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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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Because unemployment benefit reforms typically package together a number of changes, few existing evaluations have been able to isolate the effects of changes in job search monitoring intensity on benefit recipient stocks or flows. Those few studies that do so draw mixed conclusions. This paper provides new estimates of monitoring impacts by exploiting plausibly exogenous periods where search monitoring has been temporarily withdrawn – with the regime otherwise unchanged – during a series of benefit office refurbishments in Northern Ireland. As we would expect from search theory, withdrawal of monitoring significantly increases the stock of unemployment benefit recipients via reduced outflows. [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]

Just over 2.5 million people of working age were on the incapacity benefit register in Great Britain in 2006, twice as many as 15 years earlier, and we explore the factors contributing to that huge growth. Using a simple model linking ‘inflow’ to the size of the register via a pair of persistence parameters (‘short’ and ‘long’ term), we show that the principal driver of numbers up to the mid-1990s was inflow, but since then it has been the steep rise in ‘average duration’ from below four to more than six years. For women the lengthening time on the register mainly reflects a rise in short-term persistence (survival on the register from one to two years), whilst for men the increase in long-term persistence (survival on the register after two years) was more important. We also use the model to discuss the likelihood that the British government will achieve its target of reducing incapacity benefit numbers by 1 million by 2016. [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]