Search results for "demographic"
showing 10 items of 603 documents
The use of e-government services and the Internet: The role of socio-demographic, economic and geographical predictors
2013
This article explores the use of e-government services from the perspective of digital divides. First, it aims to find out which socio-demographic, economic and geographical factors predict the use of e-government services. Second, the article aims to show whether these factors moderate the way in which the time spent on the Internet is associated with the use of e-government services. The article is based on survey data (N=612) collected in Finland in May–June 2011 and is analysed by using a logistic regression modelling. Results show that gender and income moderate the link between the Internet and e-government service use. The more that women use the Internet, the more they use the gover…
Urban segregation and unemployment: A case study of the urban area of Marseille – Aix-en-Provence (France)
2018
International audience; In this paper, we study the effects of the spatial organization of the urban area of Marseille – Aix-en-Provence on unemployment there. More specifically, differences in the characteristics of the residential population induce urban stratification with the result that urban structure may affect the probability of employment. In order to evaluate the effects of spatial structure on unemployment, we implement a spatial probit model to reveal the employment probabilities of young adults still living with their parents. Our results support the hypothesis that living in or near a deprived neighborhood decreases the probability of employment.
An international cohort comparison of size effects on job growth
2015
The contribution of different-sized businesses to job creation continues to attract policymakers’ attention, however, it has recently been recognized that conclusions about size were confounded with the effect of age. We probe the role of size, controlling for age, by comparing the cohorts of firms born in 1998 over their first decade of life, using variation across half a dozen northern European countries Austria, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the UK to pin down size effects. We find that a very small proportion of the smallest firms play a crucial role in accounting for cross-country differences in job growth. A closer analysis reveals that the initial size distribution and surviv…
Financial development and intergenerational education mobility
2018
Using years of education as a measure of status, we study the relationship between financial development and intergenerational mobility, focusing on human capital investments boosted by financial deepening. We consider a set of indices to capture different components of the overall intergenerational education mobility. Using a sample of 39 countries, we find that financial development is related to structural mobility but not to exchange mobility. In particular, while we detect an inverted U-shaped relationship between financial development and structural mobility, we do not find any significant relationship with exchange mobility. Keywords: Intergenerational mobility, Financial development…
Gender-specific Call of Duty: A Note on the Neglect of Conscription in Gender Equality Indices
2022
We document that existing gender equality indices do not account for gender-specific mandatory peace-time conscription (compulsory military service). This suggests that gender-specific conscription is not considered to be an important gender issue. If an indicator measuring the gender equality of mandatory conscription was to be included in gender equality indices with appropriate weight, then the relative rankings of countries in terms of measured gender equality could be affected. In the context of the Nordic countries, this would mean that Finland and Denmark – the countries with mandatory conscription for men only – would have worse scores with respect to gender equality compared to Swe…
Inequality and education in pre-industrial economies: Evidence from Spain
2018
Abstract This article contributes to the debate on institutions and economic development by examining the historical link between land access inequality and education. Using information from the 464 districts existent in mid-19th century Spain, this paper confirms that there is a negative relationship between the fraction of farm labourers and male literacy rates. This result does not disappear when a large set of potential confounding factors are included in the analysis. The use of the Reconquest as a quasi-natural experiment allows us to rule out further concerns about potential endogeneity. In addition, controlling for different sources of spatial dependence does not explain away this r…
Two stories, one fate: age-heaping and literacy in Spain, 1877-1930
2021
This study looks at human capital in Spain during the early stages of modern economic growth. In order to do so, we have assembled a new dataset on ageheaping and literacy in Spain for both men and women between 1877 and 1930 based on six population censuses with information for 49 provinces. Our results show that age-heaping was less prevalent during the second half of the 19th century than previously thought and did not decrease until the early twentieth century. By contrast, literacy increased throughout the whole period. Interestingly, age-heaping and illiteracy rates depict similar spatial patterns which confirm the stark differences in human capital within Spain. Lastly, we raise crit…
The importance of consecutive spells of poverty: a path-dependent index of longitudinal poverty
2011
In this paper we propose a new index of individual poverty in the longitudinal perspective, taking into account the way poverty and non-poverty spells follow one another along individual life courses. The Poverty Persistence Index (PPI) is based on all the pairwise distances between the waves of poverty. The PPI is normalized and it assigns a higher degree of (longitudinal) poverty to people who experience poverty in consecutive, rather than separated, periods, for whom the distances from the poverty line are larger along time and moreover, when the worst years are consecutive and/or recent. We also propose an aggregate index of persistence in poverty (APPI) in order to measure the distribu…
Measuring well-being in Colombian departments. The role of geography and demography
2021
This paper provides a composite indicator of well-being for the 33 Colombian departments in the year 2016. The indicator is built by adapting the well-known OECD Better Life Index to the regional level, and includes the dimensions of income, health, education, safety, housing, environment, labour market, and civic engagement and governance. As to the methodology, Data Envelopment Analysis and Multi-Criteria Decision-Making techniques are employed, an approach which enables a comparison of well-being across departments and the construction of rankings. The results yield several take-away messages. First, there are substantial disparities in well-being across Colombian departments. Second, de…
Regional inequalities, economic crises and policies: an international panel analysis
2021
This paper examines the effects of economic downturns on regional inequalities. In a sample of 25 OECD countries for 1990–2014 period, we show that economic downturns are associated with a significant and long-lasting reduction in regional inequalities. Expansionary fiscal policy as well as higher share of the European development (cohesion) funds facilitate the response of lagging regions to negative nation-wide shocks, contributing to further stimulate the reduction in regional disparities. Additional evidence suggests that the effect of downturns tends to be larger in economies with a higher initial level of regional disparities in unemployment and human capital endowment.