The association of pain with labor force participation,absenteeism, and presenteeism in Spain

Abstract

Objectives:

The aims of this paper are to generate estimates of the association between the severity and frequency of pain in Spain and (i) labor force participation and workforce status and (ii) patterns of absenteeism and presenteeism for the employed workforce.

Methods:

Data are from the internet-based 2010 National Health and Wellness Survey (NHWS). This survey covers both those who report experiencing pain in the last month as well as the no-pain population. An estimated 17.25% of adults in Spain report experiencing pain in the past month. A series of regression models are developed with the no-pain group as the reference category. The impact of pain, categorized by severity and frequency, is assessed within a labor supply framework for (i) labor force participation and (ii) absenteeism and presenteeism. Both binomial and multinomial logistic models are estimated.

Results:

The results demonstrate that severe and moderate pain has a significant, substantive, and negative association with labor force participation and, together with the experience of mild pain, a substantive impact on absenteeism and presenteeism within the employed workforce. Compared to no-pain controls, the strongest association is seen in the case of severe pain, notably severe daily pain and labor force participation (odds ratio 0.363; 95% CI: 0.206–0.637). The association of severe pain with labor force participation is also significant (odds ratio 0.356; 95% CI: 0.217–0.585). There is a clear gradient in the association of pain severity and frequency with labor force participation. The impact of pain is far greater than the potential impact of other health status measures (e.g., chronic comorbidities and BMI). Labor force participation is also adversely associated with pain experience. Persons reporting severe daily pain are far more likely not to be in the labor force (relative probabilities 0.339 vs 0.611). The experience of pain, notably severe and frequent pain, also outstrips the impact of other health status factors in absenteeism and presenteeism. In the former case, the odds ratio associated with severe daily pain is 16.216 (95% CI: 5.127–51.283), which contrasts to the odds ratio for the Charlson comorbidity index of 1.460 (95%CI: 1.279–1.666). Similar results hold for presenteeism. The contribution of moderate and mild pain to absenteeism and presenteeism is more marked than for labor force participation.

Conclusions:

The experience of pain, in particular severe daily pain, has a substantial negative impact both on labor force participation in Spain as well as reported absenteeism and presenteeism. As a measure of health status, it clearly has an impact that outstrips other health status measures. Whether or not pain is considered as a disease in its own right, the experience of chronic pain, as defined here, presents policy-makers with a major challenge. Programs to relieve the burden of pain in the community clearly have the potential for substantial benefits from societal, individual, and employer perspectives.     

The impact of pain on labor force participation,absenteeism and presenteeism in the European Union

Abstract

Objectives:

The aims of this paper are to generate estimates of the association between the experience and burden of pain, by severity and frequency, with (1) labor force participation and workforce status in five EU countries (the UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy) and (2) patterns of absenteeism and presenteeism for the employed workforce.

Methods:

Data are from the internet-based 2008 National Health and Wellness Survey (NHWS). This survey covers both those who report experiencing pain in the last month as well as the no pain population. A series of regression models are developed with the no pain group as the reference category. The impact of pain, categorized by severity and frequency reported, is assessed within a labor supply framework for (1) labor force participation and (2) absenteeism and presenteeism. In the former case both binomial and multinomial logistic models are estimated; in the latter case ordered logit models are estimated.

Results:

The results demonstrate that, in the context of health status, the experience of frequent severe and moderate pain has a dominant, independent and negative association with labor force participation and employment status as well as absenteeism and presenteeism. The presence of severe daily pain is associated with a 20-point reduction in the probability of being employed full-time; with moderate daily pain associated with a 10-point reduction. The impact of pain is far greater than the potential impact of other health status measures (e.g., chronic comorbidities and BMI). The experience of pain, notably severe and frequent pain, also outstrips the impact of other health status factors in absenteeism and presenteeism.

Conclusions:

The experience of pain, in particular severe daily pain, has a substantial negative association with labor force participation in these five European countries as well as reported absenteeism and presenteeism. As a measure of health status, it clearly outweighs other health status measures. Whether or not pain is considered as a disease in its own right, the experience of chronic pain, as defined here, presents policy makers with a major challenge. Programs to relieve the burden of pain in the community clearly have the potential for substantial benefits from societal, individual and employer perspectives.     

Social norms and female labor force participation in urban China

This study investigates the impact of social norms on the labor supply decision of married women in urban China. Our estimation results indicate that men raised by non-working mothers are more likely to support traditional gender roles, are more averse to having working wives, and tend to be less productive or less willing to engage in housework than other men. Consequently, the labor force participation rate of married women with non-working mothers-in-law is 5–18 percentage points lower than that of married women with working mothers-in-law in urban China.     

