http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/28424/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37311/ 2012-05-21T00:00:00Z We apply the theory of inequality in opportunity to measure inequity in mortality. Our empirical work is based on a rich dataset for the Netherlands (1998-2007), linking information about mortality, health events and lifestyles. We show that distinguishing between different channels via which mortality is affected is necessary to test the sensitivity of the results with respect to different normative positions. Moreover, our model allows for a comparison of the inequity in simulated counterfactual situations, including an evaluation of policy measures. We explicitly make a distinction between inequity in mortality risks and inequity in mortality outcomes. The treatment of this difference - “luck”- has a crucial in‡uence on the results. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/26527/ 2011-10-01T00:00:00Z Ill-health can be expected to reduce employment and income. But are the effects sustained over time? Do they differ across the income distribution? And are there spillover effects on the employment and income of the spouse? We use matching combined with difference-in-differences to identify the causal effects of sudden illness, represented by acute hospitalisations, on employment and income up to six years after the health shock using linked Dutch hospital and tax register data. On average, an acute hospital admission lowers the employment probability by seven percentage points and results in a 5% loss of personal income (30% for those entering disability insurance) two years after the shock. There is no subsequent recovery in either employment or income. The distribution of ill-health contributes to income inequality: a health shock is both more likely to occur and to have a larger relative impact on employment and income at the bottom of the income distr ibution. There are large spillover effects: household income falls by 50% more than the income of the disabled person, and the employment probability of the spouse is reduced by 1.5 percentage points. The negative spousal employment effect is larger for male than for female spouses and in higher income households. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/25710/ 2011-08-01T00:00:00Z This paper examines the impact of coinsurance exemption for prescription medicines applied to elderly individuals in Spain after retirement. To evaluate this coinsurance change we use a rich administrative dataset that links pharmaceutical consumption and hospital discharge records for the full population aged 58 to 65 in January 2004 covered by the public insurer in a Spanish region and we follow them until December 2006. We use a difference-in-differences strategy and exploit the eligibility age for Social Security to control for the endogeneity of the retirement decision. Our most conservative results show that the uniform exemption from pharmaceutical copayment granted to retired people in Spain increases the consumption of prescription medicines on average by 9.5%, total pharmaceutical expenditure by 15.2% and the costs borne by the insurer by 47.5%, without evidence of any offset effect in the form of reduced hospitalization. The impact is concentrated among individuals who were consumers of medicines for acute and other non-chronic diseases with a previous coinsurance rate in the range 30% to 40%. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22759/ 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z Informal care is today the form of support most commonly used in Spain by those who need help in order to carry out basic daily activities. The potential labour opportunity costs incurred by Spanish informal carers have not as yet been quantified. In this paper we use the Spanish subsample of the European Community Household Panel (1994-2001) to estimate an econometric model which we exploit to examine the effects of various types of informal care on labour market outcomes. Our results reveal the existence of non-negligible costs in terms of foregone employment for carers who live with the dependent person and/or provide more than 28 h of care/week. We also find that providing care for more than a year has negative effects on employment. Nonetheless, there seems to be no contemporaneous employment effects associated to either starting or ending an episode of care. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/26870/ 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z This paper investigates the relationship between health shocks and labour market outcomes in 9 European countries using the European Community Household Panel. Matching techniques are used to control for the non-experimental nature of the data. The results suggest that there is a significant causal effect from health on the probability of employment: individuals who incur a health shock are significantly more likely to leave employment and transit into disability. The estimates differ across countries, with the largest employment effects being found in The Netherlands, Denmark, Spain and Ireland, and the smallest in France and Italy. Differences in social security arrangements help to explain these cross-country differences. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/16281/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z This paper analyses the role of health on exits out of and entries into employment using data from the first twelve waves of the British Household Panel Survey (1991-2002). We use discrete-time duration models to estimate the effect of health on the hazard of becoming non-employed and on the hazard of becoming employed. The results show that general health, measured by a variable that captures health limitations and by a constructed latent health index, affects entries into and exits out of employment; the effects being higher for men than for women. The results are robust to different definitions of employment, and to the exclusion of older workers from the analysis. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/20997/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z We examine the role of health as a determinant of labour force participation, paying particular attention to the link between the two provided by disability insurance schemes. We first review the evidence on associations between health and labour force participation. Enrolment in disability insurance is not determined by health alone, and we highlight the main other causes that the literature has identified. In an application to The Netherlands, we follow the structure of the literature review and show that the trends in health and disability insurance enrolment look rather positive. In particular, the 1990 reforms of disability insurance might have been more effective than previously realised because part of their success was hidden by demographic change: The large number of baby boomers kept the absolute inflow high as they aged, despite large reductions in relative rates.