completely) disappeared. This paper charts its decline since the early 1980s and examines potential explanations using Census data from 1991, 2001 and 2011 together with annual survey data. These data span the ending of The Troubles, the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the introduction of fair employment legislation, growth in hidden unemployment and major structural changes in Northern Ireland. We assess the potential impact of these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compare outcomes of disability benefit applicants before and after a major Australian reform of disability benefits, with two groups of applicants who fulfilled the same medical impairment criteria accepted or rejected based only on application date. The reform reduced the generosity and increased the conditionality of welfare payments by shifting partially disabled claimants from disability benefits to unemployment benefits. This led to increases in the probability not only of switching out of unemployment benefits on to alternative benefits, but also of exiting welfare altogether. However, because those who exited had a higher probability of subsequently returning to welfare, the reform had no impact on the proportion receiving welfare 12 or 24 months later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence suggests that non‐standard jobs are associated with wage penalties. Yet, these jobs possess a range of undesirable characteristics that should generate compensating wage differentials. This evidence relies on derived wage variables, prone to measurement error likely to be correlated with employment contract. Stated‐rate hourly wage questions are not subjected to the same measurement issues. Using zero‐hour contracts in the UK, we show that there is no conditional average ZHC wage penalty once stated‐rate hourly wage measures are used. We discuss implications for policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This paper assessed the impact of working in casual employment, compared with permanent employment, on eight health attributes that make up the 36-Item Short Form (SF-36) Health Survey, separately by sex. The mental health impacts of casual jobs with irregular hours over which the worker reports limited control were also investigated.Methods: Longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, over the period 2001-2018, were used to investigate the relationship between the eight SF-36 subscales and workers' employment contract type. Individual, household and job characteristic confounders were included in dynamic panel data regression models with correlated random effects.Results: For both men and women, health outcomes for casual workers were no worse than for permanent workers for any of the eight SF-36 health attributes. For some health attributes, scores for casual workers were higher (ie, better) than for permanent workers (role physical: men: β=1.15, 95% CI 0.09 to 2.20, women: β=1.79, 95% CI 0.79 to 2.80; bodily pain: women: β=0.90, 95% CI 0.25 to 1.54; vitality: women: β=0.65, 95% CI 0.13 to 1.18; social functioning: men: β=1.00, 95% CI 0.28 to 1.73); role emotional: men: β=1.81, 95% CI 0.73 to 2.89, women: β=1.24, 95% CI 0.24 to 2.24). Among women (but not men), mental health and role emotional scores were lower for irregular casual workers than for regular permanent workers but not statistically significantly so.Conclusions: This study found no evidence that casual employment in Australia is detrimental to self-assessed worker health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the prevalence and nature of zero hours contracts (ZHCs) in the UK labour market. It is widely argued that the headline count of ZHC workers based on the Labour Force Survey historically underestimated the number of workers in ZHC jobs. Here, we argue that this likely continues to be the case, particularly if one considers other, similar, no‐guaranteed‐hours jobs alongside ZHCs. ZHC jobs and workers are heterogeneous, but ZHCs have become increasingly concentrated among young workers, full‐time students, migrants, black and minority ethnic workers, in personal service and elementary occupations, and in the distribution, accommodation and restaurant sector over time. Compared to other forms of employment, median wages in ZHC jobs have also fallen. The most common prior labour market state for ZHC workers is non‐ZHC employment, particularly part‐time employment, with part of the reported growth in ZHCs driven by reclassification of existing employment relationships. Finally, we show that growth in public awareness of ZHCs contributed substantially to recent growth in reported ZHCs, particularly over the period 2013/14. