Abstract This article investigates the fertility of female immigrants to Europe in relation to the characteristics of individual women (n=1,667), their countries of origin in Africa, Asia and Latin-America (n=68) and the European country where they reside (n=22), using the European Social Survey (ESS) collected between 2010 and 2017 (rounds 5 to 8). Many immigrants have fertility outcomes that converge towards the native fertility of their country of residence in Europe, a surprisingly strong factor. Immigrants from Muslim countries have higher fertility, though, and they compress their fertility over fewer years than immigrants from Christian countries. Multivariate estimates indicate that the effects of fertility rates and religious composition of countries of origin and individual religiousness are of similar magnitude for post-migration fertility rates. The highest fertility outcomes are found among highly religious immigrants from Muslim countries migrating to relatively high fertility countries in Europe at an early fertile age.
This report presents the results of a study of retirement behaviour among Norwegian state employees aged 50 to 70 years. The purpose of the study is to document any trends in the average age of retirement of state employees from 2001 to 2007, map the specific retirement routes used by state employees, and to analyse variation in the timing and choice of retirement route by gender, education level, and between occupational groups and different branches (services) within the state sector. The study draws on data combined from two sources: a governmental employee register and a register for a occupational pension (superannuation) program for state employees. The employee register provides information about all governmental employees by 1st October each year from 2001 to 2007. The occupational pension register provides information about the take up of pensions from 2001 to May 2008. Retirement behaviour is thus investigated over a succession of 12 month periods (from October one year to October the following year) plus the shorter period from October 2007 to May 2008. The obligatory retirement age for most state employees is fixed at the age of 70, but they have a right to retire and take out old age pensions three years earlier from the age of 67. Some groups of state employees face lower age thresholds at 60, 63 or 65, known as special age limits. The option to voluntarily leave three years earlier than the age limit also applies to these groups. The majority of state employees also have the option to leave from age 62 as part of a negotiated early retirement pension program known as AFP, which is more beneficial to take out, however, from age 65. All groups can be granted a disability pension at any age up to 67, when claimants are forced to take out an ordinary old age pension. The analysis applies three types of statistical methods. Survival curves indicate at which age a theoretical cohort leave state employment and/or take up a pension. Average retirement age indicates the average age of those retiring, in terms of leaving employment and taking up a pension. Also discrete time (proportional odds) models indicate how retirement ages have changed and vary between occupational groups and services. This is an alternative method which provides better statistical control for the age composition of the employees and those retiring. Various types of retirement routes are also investigated using competing risk (multi nominal) discrete time models. By and large, the different statistical methods provide consistent results, with a slight exception when comparing state branches/ services and some individual years. The age distribution of state employees is almost uniform from age 50 to 60. The number of employees drops sharply, however, in the age brackets above 60. This drop reflects that many employees start retiring from their early 60s and (in addition) that cohorts born after Wold War II are much larger than those born up to 1945. Survival curves show that some retire already at age 57, typically men working in the police force and the military services. Most other groups can retire only from age 62. More men than women retire before 62 but more men than women also tend to work after 66. Women retire most typically between 62 and 66 years. Surviving curves also show that people retired later in 2006/2007 than in 2001/2002. In particular, fewer people retired in the age bracket 62-64 in 2006/2007 compared to similar age groups five years before. Also average retirement age among retirees and discrete time models indicate that people retired later over the study period. Average retirement age increased from 61.3 in 2001/2002 to 62.4 in 2006/2007. The retirement age increased more strongly among women than men. In 2001/2002 women retired earlier than men, in 2006/2007 women retired later than men did. The analysis distinguishes between 13occupationalgroupsand 22 governmental services. The largest occupational group is 'executive officers', people who are responsible for dealing with various types of applications. Universities and higher education is the largest service. Police and military personnel retire earlier than any other occupational group, whereas university/college teachers and researchers retire latest. Among services, it is also the police who retire earliest whereas the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has the oldest retirees. Linear regression models indicate that the very low retirement age among police and military personnel is explained by the high frequency of special age limits which apply to these groups. Retirement age is positively correlated with education level; people with higher education retire later than people with less education. The high retirement age at universities/ colleges is only partially explained, however, by the high education level in this service. Retirement age vary more between occupational groups than between services. This is even more clearly when analysing both factors in a single statistical model. Much of the occupational level variation is explained by special retirement ages, however, which tends to be granted to occupational groups rather than services. Some occupational level variation is also explained by education level. When controlling for special retirement ages and education level, occupational level and service level variations are of similar magnitude. The composition of occupational groups changed over the study period. This compositional change in occupations can help explain why average retirement age increased in the period. This factor can only explain a minor part of the increased retirement age, however, estimated to 24%. Also increased education level could contribute to higher retirement age but this factor appears to work via the changing composition of occupations. Retirement