PSC Working Paper Series
The Population Studies Center (PSC) Working Paper Series is open to PSC research associates. It serves as an outlet for pre-prints, for papers under journal review, and for background papers (e.g., for technical materials for which journals lack space). The series will also entertain submissions from students affiliated with PSC research associates. In such cases, the submission should be accompanied by a letter from a PSC research associate stating that she or he has read the paper, that it conforms to high professional standards, and that she or he wishes to sponsor its appearance in the series. Papers can be submitted to psc_library@mailman.ssc.upenn.edu.
The PSC is also home to the Population Aging Research Center (PARC) which also has a working paper series available, the PARC Working Paper Series.
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Publication The Household Equipment Revolution(2024-05-10) Adamopoulou, Effrosyni; Greenwood, Jeremy; Guner, NezihA brief historical overview of the household equipment revolution and the women who transformed the home in Germany and the United States.Publication Busy Bees: How Does Conscientiousness Affect Labor Market Outcomes?(2024-02-07) Hervé, Justine; Purcell, Helene; Mani, SubhaPersonality traits play an important role in shaping labor market outcomes, but the associated behaviors that lead to these differences are understudied. In this paper, we examine the returns to the Big Five personality traits as well as the mechanisms through which personality affects employment and earnings. We find conscientiousness to be a significant predictor of both employment and earnings. We further show that the association between conscientiousness and earnings operates primarily through one specific behavior, namely, higher work intensity. Additionally, we are able to rule out selection into specific job types as potential channels for the positive relationship between conscientiousness and earnings.Publication The Role of Friends in the Opioid Epidemic(2024-02-07) Adamopoulou, Effrosyni; Greenwood, Jeremy; Guner, Nezih; Kopecky, KarenThe role of friends in the US opioid epidemic is examined. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health), adults aged 25-34 and their high school best friends are focused on. An instrumental variable technique is employed to estimate peer effects in opioid misuse. Severe injuries in the previous year are used as an instrument for opioid misuse in order to estimate the causal impact of someone misusing opioids on the probability that their best friends also misuse. The estimated peer effects are significant: Having a best friend with a reported serious injury in the previous year increases the probability of own opioid misuse by around 7 percentage points in a population where 17 percent ever misuses opioids. The effect is driven by individuals without a college degree and those who live in the same county as their best friends.Publication Female Headship and Poverty in the Arab Region: Analysis of Trends and Dynamics Based on a New Typology(2024-02-07) AlAzzawi, Shireen; Dang, Hai-Anh; Hlasny, Vladimir; Behrman, Jere R.; Kseniya, AbanokovaVarious challenges are thought to render female-headed households (FHHs) vulnerable to poverty in the Arab region. Yet, previous studies have mixed results and the absence of household panel survey data hinders analysis of poverty dynamics. We address these challenges by proposing a novel typology of FHHs and analyze synthetic panels that we constructed from 20 rounds of repeated cross-sectional surveys spanning the past two decades from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Mauritania, Palestine, and Tunisia. We find that the definition of FHHs matters for measuring poverty levels and dynamics. Most types of FHHs are less poor than non-FHHs on average, but FHHs with a major share of female adults are generally poorer. FHHs are more likely to escape poverty than households on average, but FHHs without children are most likely to do so. While more children are generally associated with more poverty for FHHs, there is heterogeneity across countries in addition to heterogeneity across FHH measures. Our findings provide useful inputs for social protection and employment programs aiming at reducing gender inequalities and poverty in the Arab region.Publication Minimum Wages and Intergenerational Health(2024-02-07) Majid, Muhammad Farhan; Wang, Hanna; Behrman, Jere R.Most minimum wage (MW) research focuses on wage and employment impacts in high-income countries. Little is known about broader impacts, including on parental and child health in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs) where most people affected by MWs live. This study studies MW effects on employment, earnings, parental health and child health in Indonesia, the third most-populous LMIC. Results include: MWs improve men’s earnings, parental hemoglobin, and child height-for age and reduce pregnancy complications. This study highlights nuanced but positive roles MWs may play in improving parental and child health, despite not directly affecting women’s earnings and labor supplies.Publication Discrete Games in Endogenous Networks: Theory and Policy(2013-02-01) Badev, AntonThis paper develops a framework for analyzing individuals' choices in the presence of endogenous social networks and implements it with data on teen smoking decisions and friendship networks. By allowing actions and friendships to be jointly chosen, the framework extends the literature on social interactions, which either models choices, taking the social network as given, or which models friendship selection without incorporating additional choices. In the context of a large population network game, this paper also introduces the notion of k-player Nash stability. This solution concept subsumes the Nash equilibrium and, as k decreases, gradually relaxes the assumptions of rationality and coordination underlying the Nash play. I show how the strategic interactions of the static one-shot play are embedded in an evolutionary model of network formation, which I estimate with social network data from United States high schools. The empirical analysis demonstrates the importance of modeling the joint decisions of friendships and smoking in evaluating existing and proposed new policies targeting teen smoking prevalence. These include policies related to school racial desegregation, separating middle and high school grades, and anti-smoking campaigns. Neglecting the endogeneity of the friendship network leads to a downward bias of 10% to 15% on the predicted effect of these policies on adolescent smoking rates.Publication Is the High Level of Obesity in the United States Related to Its Low Life Expectancy?