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of the Australian Paid Parental Leave scheme in 2011 provides a rare opportunity to estimate the impacts of publicly funded paid leave on mothers in the first year postpartum. The almost universal coverage of the scheme, coupled with detailed survey data collected specifically for the scheme's evaluation, means that eligibility for paid leave under the scheme can be plausibly taken as exogenous, following a standard propensity score-matching exercise. Consistent with much of the existing literature, the study finds a positive impact on mothers' taking leave in the first half year and on mothers' probability of returning to work in the first year. The paper provides new evidence of a positive impact on continuing in the same job under the same conditions, where previous conclusions have been mixed. Further, it shows that disadvantaged mothers – low income, less educated, without access to employer-funded leave – respond most. HIGHLIGHTS Studying the effects of introducing paid parental leave (PPL) in an advanced industrial country is important for the US, which is considering PPL. PPL was introduced in Australia in 201 l. Previously only 57 percent of 20–45-year-old women had access to paid parental leave provided by employers. Post-PPL, mothers initially return to work from leave more slowly than before, but after about six months of leave they return to work at a faster rate than pre-PPL. Post-PPL, the probability of returning to work within a year is higher than pre-PPL. PPL helps mothers balance paid work and family life and improves workplace attachment. Both effects are, on average, stronger among more disadvantaged groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate over whether contingent (and typically more precarious) employment acts as a bridge to permanent employment, or as a trap, has tended to focus on transitions rather than longer-run pathways. This approach cannot accurately identify indirect pathways from contingent to permanent employment or 'trap' pathways involving short spells in other states. It also fails to distinguish between those experiencing contingent employment as a 'blip' and those with longer spells. This article employs a different approach involving sequence analysis. Exploiting longitudinal data for Australia, evidence for the co-existence of pathways that correspond to 'bridge' and 'trap' characterizations of contingent employment is found. Further, in the case of casual employment—the most common form of contingent employment in Australia—these two types of labour market pathways are roughly equally prevalent, although for women and those with low educational attainment 'traps' are more likely than 'bridges'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely believed that work-related training increases a worker's probability of moving up the job-quality ladder. This is usually couched in terms of effects on wages, but it has also been argued that training increases the probability of moving from non-permanent forms of employment to more permanent employment. This hypothesis is tested using nationally representative panel data for Australia, a country where the incidence of non-permanent employment, and especially casual employment, is high by international standards. While a positive association between participation in work-related training and the subsequent probability of moving from either casual or fixed-term contract employment to permanent employment is observed among men, this is shown to be driven not by a causal impact of training on transitions but by differences between those who do and do not receive training, that is selection bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use unique survey data linked to nearly a decade of administrative income support data to examine the relationship between early marijuana use (at age 14 or younger) and young people's educational outcomes. We find evidence that early marijuana use is related to educational penalties that are compounded by high-intensity use and are larger for young people living in families with a history of income support receipt. The relationships between marijuana use and both high school completion and achieving a university entrance score appear to stem from selectivity into the use of marijuana. In contrast, early marijuana use is associated with significantly lower university entrance scores for those who obtain one, and we provide evidence that this effect is unlikely to be driven by selection. Collectively, these findings point to a more nuanced view of the relationship between adolescent marijuana use and educational outcomes than is suggested by the existing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contingent forms of employment are usually associated with low-quality jobs and, by inference, jobs that workers find relatively unsatisfying. This assumption is tested using data from a representative household panel survey covering a country (Australia) with a high incidence of nonstandard employment. Results from the estimation of ordered logit regression models reveal that among males, both casual employees and labor-hire (agency) workers (but not fixed-term contract workers) report noticeably lower levels of job satisfaction, though this association diminishes with job tenure. Negative effects for women are mainly restricted to labor-hire workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article