Fertility,household structure,and parental labor supply: Evidence from China

This study examines the effects of fertility on household structure and parental labor supply in China. To solve the endogeneity problem, we use a unique survey on households with twin children and a comparison group of non-twin households. The ordinary least squares estimates show a negative correlation between fertility and parental labor supply in rural China. Using twinning as a natural experiment, we do not find evidence on the negative effects of fertility on parental labor supply. By contrast, we find that the twinning-induced increase in fertility significantly enhances the coresidence of grandparents in rural China. We suggest that the negative effects of fertility on parental labor supply are mitigated by the childcare provided by grandparents in rural China. We also find that fertility does not induce coresidence of grandparents in urban China. Our results have important implications for population and public childcare policies.     

The Canada/Quebec pension plan disability program and the labor force participation of older men

The effects of the Canadian disability insurance program on the labor force participation of older men are studied using pooled cross-sectional time series data from ten Canadian provinces.     

Taxes and labor supply: Portugal, Europe, and the United States

I relate hours worked with taxes on consumption and labor for Portugal, France, Spain, United Kingdom and United States. From 1986 to 2001, hours per worker in Portugal decreased from 35.1 to 32.6. With the parameters for Portugal, the model predicts hours worked in 2001 with an error of only 12 min from the actual hours. Across countries, most predictions differ from the data by 1 h or less. The model is not sensible to special assumptions on the parameters. I calculate the long run effects of taxes on consumption, hours, capital and welfare for Portugal. I extend the model to discuss implications for Social Security. I discuss the steady state and the transition from a pay-as-you-go to a fully funded system.

比较优势、劳动力流动与产业转移

劳动力流动的新趋势反映了劳动力要素成本的比较优势在我国区域之间的动态转化,东部地区逐步丧失劳动力成本的比较优势,中西部地区劳动力要素禀赋的显性优势开始呈现。产业转移直接产生于比较优势的动态变化,顺应劳动力流动的新趋势,做好产业在区域间的转移和承接,才能转变依靠廉价劳动力的外向型经济增长方式,促使东部沿海地区进行产业升级,同时带动中西部地区工业化和城镇化进程,在保持我国低劳动力成本优势的基础上实现区域间协调发展。     

"人口红利"效应与中国经济增长

中国经济"增长奇迹"源于多种因素,"人口红利"是其中最重要的因素之一.当前,我国的人口红利主要表现为较高的劳动人口比例和劳动力配置效率.但人口红利并非可持续.长期看,随着我国人口出生率下降,劳动参与率将下降;短期看,我国城乡劳动力流动障碍依然存在,不利于劳动力配置效率的进一步提高.因此,提高劳动力素质和消除城乡劳动力流动障碍,是实现我国"人口红利"效应最大化的重要措施.     

Narrowing the gender digital divide in Pakistan: Mobile phone ownership and female labor force participation

The unprecedented growth in access to mobile phones and smartphones has opened up new possibilities in the way people live and work. However, women in developing countries are unable to take advantage of this growth due to certain factors and socio-cultural norms that give rise to the gender digital divide. In this study, using the nationally representative Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (2019–2020), we investigate the gender and rural–urban (female) digital divide in a country with one of the most considerable digital divides. Furthermore, we employ an instrumental variable approach to study the effect of mobile or smartphone ownership on female labor force participation. The results indicate that institutional and sociocultural norms explain most of the ownership gap of mobile or smartphones between men and women. The instrumental variable approach demonstrates that mobile or smartphone ownership increases the participation of women in the labor force. We also find that the differences between observable characteristics, especially literacy and education, explain the rural–urban digital divide among females. Considering the importance of mobile or smartphone ownership in facilitating women's labor supply decisions, providing women with digital tools and upskilling them has wider implications for their economic well-being.     

Unemployment and labor force participation in the United States

This paper uses historical data from the United States to investigate the relationship between unemployment and labor force participation. Cointegration analysis supports a long-run relationship between these two variables, which leads us to question the empirical relevance of the unemployment invariance hypothesis for the United States.     

Flexible labor supply models

Discrete-choice models of labor supply have become very popular for ex ante evaluations of policy reforms as they easily account for non-convex budget sets. We test the constraints imposed in practice on these models and suggest a fully flexible model that significantly improves fit.     

The effects of joint taxation of married couples on labor supply and non-wage income

The United States changed its tax treatment of married couples in 1948, from a system in which each spouse paid taxes on his or her own income to a system in which a married couple is taxed as a unit. The switch from separate to joint taxation changed incentives for labor supply and asset ownership. This paper investigates the effects of the conversion to joint taxation, taking advantage of a natural experiment created by cross-state variation in property laws. Married individuals in states with community property laws had always been taxed as if each spouse had earned half of the couple's income, and thus were unaffected by the 1948 legal change. Comparing the behavior of highly-educated taxpayers in affected and unaffected states indicates that the tax change is associated with a decline of approximately 2 percentage points in the employment rate of married women, consistent with the higher first-dollar tax rates they faced after 1948. Women married to self-employed men were also less likely to have non-wage income after 1948, reflecting pre-1948 allocation of family assets to wives for tax purposes. The effects of joint taxation on married men's labor force participation and non-wage income holding are generally not statistically significant.     

