We spend about one-third of our life sleeping, which is essential for our physical and mental health. Research verified that both too much and too little sleep is associated with poor health, while the “golden mean” seems to be ideal. In general, sleep time forms a U-shaped curve over the...

Abstract This paper focuses on the shortage in health workforce, its causes and its consequences. The implied mobility is also introduced. Series of issues are introduced to better capture the global prospects facing the health system. A literature review survey on the above dimensions is the...

Retirement system reforms such as postponing retirement age in law are needed in China because of its rapid population aging. The overquick aging will result in both shortage of labor force supply and incubus of the social security system. The Chinese government acknowledged the negative...

The Federal Planning Bureau has a long tradition in providing long-term projections focused on the evolution of social expenditure within an overall framework of public finance, using the MALTESE system of models. This outlook is based on different scenarios: demographic, socio-economic,...

I study the impact of a universal child benefit on fertility and family well-being. I exploit the unanticipated introduction of a new, sizeable, unconditional child benefit in Spain in 2007, granted to all mothers giving birth on or after July 1, 2007. The regression discontinuity-type design...

Training (for workers) and innovation (for workplaces) are not free lunches. From the viewpoint of the firm, training is also highly risky, because there is uncertainty over the size of any future returns from employer-provided training. Stylized facts stress that constraints in achieving...

China experiences an increasingly severe relative surplus of men in the pre-marital age cohort. The existing literature on its consequences focuses mostly on negative aspects such as crime. In this paper, we provide evidence that the imbalance may also stimulate economic growth by inducing more...

Using data from the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY-97), we examine the effects of California's paid family leave program (CA-PFL) on mothers' and fathers' use of leave during the period surrounding child birth, and on the timing of mothers' return to work, the...

Taking off from the self-evident fact that the population variable centrally figures in both labor and product markets, this paper argues that the growth rate of population, its age structure and spatial distribution should be key considerations in a country’s development strategy to promote...