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The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) represents a large increase in background risk for individuals. Like the COVID-19 pandemic, extreme events (e.g. financial downturns, natural disasters, and war) have been shown to change attitudes towards risk. Using a risk apportionment approach, we examine whether risk aversion as well as higher order risk attitudes (HORAs) (prudence and temperance) have changed during COVID-19. This methodology allows us to measure model-free HORAs. We include prudence and temperance as higher order measures, as these two have been largely understudied under extreme events but are determinants of decisions related to the health and financial domains. Once we account for socio-demographic characteristics, we find an overall increase in risk aversion during COVID-19. We also find similar results using a hypothetical survey question which measures willingness to take risks. We do not find changes in prudence and temperance using the risk apportionment methodology.

Background: Nurses face the risk of new onset occupational asthma (OA) due to exposures to cleaning and disinfection (C&D) agents used to prevent infections in healthcare facilities. The objective of this study was to measure nurses’ preferences when presented with simultaneous OA and respiratory viral infection (e.g., COVID-19) risks related to increased/decreased C&D activities. Methods: Nurses working in healthcare for ≥1 year and without physician-diagnosed asthma were recruited for an online anonymous survey, including four risk–risk tradeoff scenarios between OA and respiratory infection with subsequent recovery (Infect and Recovery) or subsequent death (Infect and Death). Nurses were presented with baseline risks at hypothetical “Hospital 1”, and were asked to choose Hospital 2 (increased OA risk to maintain infection risk), Hospital 3 (increased infection risk to maintain OA risk), or indicate that they were equally happy. Results: Over 70% of nurses were willing to increase infection risk to maintain baseline OA risk if they were confident they would recover from the infection. However, even when the risk of infection leading to death was much lower than OA, most nurses were not willing to accept a larger (but still small) risk of death to avoid doubling their OA risk. Age, work experience, and ever having contracted or knowing anyone who has contracted a respiratory viral infection at work influenced choices. Conclusions: We demonstrate the novel application of a risk–risk tradeoff framework to address an occupational health issue. However, more data are needed to test the generalizability of the risk preferences found in this specific risk–risk tradeoff context.

Many aspects of asthma-in particular the relationship between beliefs, averting behaviors, and symptoms-are not directly observable from market data. An approach that combines observable market data with nonmarket valuation to gather data on unobservable aspects of the illness can improve efforts to quantify the burden of asthma if it accounts for the endogeneity in the system. Such approaches are used in the valuation of recreation but have not been widely used to value the burden of a chronic illness. We estimate parents' willingness to pay (WTP) to reduce their child's asthma symptoms using a three-equation model that combines revealed preference, contingent valuation, and burden of asthma, increasing the efficiency of estimation and correcting for endogeneity. WTP for a device that reduces a child's asthma symptoms by 50% is $125/month (s.d. $20). Parents' valuations are driven by beliefs about asthma and by their degree of worry about asthma between episodes. There is a nonlinear relationship between the number of days with symptoms and WTP per symptom day. The experience of living with asthma affects families' responses to a contingent valuation scenario, because it influences willingness to spend money to manage the illness and their subjective perceptions and beliefs about the illness itself.

Influenza seasons can be unpredictable and have the potential to rapidly affect populations, especially in crowded areas. Prior research suggests that normative messaging can be used to increase voluntary provision of public goods, such as the influenza vaccine. We extend the literature by examining the influence of normative messaging on the decision to get vaccinated against influenza.We conduct a field experiment in conjunction with University Health Services, targeting undergraduate students living on campus. We use four posters, randomized by living area clusters to advertise flu vaccination clinics during the Fall. The wording on the posters is varied to emphasize the individual benefits of the vaccine, the social benefits of the vaccine or both benefits together. We collect survey data for those vaccinated at the vaccination clinics, and for those not vaccinated via an online survey.We find that any normative message increases the percentage of students getting the flu vaccine compared with no message. In terms of the likelihood of getting the flu vaccine, emphasizing both the individual and social benefits of vaccination has the largest increase in the vaccination rate (19-20 percentage point increase). However, flu vaccinations did not reach the herd immunity threshold (70% of students vaccinated).This study provides evidence that there is a pro-social component that is relevant in individual vaccination decisions which should be accounted for when designing vaccination campaigns. The results of this normative, pro-social messaging experiment could be extended to other at-risk communities where the number of background risks is much larger. This is especially relevant nowadays, as other seasonal vaccines are being rolled out and younger adults are the ones with the lowest uptake.

