The effects of Japanese social security retirement benefits on personal saving and elderly labor force behavior

Japanese annual time-series data covering the period 1951 to 1982 reveals that changes in the program of social security retirement benefits have substantial influence on personal saving and retirement behavior. The empirical results show that social security retirement benefits depress personal saving by approximately 13,500 yen per capita in real terms from 1951 to 1982. However, declining labor force participation of the elderly (i.e., earlier retirement) stimulates personal saving by an estimate 500 yen over the same period. The study finds that the benefit effect dominates the retirement effect. The net effect is consequently a downward impact on personal saving. The parameter estimates indicate that the retirement behavior induced by social security retirement benefits tends to become more sensitive and responsive to a rise in the benefits. In addition, this study has identified a negative interdependency between the personal saving and labor retirement behaviors; that is, an individual saves more before retirement if he expects to stay a shorter time in the labor market, and vice versa. Moreover, personal saving influenced by retirement behavior tends to become less and less responsive, though the results indicate a relatively large response, and although very small, the retirement behavior gradually becomes more responsive to changes in personal saving.     

Unemployment duration and earnings of re-employed workers in urban China

The recent draconian program of labor retrenchment in China caused widespread unemployment. Many of the retrenched workers remained unemployed for a long time. How did the duration of their unemployment affect their re-employment earnings? The possible relationships between unemployment duration and subsequent wages are modelled heuristically, four explanations for a negative relationship being found. This hypothesis is investigated by means of a survey of workers in 13 Chinese cities, conducted in 2000. Re-employment earnings are found to decline as unemployment continues, an effect that is both statistically significant and quantitatively important. China's displaced workers face a tough labor market.     

Does New Rural Pension Scheme decrease elderly labor supply? Evidence from CHARLS

This paper examines the effect of the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS) on the labor supply behavior of the elderly in rural China. Using pooled data from two waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS) and an analytical framework of combination of regression discontinuity design and difference in difference method (RD-DiD), we find no evidence that pension receipt from the NRPS program does significantly induce the elderly to withdraw from the labor market. The heterogeneous effects by health status indicate that pension recipient slightly decreases the probability of labor force participation for those individuals with chronic diseases; however, the effect is not statistically significant. The empirical findings suggest that the introduction of the NRPS program does not improve the welfare effect of the originally targeted elder individuals with illness.     

The effects of formal and informal child care on the Mother's labor supply—Evidence from urban China

The women's labor force participation rate in China has declined considerably during the last twenty years in urban China. Since the reforms started in the mid-1990s, publicly subsidized child care programs have decreased, and private care centers have increased. This might have increased the reliance of working mothers on informal child care and reduced their reliance on formal child care. Using post-reform data from the Project on Rural–Urban Migration in China (RUMiC) of 2008, I estimate the effects of formal and informal child care on the labor supply of mothers of young children. A recursive model with instrumental variables is employed to account for endogeneity. I find a positive and significant impact of informal child care in the form of grandchild care on the mother's labor force participation, while no significant effect of formal child care in the form of kindergartens or paid nannies. Considering recent tendencies in China to postpone retirement, one possible method to maintain mothers' presence in the labor market could be to reinforce the availability and affordability of formal child care.²³     

DOES SOCIAL SECURITY AFFECT RETIREMENT AND LABOR SUPPLY? EVIDENCE FROM CHILE

This paper explores the effects of the social security system on retirement and labor supply decisions. Due to the regulations established by Chilean social security law reform, two social security systems coexist in Chile: the “Pay‐As‐You‐Go” and the individual account system. The coexistence of the systems allows us to better understand the effects of both social security systems on retirement and labor supply. We find that (1) larger benefits in any social security system induce earlier retirement and (2) larger variance of benefits in the individual account system induces later retirement. We do not find major impacts of social security on labor supply of individuals in the labor force.     

