Assessing social support networks in cross-national comparative surveys: Measurement issues

In recent years many cross-national comparative surveys, such as Gender and Generation Programme, International Social Survey Programme, European Quality of Life Survey, or General Social Survey, have included assessment of social support networks. Generally, two approaches were used; the name generator approach and the role relation approach. As more cross-country surveys are conducted every year, it may seem reasonable to use such data sets, since they provide high quality comparisons across countries. However, one should pay close attention to the measurement instruments, as these may cause unintentional but systematic variability in the observed data. While the data from each survey can be of high quality ??per se??, we claim that results from these surveys are not comparable, owing to their different measurement approaches and survey instruments. In this paper we present data from several experiments which show that scientific findings from these surveys depend significantly on questionnaire design.     

妥善解决好农民工就业和社会保障问题

一、妥善解决农民工问题的必要性和迫切性 这里所说的农民工,又称进城务工人员,是指那些户口仍在农村,但已完全脱离或基本脱离传统农业生产经营活动,主要依靠在城镇各类所有制企业打工、或从事其他服务行业为生的人群。其主体是20世纪80年代以来由农村富余劳动力向城镇转移而形成的一个特殊的社会群体。农村进城务工人员一般可以划分为4种类型:(1)大中城市各类企业,包括国有企业、事业单位、集体企业、三资企业、私营乃至个体企业雇用的农民工(含合同工与长期     

A systems approach to health insurance policy information: a preliminary taxonomy of health insurance issues, program options, problems and solutions.

A methodology is proposed for assisting health insurance policy analysts by developing a systems approach to health insurance information and literature. The general approach is to supply a link between the quantitative and qualitative information available, and the analytic needs of policy analysts. There is a great deal of information available, but traditional cataloging and indexing techniques do not adequately meet the policy researcher's and analyst's information needs. The most important of these once goals and limitations are identified, is knowledge of the interrelationships between program options in terms of expected results (problems, solutions) in a wide range of settings.The key element of the approach used is the concept of an information frame, based on considering health insurance as systems of issues, program options, problems, and solutions with interrelationships explicitly defined. This approach would provide initially qualitative identification of these interrelationships and make them available via a machine readable taxonomy of the components. With substantiating literature references, preliminary work on the building of the taxonomy is based on seven major health insurance issues, and over 70 program options, 325 problems, and 350 solutions so far identified for 170 of the problems. The implementation of this methodology would provide analytically structured information for policy analysts in a format not presently available. The multi-country information to be included would allow consideration of alternatives which might otherwise be neglected. The result would improve an important element of the analytic process, and reduce the lead time required for inquiries by health insurance policy analysts, legislators, health planners and administrators.     

The health issues of the homeless and the homeless issues of the ill-health

In public policy planning and budgeting, the health issues and homeless issues tend to be interrelated and reinforced by each other, but this mutual causality is usually ignored in the existing literature. This paper provides an unbiased estimate of a structural equation model taking endogeneity into account. A questionnaire is designed based on the health-related quality of life (EQ-5D) framework and is given to 322 homeless individuals. Evidence shows that, without timely support, the homeless state and health state will fast deteriorate and reinforce each other. It is therefore arguable to broaden the definition of statutory homelessness, and the “preventative approach” can save, rather than increase, the public resources spent on the homeless.     

A finite selection model for experimental design of the health insurance study

This paper is concerned with the problem of estimating the parameters of the standard linear model from grouped data, or more generally from aggregated data. A number of alternative solutions are suggested and compared.     

DEA efficiency in agriculture: Measurement unit issues

The selection of inputs and outputs in DEA models represents a vibrant methodological topic. At the same time; however, the problem of the impact of different measurement units of selected inputs is understated in empirical literature. Using the example of Czech farms, we show that the DEA method does not provide consistent score estimates, neither a stable ranking for different popular measurements of labour and capital factors of production. For this reason, studies based on DEA efficiency results for differently measured inputs should be compared only with great caution.     

The role of asset testing in public health insurance reform

Starting slowly with the 1996 Welfare Reform Act and culminating in the 2010 Affordable Care Act, means-tested public health insurance eligibility expanded to include adults in low-income families regardless of their asset holdings. This paper quantifies the effects of these eligibility expansions within the context of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. I construct a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with indivisible labor supply expanded to include an endogenous household choice of health insurance coverage and calibrate it to U.S. data. I establish that changes in the distribution of labor and welfare associated with removal of asset testing are driven by exit of high productivity and high wealth households from the labor market. I then expand my analysis to the 2010 Affordable Care Act to demonstrate that removal of asset testing is critical to the obtained results even when combined with other provisions of the Act. Finally, I find that a simple asset test for eligibility of health insurance transfers undoes the distortion to the household labor supply decision among high productivity types. These results are robust to the introduction of employer premium contributions, an independent health insurance market, and idiosyncratic shocks to eligibility for employment-based health insurance.     