El ocio es una condición humana relacionada con el uso discrecional del tiempo de una manera gratificante, lo que contribuye al bienestar individual. Las personas deciden participar en las actividades culturales para disfrutar de experiencias agradables. Estas pueden explicarse al tener en cuenta el tipo de acceso: asistencia en vivo, consumo en el hogar y por la práctica de la comunidad. Se encontró un efecto positivo de las actividades culturales sobre los niveles de felicidad, efecto que es mayor al asistir al cine y menor al ver televisión.

Using micro-data from the Social Security Corporation (SSC), we analyse the dynamics of social security coverage in the Jordanian labour force. We characterise patterns of contribution densities and transition rates and fit survival models for transitions. We also simulate pension rights. We compare patterns in the Jordanian SSC and in social security programmes in three Latin American countries for which a similar analysis has been conducted. We find comparatively low contribution densities and transition rates in Jordan, which is consistent with low coverage and low turnover rates. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The main objective of the paper is the analysis of intergenerational or cultural transmission of religious values during adolescence in order to explain interpersonal trust and confidence in institutions in adulthood. Trust and confidence in institutions outcomes are examined using the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 2008 Religion III survey. Overall, the results are in line with previous literature: religious intensity and educational attainment are significantly and positively correlated with trust and confidence in institutions. When instrumental variables are used, the results suggest that religious engagement does not significantly explain interpersonal trust though it is significantly related to confidence in institutions.

Well-being, measured as self-reported happiness has many determinants, which range from gender to income and political affiliation. When it comes to more or less active ways of participating in cultural activities, leisure has a significant impact in the levels of reported happiness, which is in line with the proposed ideas of Stiglitz et al (2009). We also quantify the likelihood of being more or less happy in relation to different types of leisure activities. Our approach has the advantage that all these cultural activities can be considered at the same time, accounting for the individual impact of each on individual happiness levels.

A change in the syllabus of the subject “Mathematic Fundamentals for Social Sciences”, a mandatory subject belonging to the first semester of the general education level of all bachelors at the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República. The change also brought an important decrease in the rates of approval. As a way of increasing the assistance and encouraging the students, several math support courses were created in 2011, as well as a propaedeutic course in the week before the start of class, which includes a diagnostic test. After two years of applying this test, we have information to present initial results of the situation of the students. The tests show that the levels of mathematical knowledge with which students enter the university are extremely and worryingly low. During 2013 we also included a socioeconomic and education-related test in order to cross the results of the diagnostic test. This would help us validate or refute an initial premise: non-Montevideo students as well as students who have not taken math courses in the last years have obtained the worst results. The second objective is to sensitize teachers in charge of humanistic college-related courses about the importance of mathematics within the Social Sciences.

There is a wide debate worldwide, and particularly in Latin America with respect to citizen insecurity and the proliferation of more punitive claims from the society itself. In this article we analyze the attitude of the citizens belonging to the countries of the Latin American South Cone towardsmaintaining the law regarding persecuting and punishing criminals. In particular, we tackle the approval of vigilante justice in some circumstances and the justification of police procedures outside the law as a form of guaranteeing the capture of criminals. For this, we use the LAPOP (Latin American Public Opinion Project, Vanderbilt University) database from the year 2008. Analyzing the data using probit estimations, we observe that the approval of vigilante justice is related to the experience and particular situation of the respondent. In this sense, having beenvictimized in the last months and feeling unsafe in his or her own neighborhood increase the probability of taking that position regarding vigilantism. On the other side, sticking to police procedures is more strongly related to the general political beliefs and the level of concern for the respondents' insecurity. These findings indicate that the formation of these beliefs has a differential dynamic and that when actions outside the law have to be justified, this is distinguished based on the type of involved action and the actorwho carries it forward.

The use of moderate physical violence while raising children is an extended practice, accepted as a disciplinary measure. Nevertheless, there is evidence that these practices during childhood produce negative effects in different areas of adult life. This motivates the analysis of the intergenerational transmission of this conduct. We used the survey Encuesta de Situaciones Familiares carried out in 2007 funded by the Research and Innovation National Agency in Uruguay (ANII) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The main purpose of the ESF was to gather information about marriage and divorce, work, fertility, work, child-rearing and children's welfare outcomes, including education, health, and psycho-social development. In our study for the Uruguayan case, we find that for women, the experience of physical punishment during childhood increases the probability of having similar attitudes when raising one's children. This probability increases when the woman has a positive attitude towards punishment as a disciplinary measure. We do not find similar effects of past experiences in the case of men.