The Impact of an Increase in the Legal Retirement Age on the Effective Retirement Age

We analyze the impact of an increase in the legal retirement age on the effective retirement age in the Netherlands. We do this by means of a dynamic programming model for the retirement behavior of singles. The model is applied to new administrative data that contain very accurate and detailed information on individual incomes and occupational pension entitlements. Our model is able to capture the main patterns observed in the data. We observe that as individuals get older their labor supply declines considerably and this varies by age and gender. We simulate the current pension reform which aims at gradually increasing the legal retirement age from 65 to 67 and a hypothetical reform that immediately increases the retirement age to 67. The simulation results show a small impact on the effective retirement age for the first reform and a bigger impact for the second reform. Respectively, individuals postpone their retirement by \(<\) 1 month and 7 months on average; while differences across individuals mainly depend on their gender and health status.     

The Effect of Age Discrimination Laws on Age-Earnings Profiles of Postsecondary Faculty

This study investigates the impact of the abolition of mandatory retirement on earnings profiles of faculty in postsecondary institutions. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) excluded faculty from the protection of age discrimination laws until January 1, 1994, due to perceived adverse effects of this legislation on the academic labor market. After 1994, research has found that more faculty are remaining employed beyond the age of 70 and more institutions are offering early retirement plans. This study adds to the literature by finding that the policy change has steepened age-earnings profiles for cohorts entering the labor market, suggesting a stronger job attachment, and, potentially, efficiency gains.     

Employment Outcomes of Graduates: The Case of Universiti Utara,Malaysia*

Data on the labor market outcomes of graduates of the Universiti Utara Malaysia were analyzed using an ordered logit model. The type of degree, ethnicity, and number of job applications submitted are found to be significant determinants of labor market outcomes. Accounting graduates were found to obtain the best labor market outcomes. Malay graduates had significantly less favorable labor market outcomes. The findings for unemployed graduates support two current programs in Malaysia: re‐training for the long‐term unemployed and job matching assistance. The findings also suggest that universities should monitor the skill‐demands of job vacancies and give specific consideration to Malay graduates.     

Family size,labor supply,and job prestige: Evidence from three decennial censuses in China

This study investigates the relationship between family size and parents’ labor market performance, measured by labor supply and occupational prestige scores, based on three census waves in 1990, 2000, and 2010. To address the endogeneity problem of family size, we use the indicator of twins at first birth as an instrumental variable. Our results suggest that in nuclear households, family size affects the labor market performance only of mothers, not of fathers, with the negative effects fading and gradually disappearing over time. More specifically, an increase in family size decreases female labor supply in the 1990 wave, leads to lower prestige scores among working mothers in the 2000 wave, and has no impact on labor supply or occupational prestige scores in the 2010 wave. Our subsample analysis indicates that the negative effects of family size are more severe for parents of households with all children under seven years old and for husbands or wives with lower education level than that of their partners. In addition, we find that the negative effects of family size on parental labor market outcomes are not observed in extended households, especially when no grandparents are aged 65 years or older.     

The secular behavior of aggregate retirement flows

Summary and Conclusions This paper has presented estimated time-series of retirement flows from the labor force for men and women aged 55–64 and 65 and over. These results are a useful addition to labor force participation rates as a means of studying secular trends of aggregate labor market behavior of older workers. Because retirement rates are independent of people who have not been in the labor force, they are better suited to secular studies of aggregate retirement behavior than are labor force participation rates. These estimated time-series have been used to look for aggregate influences on the rates of retirement from the labor force over the period 1948–1977. While there are some tentative indications that macroeconomic conditions affect retirement flows, the important results concern the influence of Social Security retirement benefits. The results reported here clearly indicate that increased coverage and benefits have tended to increase retirement rates over the sample period. Elasticity estimates are large enough to suggest that the older labor force responds at a significant rate to changes in the Social Security program. This research was supported by Social Security Administration Grant No. 10-P-90543-4-02. The author is indebted to Robert Clark and Paul Johnson for support and criticism. Steve Gohmann provided greatly appreciated research assistance.     

