78 research outputs found

    Breadwinner or caregiver? - how household role affectslabor choices in Mexico

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    Recent volatility in the Mexican economy, has required households to alter patterns of participation in the labor force, voluntarily or not. The author uses panel data to examine patterns of labor force entry among adult men, and women with different household responsibilities, asking whether gender is a primary determinant, shaping these patterns. She finds that labor supply patterns are driven more by household role, than by gender. Heads of households, regardless of sex, behave similarly. Women who have neither spouses, nor children behave more like men, than like married women. They are also more likely than any other group to have inflexible, higher-paying jobs in the formal sector - which raises the question: Do employers discriminate, based on gender, or on household structure? She also detects a strong added-worker effect among secondary workers, a result not detected in the labor markets of developed countries that have social insurance programs. Finally she finds that wives'choice of sector during downturns, is subject to the households'earning needs, that husbands use informal wage, or contract employment as an employer of last resort, only in response to negative income shocks to the household, and that single mothers do not select the informal sector over the formal sector in response to either expected, or realized negative income shocks. The policy implications? Interventions that target women aren't necessarily appropriate, because women are heterogeneous. And programs that aid household heads - male or female - should be directed toward employment that will last beyond the economic shock.Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Markets,Educational Policy and Planning,Labor Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Labor Markets,Educational Policy and Planning,Health Monitoring&Evaluation

    Prime pairs and the zeta function

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    AbstractAre there infinitely many prime pairs with given even difference? Most mathematicians think so. Using a strong arithmetic hypothesis, Goldston, Pintz and Yildirim have recently shown that there are infinitely many pairs of primes differing by at most sixteen.There is extensive numerical support for the prime-pair conjecture (PPC) of Hardy and Littlewood [G.H. Hardy, J.E. Littlewood, Some problems of ‘partitio numerorum’. III: On the expression of a number as a sum of primes, Acta Math. 44 (1923) 1–70 (sec. 3)] on the asymptotic behavior of π2r(x), the number of prime pairs (p,p+2r) with p≤x. Assuming Riemann’s Hypothesis (RH), Montgomery and others have studied the pair-correlation of zeta’s complex zeros, indicating connections with the PPC. Using a Tauberian approach, the author shows that the PPC is equivalent to specific boundary behavior of a function involving zeta’s complex zeros. A certain hypothesis on equidistribution of prime pairs, or a speculative supplement to Montgomery’s work on pair-correlation, would imply that there is an abundance of prime pairs

    Longevity Is Impacted By Growth Hormone Action During Early Postnatal Period

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    Life-long lack of growth hormone (GH) action can produce remarkable extension of longevity in mice. Here we report that GH treatment limited to a few weeks during development influences the lifespan of long-lived Ames dwarf and normal littermate control mice in a genotype and sex-specific manner. Studies in a separate cohort of Ames dwarf mice show that this short period of the GH exposure during early development produces persistent phenotypic, metabolic and molecular changes that are evident in late adult life. These effects may represent mechanisms responsible for reduced longevity of dwarf mice exposed to GH treatment early in life. Our data suggest that developmental programming of aging importantly contributes to (and perhaps explains) the well documented developmental origins of adult disease

    Intrinsic and extrinsic mortality reunited

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    Intrinsic and extrinsic mortality are often separated in order to understand and measure aging. Intrinsicmortality is assumed to be a result of aging and to increase over age,whereas extrinsic mortality is assumed to be a result of environmental hazards and be constant over age. However, allegedly intrinsic and extrinsic mortality have an exponentially increasing age pattern in common. Theories of aging assert that a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic stressors underlies the increasing risk of death. Epidemiological and biological data support that the control of intrinsic as well as extrinsic stressors can alleviate the aging process. We argue that aging and death can be better explained by the interaction of intrinsic and extrinsic stressors than by classifying mortality itself as being either intrinsic or extrinsic. Recognition of the tight interaction between intrinsic and extrinsic stressors in the causation of aging leads to the recognition that aging is not inevitable, but malleable through the environmentWetensch. publicati
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