estimates peer influences on the alcohol, tobacco and cannabis use of UK adolescents. We present evidence of large, positive and statistically significant peer effects in all three behaviours when classmates are taken as the reference group. We also find large, positive and statistically significant associations between own substance use and friends' substance use. When both reference groups are considered simultaneously, the influence of classmates either disappears or is much reduced, whereas the association between own and friends' behaviours does not change. The suggestion is that classmate behaviour is primarily relevant only inasmuch as it proxies for friends' behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows that one-third of the growth in the Disability Support Pension (DSP) recipiency rate over the last 30 years can be explained by population ageing and increases in the retirement age for women. A wide range of factors is likely to have contributed to the remaining growth, but we argue that the growing attractiveness of DSP compared to other income-support payments has played an important role. Looking forward, population growth and planned increases in the retirement age will both put upward pressure on the DSP roll, which, without major reform, could plausibly hit 1 million recipients within 10 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

McVicar D. Local level Incapacity Benefits rolls in Britain: correlates and convergence,Regional Studies. There is considerable variation across British Local Authority Districts in the proportion of the working-age population claiming incapacity benefits, ranging from 2% in Hart to 16% in Merthyr Tydfil and Easington in 2008. These claimant rates are strongly correlated with local unemployment rates and self-reported disability rates. But spatial differences in claimant rates for incapacity benefits were even greater a decade ago. This paper describes the extent of this claimant rate convergence and discusses possible explanations for it. McVicar D. 英格兰地方层面工作能力丧失的相关收益：相关性与收敛，区域研究。就适工年龄人口中申请工作能力丧失的比例而言，英格兰不同地方自治区之间存在着显著的差异，如 2008 年 Hart 地区的 2% 到 Merthyr Tydfil 及 Easington 地区的 16%。上述索赔率与地区失业率以及根据个体自助申报进行统计的工作能力丧失率之间存在着紧密的相关性。但是工作能力丧失索赔的空间性差异在 10 年以前更为明显。本文描述了这一索赔收敛率的程度同时探讨了对其可能的解释。 工作能力丧失收益 地方自治区 残疾 隐性失业 收敛值 McVicar D. La liste des demandeurs des prestations d'incapacité en Grande-Bretagne à l'échelle locale: la corrélation et la convergence,Regional Studies. La proportion de la population en âge de travailler qui demande des prestations d'incapacité varie sensiblement suivant les circoncriptions d'action locales, allant de 2% à Hart jusqu'à 16% à Merthyr Tydfil et à Easington en 2008. Ces proportions sont en corrélation étroite avec les taux de chômage locaux et les taux d'incapacité rapportés par les acteurs eux-mêmes. Mais la variation géographique de la proportion de demandeurs était encore plus importante il y a dix ans. Cet article présente l'importance de la convergence de la proportion de demandeurs et discute des explications éventuelles. Prestations d'incapacité Circonscriptions d'action locales Incapacité Chômage caché Convergence McVicar D. Invalidenrenten auf Lokalebene in Großbritannien: Korrelate und Konvergenz,Regional Studies. Der Anteil der Empfänger von Invalidenrenten im arbeitsfähigen Alter unterliegt in den verschiedenen britischen Lokalverwaltungsbezirken erheblichen Schwankungen: von 2% in Hart bis 16% in Merthyr Tydfil und Easington im Jahr 2008. Dieser Anteil hängt in hohem Maß mit der Arbeitslosigkeit vor Ort und dem Anteil der selbst gemeldeten Behinderungen zusammen. Allerdings fielen die räumlichen Unterschiede beim Anteil der Empfänger von Invalidenrenten vor einem Jahrzehnt noch höher aus. In diesem Beitrag wird der Umfang dieser Konvergenz bei den Empfängeranteilen beschrieben, und es werden mögliche Erklärungen dafür erörtert. Invalidenrente Lokalverwaltungsbezirke Behinderung Versteckte Arbeitslosigkeit Konvergenz McVicar D. Prestaciones por incapacidad en un ámbito local en el Reino Unido: relaciones y convergencia,Regional Studies. El porcentaje de la población en edad de trabajar que solicita prestaciones por incapacidad varía considerablemente en los diferentes distritos de las autoridades locales británicas: desde un 2% en Hart hasta un 16% en Merthyr Tydfil y Easington en 2008. Estos porcentajes están estrechamente relacionados con los índices de desempleo del lugar y las tasas de incapacidad autoinformadas. Sin embargo, las diferencias espaciales en la proporción de candidatos a prestaciones por incapacidad eran incluso superiores hace diez años. En este artículo describimos el volumen de esta convergencia de candidatos y aportamos posibles explicaciones al respecto. Prestaciones por incapacidad Distritos de las autoridades locales Discapacidad Desempleo oculto Convergencia [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the most important challenges of network analysis remains the scarcity of reliable information on existing connection structures. This work explores