Early Smoking,Education, and Labor Market Performance

This study investigates the effects of early smoking on educational attainment and labor market performance by using mixed ordered and mixed proportional hazard models. The results show that early smoking adversely affects educational attainment and initial labor market performance, but only for males. The probability to finish a scientific degree is 4%-point lower for an early smoker. The effect of early smoking on initial labor market performance is indirect through educational attainment. Once the indirect effect is controlled for there is no direct effect. Moreover, for males only, early smoking has a negative effect on current labor market performance even after conditioning on educational attainment. The probability to have an academic job is 4%-point lower for an early smoker. For females neither education nor labor market performance is affected by early smoking.     

The Effects of Labor Markets and Income Inequality on Crime: Evidence from Panel Data

We estimate a model of crime using panel data for the U.S. We focus on the role of labor markets, income distribution, and demographics on property crime. We find strong evidence that favorable labor market conditions have a significant negative effect on property crime. We further test this result using sector-specific wages and find that crime is most elastic with respect to wages in sectors that use low-skilled labor. We also find that income inequality has no significant effect on crime and that the proportion of young males in the population has a significant positive effect on crime.     

Economic crises and unemployment in Russia

This article considers changes in the number of unemployed individuals in conjunction with the dynamics of the production volume in Russia in 1991–2015. An assessment has been given for the quantitative relationship between crisis declines in production and the number of unemployed individuals. Long-term trends determining the dynamics of unemployment under the effect of direct factors of economic growth (labor resources, fixed capital, and scientific and technical progress) have been analyzed.     

How does the first job matter for an individual’s career life in Japan?

Exploiting annual information on the work status of female workers from the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers (JPSC), this paper examines how an individual’s job status immediately after graduation, referred to as “first job,” matters for his/her future job career. Using the ratio of regular employees in the labor force in the year preceding an individual’s graduation as an instrument for the first-job status (i.e., regular job or not), we confirm that even for women, whose retention rates are lower than those of men because of marriage and childbirth, individuals’ first-job status has a significant effect on their job status in the future. We further find that the effect gradually declines over the years and effectively disappears around 10 years after graduation. Finally, we find that the first-job effect is reversible: no negative effect of failing to obtain a regular job at graduation is observed if an individual can secure regular employment within a reasonable time period after graduation.     

Effects of birth spacing and timing on mothers' labor force participation

Data from the March 1991Current Population Survey [Bureau of the Census, 1992] were used to investigate the effects of children on single and married mothers' labor force participation decisions. Logit results indicated that for both single and married mothers, an increase in education and market experience increases the probability of market participation while an increase in income has a negative effect on the likelihood of mothers' labor market participation. The number of children present in the household negatively affected participation while an increase in the age of children positively influenced the mother's labor market participation. The spacing effect in the married group and the timing effect in the single group were significant. Furthermore, an increase in the number of older children in the household (between the ages of 12 and 17 years) increased the probability of labor market participation by single mothers but decreased that of married mothers.     

New evidence on subjective well-being and the definition of unemployment in South Africa

Access to new nationally representative, individual-level panel data from South Africa has allowed for the revalidation of Kingdon and Knight's discussion on the definition of unemployment. This paper investigates subjective well-being as a measure of comparison between labour-market statuses. It finds that on the grounds of subjective well-being the non-searching unemployed (or ‘discouraged’) are significantly worse-off than the not economically active. Moreover, evidence suggests that, with regard to the relationship between life satisfaction and labour-market status, the non-searching unemployed consistently are the worst-off. This is especially true of both the young and senior non-searching unemployed; however, the findings are largely driven by the African subsample. This paper does not advocate for a change in the official definition of unemployment but does advocate for the inclusion and recognition of the non-searching unemployed in policy relating to labour and development in South Africa.     