(2011-09-22) Preston, Samuel H.; Stokes, AndrewBackground. The US has the highest prevalence of obesity and one of the lowest life expectancies among OECD countries. While it is plausible to assume that these two phenomena are related, no previous attempt has been made to identify the connection between them. Our paper uses primary data on body mass index (BMI) in 16 countries and detailed information on the mortality risks of obesity to estimate the effect of international differences in obesity on comparative levels of longevity. Methods. We estimate the fraction of deaths from all causes attributable to obesity by country, age and sex. We then re-estimate life tables in 2006 by removing deaths attributable to obesity. To allow for the possibility of a secular decline in obesity risks, we employ two alternative sets of risks drawn from a more recent period than the baseline risks. Results. In our baseline analysis, we estimate that US life expectancy at age 50 in 2006 was reduced by 1.54 years (95% condence interval (CI) 1.37-1.93) for women and by 1.85 years (1.62-2.10) for men as a result of obesity. Relative to higher life expectancy countries, allowance for obesity reduces the US shortfall in life expectancy by 42% (36-48) for women and 67% (57-76) for men. Using obesity risks that were recorded more recently, differences in obesity still account for a fifth to a third of the shortfall of life expectancy in the US relative to longer-lived countries. Conclusions. The high prevalence of obesity in the US contributes substantially to its poor international ranking in longevity.Publication Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces(2007-05-10) Stevenson, Betsey; Wolfers, JustinWe document key facts about marriage and divorce, comparing trends through the past 150 years and outcomes across demographic groups and countries. While divorce rates have risen over the past 150 years, they have been falling for the past quarter century. Marriage rates have also been falling, but more strikingly, the importance of marriage at different points in the life cycle has changed, reflecting rising age at first marriage, rising divorce followed by high remarriage rates, and a combination of increased longevity with a declining age gap between husbands and wives. Cohabitation has also become increasingly important, emerging as a widely used step on the path to marriage. Out-of-wedlock fertility has also risen, consistent with declining “shotgun marriages”. Compared with other countries, marriage maintains a central role in American life. We present evidence on some of the driving forces causing these changes in the marriage market: the rise of the birth control pill and women’s control over their own fertility; sharp changes in wage structure, including a rise in inequality and partial closing of the gender wage gap; dramatic changes in home production technologies; and the emergence of the internet as a new matching technology. We note that recent changes in family forms demand a reassessment of theories of the family and argue that consumption complementarities may be an increasingly important component of marriage. Finally, we discuss the welfare implications of these changes.Publication The Likoma Network Study: Context, Data Collection and Initial Results(2007-06-09) Helleringer, Stephane; Kohler, Hans-Peter; Chimbiri, Agnes; Chatonda, Praise; Mkandawire, JamesThe sexual networks connecting members of a population have important consequences for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV. However, very few datasets currently exist that allow an investigation of the structure of sexual networks, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where HIV epidemics have become generalized. In this paper, we describe the context and methods of the Likoma Network Study (LNS), a survey of complete sexual networks we conducted in Likoma island (Malawi) between October 2005 and March 2006. We start by reviewing theoretical arguments and empirical studies emphasizing the importance of network structures for the epidemiology of sexually and transmitted diseases. We describe the island setting of this study, and argue that the choice of an island as research site addresses the possible sources of bias in the collection of complete network data. We then describe in detail our empirical strategy for the identification of sexual networks, as well as for the collection of biomarker data (HIV infection). Finally, we provide initial results relating to the socioeconomic context of the island, the size and composition of sexual networks, the prevalence of HIV in the study population, the quality of the sexual network data, the determinants of successful contact tracing during the LNS, and basic measures of network connectivity.Publication Divorce-Law Changes, Household Bargaining, and Married Women's Labor Supply Revisited(2007-05-10) Stevenson, BetseyDivorce law changes made in the 1970s affected marital formation, dissolution, and bargaining within marriage. By altering the terms of the marital contract these legal changes impacted the incentives for women to enter and remain in the labor force. Whereas earlier work had suggested that the impact of unilateral divorce on female employment depended critically on laws governing property division, I show that these results are not robust to alternative specifications and controls. I find instead that unilateral divorce led to an increase in both married and unmarried female labor force participation, regardless of the underlying property laws.