Measurement in social research: some misunderstandings

The concept of numerical measurement based on the manipulation of objects has impoverished and distorted the meaning of magnitude and scale. This article aims to contribute to a concept of the most fruitful measurement for the development of the social sciences, with reference to specific aspects indicating the differences from the natural one and regarding, in particular, the non-numeric.     

Beyond death: The impact of a population-wide health shock on life insurance

Population-wide health shocks, for example, pandemics, affect life insurance owners beyond their health impact. This paper considers joint impacts of their surrender behavior adaptions and mortality rise following a population-wide health shock on insurance pricing. We build a model that captures both more surrenders of contracts to meet unexpected liquidity needs and less financially beneficial surrenders to keep insurance protection after the shock. Unlike the systemic mortality rise impact that turns out to be negligible, we find that policyholders’ surrender behavior adaptions substantially devalue policies with increasing emergency surrenders being the main driver. Regulatory solvency protection partly restrains the devaluation.     

社会信用体系建设有关问题研究

信用是市场经济的基础.随着社会主义市场经济的发展,我国社会信用体系建设取得了一定的成绩,但仍然存在很多问题,从法律法规、制度、中介组织、教育与研究等四个方面,对这些问题进行了深入剖析.     

The role of health insurance in labor supply decisions of divorced females

Labor economics literature provides evidence that marital dissolution induces an increase in labor supply of females. This paper explores an explanation for this finding: Marital separation might place wives at risk of losing health insurance or increase the need for expanded health coverage. Thus, wives must increase their labor supply in order to qualify for health benefits. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, results confirm that marital dissolution is associated with increased female labor supply. However, this effect is mostly concentrated among women who were not previously enrolled in their husbands’ health insurance plans. For wives who were dependent on their husbands for coverage, continuing coverage laws appear to mitigate the effect of marital dissolution on female labor supply.     

浅谈如何做好企业的社会保险管理

在经济高速发展的今天,各大企业都特别重视社会保险工作,因为对于企业来说,社会保险是其能够平稳发展,增强员工团结意识的有力保证。随着《社会保险法》的实施,保险制度的改革,企业在社会保险管理工作上也逐渐的暴露出一些问题。文章在实践的基础上,结合大量的参考文献,针对目前企业社会保险管理过程中普遍存在的一些问题进行了分析,进而对做好企业社会保险管理工作的有效措施进行了探讨。     

The demand for deductibles in private health insurance: A probit model with sample selection

In this paper we analyse the decision to prefer a health insurance with a deductible to one with complete coverage. We focus on health, medical consumption, and on socio-economic characteristics like age, income, education and family size. The analysis is based on a sample of 8000 privately insured families; about 60 percent of them did not wish to have a health insurance policy with a deductible. A corrective method for sample selectivity, analogous to Heckman's (1979) method, has been applied in probit analysis; the estimation results are compared with the maximum-likelihood estimates. Health, medical consumption and income are found to have a significant influence on the decision with respect to the type of insurance. Our results give an indication of the degree of adverse selection that may take place if health insurance policies are offered with the option to take a deductible in exchange of a premium reduction.     

Marketization and social protection reform: emerging HRM issues in China

This paper explores the human resource issues raised by China's current reform of its social protection regime. We examine a number of propositions at the core of the debate surrounding the relationship between globalization and social protection. It is concluded that globalization is compelling the government of China to construct a social protection system that is compatible with a market regime; many employers are evading their responsibilities and the state has been compelled to adopt countervailing regulations that can restrain this behaviour; China's decision to integrate into the world economy need not have a negative impact on the overall level of social protection available in other nations; and common social protection rules are affecting firms in highly divergent ways that reflect their ownership and industrial character and their specific labour market needs.     

Transitions to self-employment at older ages: The role of wealth,health, health insurance and other factors

Relatively little research has been devoted to studying self-employment among older workers although they make up a disproportionate share of the self-employed workforce. This study uses 5 waves of panel data from the Health and Retirement Study to investigate the determinants of labor force transitions to self-employment at older ages. We estimate a multinomial logit model of transitions from wage and salary employment to self-employment, retirement or not working. Results are compared with those found in previous studies. New findings on the impact of health on transitions to self-employment are highlighted.