theoretical and empirical methods of inferring directed networks from nodes attributes and from functions of these attributes that are computed for connected nodes. We discuss the conditions, under which an underlying connection structure can be (probabilistically) recovered, and propose a Bayesian recovery algorithm. In an empirical application, we test the algorithm on the data from the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses aggregate Labour Force Survey (LFS) data across 33 European countries to examine recent trends in overall inactivity rates and in health-related inactivity rates for males and females aged 50-64 years. In most countries, the trend increase in male inactivity rates has reversed and labour force participation rates of older men have now generally been growing since the early to mid-1990s. For women, there has been a continuation of the existing upward trend in participation rates. The upward trend in male rates of health-related inactivity has also reversed in around one-third of countries-generally those with the previously highest levels-but has continued to rise in others. Most countries have also seen rising female rates of health-related inactivity. The paper therefore presents some simple time-series, cross-section regression analysis that suggests institutional factors, most notably the standard public pension replacement rate, have played a role in driving these trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the determinants of the proportion of the working age male population claiming Incapacity Benefits (IB), across the 11 British Government Office Regions, for the period 1998 to 2006. Three different approaches are adopted to modelling register dynamics: first, treating IB stocks as if they were trend-stationary, albeit with persistence, and estimating reduced form models for their logs; second, treating IB stocks as if they were nonstationary and examining their long-run determinants plus short-run equilibrium reversion properties; third, focusing on the determinants of gross inflows and outflows that together drive IB stocks. Given the nature of the data, no approach is ideal yet the models provide reasonably robust evidence that labour market changes-specifically falling unemployment rates and rising real earnings-have contributed to falling male IB stocks over the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses longitudinal data from the British Cohort Study to examine the early labor market trajectories—the careers—of more than 5,000 women aged 16 to 29 years. Conventional event history approaches focus on particular transitions, the return to work after childbirth, for example, whereas the authors treat female careers more holistically, using sequence methods and cluster analysis to arrive at a rich but readily interpretable description of the data. The authors' typology presents a fuller picture of the underlying heterogeneity of female career paths that may not be revealed by more conventional transition-focused methods. Furthermore, the authors contribute to the small but growing literature on sequence analysis of female labor force participation by using their typology to show how careers are related to family background and school experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK New Deal for Young People (NDYP) is a mandatory active labour market programme aimed at helping unemployed young people into jobs. This paper examines how the programme affected hazard rates for unemployment exits across the UK regions in its first few years. The regional focus is motivated by the belief that differences between regional labour markets, between claimants, and differences in implementation may have led to differences in programme outcomes. The paper shows that NDYP increased outflows from unemployment in all regions but that its impact was larger in some regions than in others. The paper also shows differential NDYP impacts across the regions on destination-specific hazard rates from unemployment to employment, to education/training, to inactivity and to ‘other’. Possible explanations for these results are then discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 30 years many countries – including the UK – have seen a dramatic rise in the share of the working age population receiving sickness and disability benefits (hereafter disability benefits). This is despite health levels that are generally thought to be slowly improving. This paper describes the time path of UK disability benefit rolls and explores the existing UK literature together with literature from the USA in search of potential explanations for it. Since the early 1990s, despite a number of detailed descriptive studies, surprisingly little attention has been paid to quantifying the importance of the different factors believed to be driving the UK benefit roll growth. This is all the more surprising given the continued growth and the level of policy attention recently and currently devoted to disability benefits in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]