age developed differently within occupational groups and services. Clerks delayed their retirement more strongly than any other occupational group. But this groups was also substantially reduces in numbers, and may not be fully comparable throughout the fire year period. Also executive officers, advisers (in governmental departments), and university/ college teachers and researchers increased their retirement age substantially. Technicians and military personnel were the only occupational groups reducing their retirement age. Retirement age also developed differently between services but these results tend to be sensitive to variation between individual years. Still, the Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV), the Public Road Administration and governmental departments increased their retirement age substantially over the period. The data cannot fully identify all available types of retirement in terms of pension programs, and even less so when analysing how retirement changed over the study period. Disability retirement has seemingly decreased more strongly over the study period than the take up of other pensions. One should be careful to note here that some services, particularly many manual jobs, were privatized and moved out of the governmental sector during the study period. Some employees continue working also after taking up a pension, typically known as flexible retirement. Before 62 years of age such flexibility is more frequent among women than men, typically by combining a 50% disability pension with a 50% job. Above 62 years the gender gap in flexible retirement narrows. Flexible retirement increased over the study period. There is only moderate variation in flexible retirement between occupational groups and services. The report investigates retirement behaviour using various methods, including the average retirement age among retirees and discrete time (proportional odds) models for everyone at risk for retirement.By and largethe twomethods give similar results, particularly when comparing occupational groups (adjusted r=0.965). There is some variation between the two methods, however, when comparing governmental services (adjusted r=0.85). ; Rapporten beskriver pensjoneringsatferden blant statsansatte mellom 50 og 70 års alder i perioden 2001 til 2008 med data fra Statens tjenestemannsregister og Statens Pensjonskasse. Analysene gjør bruk av overlevelseskurver, gjennomsnittlig avgangsalder blant de som gikk av med pensjon, og diskrettids forløpsmodeller som også tar hensyn til antallet ansatte i hvert alderstrinn. Disse metodene gir stort sett sammenfallende resultater. Avgangsalderen økte relativt jevnt gjennom perioden fra 2001 til 2008. Det ble også vanligere å kombinere pensjon med arbeid i denne perioden. Avgangsalderen økte mer blant kvinner enn menn. Avgangsalderen varierer mellom yrkesgrupper og etater, og yrkesvariasjonen er større enn etatsvariasjonen. Grunnen er at særaldersgrenser og utdanningsnivå varierer mer mellom yrker enn mellom etater. Endringer i yrkessammensetningen kan bidra til å forklare en mindre del av den økte avgangsalderen i perioden. Avgangsalderen viser noe ulik utvikling over tid mellom yrkesgrupper og etater.
AbstractThis paper investigates how enhanced support for foster parents, such as covering fees and providing consultants and relief, may reduce the number of replacements experienced by children in foster care. It also investigates the extent to which replacements are associated with family (kin) vs. non‐family foster parents, or with legal characteristics of the placement (i.e. forced administrative decisions vs. relief measures agreed upon by the parents). Statistical analyses of administrative data from Norway investigated the longitudinal relationships between these characteristics and the number of replacements at two levels – children (N = 16 109) and municipalities (N = 418) – over 5 years (2007–2011). The results reveal modest associations between enhanced support and fewer replacements; for example, replacement rates are lower for children placed in homes of kin than in non‐family homes. Replacements also tend to be fewer when the placement is forced rather than consensual.
The article investigates the impact of being unemployed on political marginalisation among young people. Are unemployed youth politically marginalised compared with employed youth? Is the impact of unemployment on political marginalisation related to the development of the welfare state? Based on Marshall's concept of social citizenry, and Esping‐Andersen's theory of decommodification politics, the impact of unemployment on political marginalisation was expected to be least in the most‐developed welfare states. In these countries, welfare policies were expected to counteract marginalisation among the unemployed. The analyses were based on the Eurobarometer survey Young Europeans from 1990. Three aspects of political marginalisation were investigated: political confidence, political interest and political extremism. Unemployed youth express less confidence in politics, they talk less about politics and they more frequently support revolutionary political ideas, compared with employed youth. The greatest difference in political confidence between unemployed and employed is found in Great Britain, while Italy represents a deviant case where the unemployed have more confidence than the employed. The development of the welfare state does not appear to be a crucial factor for political confidence among the unemployed.
The Great Recession of 2008 has led to elevated unemployment in Europe and thereby revitalised the question of causal health effects of unemployment. This article applies fixed effects regression models to longitudinal panel data drawn from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions for 28 European countries from 2008 to 2011, in order to investigate changes in self-rated health around the event of becoming unemployed. The results show that the correlation between unemployment and health is partly due to a decrease in self-rated health as people enter unemployment. Such health changes vary by country of domicile, and by individual age; older workers have a steeper decline than younger workers. Health changes after the unemployment spell reveal no indication of adverse health effects of unemployment duration. Overall, this study indicates some adverse health effects of unemployment in Europe – predominantly among older workers. ; "NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Social Science & Medicine. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Tøge, A. G., & Blekesaune, M. (2015). Unemployment transitions and self-rated health in Europe: A longitudinal analysis of EU-SILC from 2008 to 2011. Social Science & Medicine, 143, 171-178. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.08.040"