Liquidity constraints and labor supply

In this paper we shed some light on how restrictions in financial markets, the so-called liquidity constraints, might act in affecting labour supply decisions of Italian workers. One way to neutralize the existence of binding liquidity constraints is simply by supplying additional labor, instead of reducing consumption. We estimate whether resorting to additional labor supply as a smoothing consumption device is at work by using the Italian Survey of Households Income and Wealth (SHIW). The longitudinal dimension of the SHIW dataset allows us to control for individual unobserved heterogeneity. We also use an IV strategy to address the endogeneity of our measure for credit constraints in labor supply equations due to time varying factors.Our results show that liquidity constraints increase the intensity in the supply of men׳s labor. Constrained men work, on average, 4 hours more than their unconstrained counterpart. Self-employed workers turn out to be more sensitive to binding liquidity constraints, possibly because they are more flexible in adjusting the intensity of their labor supply.     

Sources of crime in the state of Veracruz: The role of female labor force participation and wage inequality

Abstract

In recent years, crime has become a serious concern in Mexico as its increase has detrimentally affected government institutions and economic growth. There is considerable speculation among policy analysts about the causes of the increase in crime. Whereas some analysts attribute the increase to a rise in income inequality, others believe internal migration and a loss of morals are the roots of criminal behavior. This research shows that at least for the Mexican state of Veracruz, wage inequality and labor force participation have an important impact on crime. When gender is considered, however, the impact is more complicated than it seems. An increase in women's labor force participation decreases the overall number of alleged violent offenders. However, the number of alleged rapists and grievous bodily harm offenders increases as women's wage distribution improves. The results shed light on the gender dimensions of the economics of crime.     

Asymmetric labour force participation decisions

This article finds compelling evidence of asymmetric labour force participation decisions across demographic groups in response to changes in labour market conditions. This behaviour is consistent with predictions from the standard labour-leisure choice model and suggests that asymmetry in individual behaviour plays some role in the observed asymmetry of the aggregate unemployment rate. It is estimated that the weighted average difference in response to a one percentage point change in unemployment rates is sizeable when compared to the average monthly change in the aggregate labour force.     

Smooth transition trends and labor force participation rates in the United States

This paper employs smooth transition trend models to investigate the long-run time series behavior of quarterly US labor force participation rates. In particular, we examine whether long-run growth in labor force participation rates can be modeled by smooth transitions between states rather than as abrupt mean level changes or as a stochastic trend. Smooth transitions permit for non-instantaneous adjustment of individual workers to changes associated with economic events or general labor market conditions. We employ unit root testing procedures with alternatives characterized by stationary fluctuations around one or two smooth transitions in linear trend. We examine labor force participation rates by gender- and age-specific groups. The results indicate that all female and most male participation series are better characterized as stationary processes that undergo transitional deterministics.     

Dynamics of female labour force participation in France

This article formulates and estimates a structural intertemporal model of labour force participation. Relying on theoretical characterizations derived from an economic model of lifetime behaviour, we estimate a dynamic probit model with correlated random effects using longitudinal data to allow for a dynamic structure. The model is applied to a panel of married women drawn from the 1997–2002 French Labour Force surveys in order to represent their participation behaviour. It is estimated by maximum simulated likelihood. Our results show that women’s decisions to go out to work are characterized by significant state dependence, unobserved heterogeneity and negative serial correlation in the transitory error component. In addition, we find that the presence of young children in a woman’s household reduces her labour participation, but unequally according to their age and number. As expected, educational level has a positive impact on women’s participation. Last, a rise in the husband’s wage is found to raise female participation initially and to lower it subsequently. This empirical finding suggests that leisure may not systematically be a normal good, contrary to what is frequently assumed in the literature.     

Fertility and labor supply: evidence from the One-Child Policy in China

This study provides new evidence on on the causal effect of fertility on maternal labor supply in rural China, using the fact that in some parts of rural China couples are allowed to have a second child if their firstborn is female. Estimates show that a second child reduces maternal labor force participation by 4.6 percentage points, labor supply intensity (hours worked conditional on employment) by 1.4 h per week and monthly income by 54.5 Chinese Yuan (18.7 percent). Further, the labor supply of mothers whose husbands are rural-to-urban migrants is the most sensitive to having an additional child, likely because they have more difficulty balancing farming and childcare. Conversely, labor supply is not reduced by fertility for mothers living in three-generation families, most likely because grandparents can provide both time and money to help with childcare.