Pro-environmental conducts are different from pro-environmental opinions, given the fact that there is not a strict relationship between meaning something and acting according to those principles. The aim of this paper is to examine the attitudinal factors which determine the concern for the environment as well as four environmentally friendly behaviors, while trying to account for the heterogeneity of pro-environment attitudes. What we found is there is a set of characteristics which determine the willingness to take pro-environmental actions: women, marriage, higher education, public employment, higher levels of religiosity, having a left-party ideology and belonging to a trade union are positively correlated with environmentally friendly behaviors. Younger individuals tend to take more environmentally friendly actions compared to older respondents. In general, attitudes and behaviors do not differ between groups of countries. In a second stage, we studied the joint effects of expressing concern and taking environmentally friendly attitudes.

We assess redistribution in the main Uruguayan pension and unemployment insurance programs on a lifetime basis. Using administrative records from Social Security, we simulate lifetime declared labor income and flows of contributions and benefits to affiliates to the programs. Expected present values of income and net flows are also computed. Equipped with these estimations, we construct standard measures of distribution and redistribution of lifetime labor income through the Social Security system. Our findings suggest that these programs reduce income inequality. In particular, Social Security reduces the Gini coefficient of expected lifetime formal labor income by almost 2 percentage points.

In this paper, we project the size of the national labour force as well as the educational attainment of the talent pool up to 2050 in two countries: Saudi Arabia and the UAE. This will help us quantify the magnitude of the challenge faced by these countries in terms of local labour sourcing, job creation, appropriateness of the skill mix and unemployment. Projections allow for an estimate of the potential local talent pool from which companies would be able to recruit; and will enable businesses to better identify the markets they would like to be involved in, the skill mix that is available and the wage rates to expect.An overview of the GCC labour market is introduced in section 2. The estimation methodology is described in section 3. Section 4 reports the projection estimates. Section 5 discusses the implications of these results. The data is described in the Appendix.

Public pension schemes are most often discussed from a social welfare and public policy point of view. Nevertheless, the design of public pensions should also be taken into close consideration by companies planning and designing private pension plans for their employees. Social security and private pensions are both very important parts of retirement resources for the vast majority of the population and the adequacy of these resources thus depends not only on the generosity of social security but also on the financial commitment employers choose to make to private arrangements. In this sense, private pensions come to complement social security benefits and, in many cases, they are either explicitly or implicitly integrated with public provision. In many countries, private pension designers consider projected social security benefits and contributions when defining their overall benefit strategy. It is vital, nevertheless, that more employers take into account the specificities of first pillar pensions in each country so as to develop benefit packages that complement social security benefits effectively. Accordingly, in the following paper we will examine and analyze social security systems across eight developed nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, UK and US). We have based our comparison on three key aspects: the generosity of state benefits; whether the focus rests on the insurance or redistributive role of social security; and the long term sustainability of public pensions. We will show that the way in which these aspects are defined and interact have different implications in terms of how companies plan and design the retirement benefits offered to employees.

Over the coming decades migration rates are not expected to compensate for the negative effect of low fertility rates in Germany. The size of the population and its workforce supply, particularly in terms of skilled workers, will decline. This might affect companies recruiting in the German labour market. Based on the current demographic scenario, and using dynamic models, the population with tertiary education in Germany could decline by 650,000 over the next four decades.

The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), along with the Eastern European region, constitute a major source of skilled labor for multinational companies (MNCs). The BRICs created 22 million jobs each year in the first five years of this millennium, compared with 3.7 million in the OECD area, and employment to population ratios have also improved in the Eastern Europe region, reaching 63.8 percent for men and 45.6 percent for women in 2007. But despite these headline numbers, questions remain about whether workforce qualifications in these countries are good enough to ensure a successful offshoring strategy. The purpose of this report is to shed light on some of the problems that a multinational company might face while recruiting to set up and expand operations in these locations, or when developing a long-term development plan in the offshored country. Key problems that an MNC may face include a lack of proficiency in foreign languages and business skills, a bias towards male employment and constraints regarding internal geographical mobility. For this reason, companies must thoroughly assess these issues to establish and compare the advantages and disadvantages of a particular offshoring location as part of developing a successful outsourcing strategy.