There have been significant changes in both the fertility rates and fertility perception since 1970s. In this paper, we examine the relationship between government policies towards fertility and the fertility trends. Total fertility rate, defined as the number of children per woman, is used as...

The first pandemic of the 21st century has brought Pyrrhic attention to one of the era’s greatest megatrends – population ageing. Today rich countries are disproportionately affected but increasingly the world’s elderly are residents of developing countries. In rich and poor countries...

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread disruptions to education, with school closures affecting over one billion children. These closures, aimed at reducing virus transmission, resulted in significant learning losses, particularly in mathematics and science. Using data from TIMSS 2023, which...

This paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the returns to education in the United States. Using data from the Current Population Survey 2011-2022, the analysis reveals that, after a period of decline, returns to education increased significantly because of COVID, particularly...

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread disruptions to education, with school closures affecting over one billion children. These closures, aimed at reducing virus transmission, resulted in significant learning losses, particularly in mathematics and science. Using United States data from TIMSS,...

Providing income support to unemployed education-leavers reduces the returns to investments in education because it makes the consequences of unemployment less severe. We evaluate a two-part policy reform in Belgium to study whether conditioning the prospective entitlement to unemployment...

Nozick's "utility monster" - a being who is more efficient than other persons at transforming resources into well-being - is often regarded as deeply impossible, on the ground of the incapacity of a single person to have a life that is better than a large number of other lives. In this article,...

Across European Union (EU) labor markets, immigrant and native populations exhibit disparate labor market outcomes, signifying widespread labor market hierarchies. While significant resources have been invested in migration and integration policies, it remains unclear whether these contribute to...

Low healthcare quality has been found to predict the development of several illnesses in older adults, while the evidence on dementia is still lacking. This study assesses whether and to what extent experiencing low healthcare quality can be associated with developing dementia in people...

We contribute to the long-standing debate on the Italian North-South divide by assessing the impact of public spending on social infrastructure - including education, healthcare, childcare and social assistance - on the gender employment gap over the last two decades, using a PSVAR analysis....