企业职工延长退休年龄影响因素实证研究—以W市为例

企业职工作为重要的社会组成元素以及政策的接受者，延迟退休政策的制定、实施毫无疑问需要广泛征求他们的意见。本研究以W市作为调查基地，在文献研究、社会调查与深度访谈三者相结合并借助SPSS分析工具充分论证的基础上得出了相关研究结论：一是W市企业职工延迟退休影响因子排序，强到弱排序依次为：健康、收入、工作满意度、周工作时长、工作性质、抚养子女负担、配偶状况、年龄、单位福利、单位性质、性别、受教育程度、公司职位、赡养老人负担、婚姻状况。二是影响因素与延迟退休的相互关系：(1)个人因素中，男性职工比女性职工更能够接受延迟退休。年龄与延迟退休成负相关的关系。已婚或未婚企业职工都不愿意接受延迟退休。不愿意延迟退休者中受教育程度与最大延迟退休年龄正相关。(2)单位因素中，企业性质为国有、集体或控股企业与外资企业比私营、民营企业的职工更愿意接受延迟退休。单位福利种类多并不能直接刺激到企业职工的延迟退休意愿，但在强制延迟退休时，享受福利种类越多与企业职工能够接受最大延迟退休年龄之间成正相关关系。公司职位与延迟退休之间没有严格的相关关系。(3)负担因素中，具有抚养子女负担和赡养老人负担与延迟退休成负相关。(4)经济因素中，低收入和高收入的个人以及家庭相对对于中层收入而言更不愿延迟退休。健康因素与延迟退休成负相关。(5)工作因中，周工作时长与工作满意度和延迟退休决策分别成负相关和正相关。体力劳动者比脑力劳动者不愿意延迟退休。最后，对W市研究延迟退休年龄有针对性的提出相关政策建议。     

农民工养老保险的区域分割与制度整合——基于长三角地区的实证研究

由于制度内的结构差异和制度间的衔接障碍,农民工养老保险在长三角区域内处于分割状态。这种分割状态客观上产生了诸多负面影响,制约了劳动力市场走向统一,影响农民工养老保险制度的可持续发展。打破农民工养老保险制度的地区分割,实现农民工养老保险关系在长三角区域内自由流转,关键在于增强制度之间的兼容性,创新农民工养老保险基金支付与积淀机制,改革个人权利与地方利益的捆绑关系,形成利益共享、成本均担的区域激励约束机制。     

The effects of state-led relocation on labor market participation: Evidence from China

The urbanization of China has been accompanied by large-scale state-led relocation (SLR) programs. This paper studies the effects of urban SLR on labor market participation. With three waves of China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), we find that urban SLR reduces labor market participation, on both the extensive margin and the intensive margin. The reduction is stronger for females, and there is some substitute effect between husbands and wives. The reduction is also stronger for individuals who are elder and less educated, and who choose lump sums of monetary compensation. Finally, we find no evidence that urban SLR experience stimulates business creation.     

志愿服务、年龄差异与主观幸福感

文章以中老年人参与志愿服务为例,基于2013-2015年中国健康与养老追踪调查数据,采用有序Logit、OLS、PSM-DID等方法,尝试解答助人会让人变得更幸福以及助人会对不同年龄群体幸福感产生差异吗等问题。研究结果表明：第一,中老年人参与志愿服务有助于提升幸福感水平,且在考虑到内生性问题情况下,该结论仍成立;第二,进行分样本讨论发现,这种影响存在年龄差异。具体而言,老年人参与志愿服务对幸福感有显著提升作用,但对中年人影响并不显著;第三,经济因素并不对志愿服务与幸福感之间的关系起调节作用;第四,通过中介效应检验发现,中老年人参与志愿服务通过提升积极情绪实现,而消极情绪则起遮掩效应。文章的研究意义在于,理论上,梳理了国内外关于中老年人志愿者服务对幸福感影响的文献,丰富了当前我国中老年人志愿服务参与和幸福感关系的理论和经验研究;实践上,为推进我国中老年人志愿服务参与、保障幸福老年生活及构建互助的社会网络支持体系提供了一定的建议与启示。