Publications des chercheurs de PSE

En dépit d’un accès aux soins universel, on observe un gradient de santé dans l’enfance en France, c’est-à-dire une association positive entre le niveau de revenu familial et l’état de santé des enfants. Cette corrélation peut s’interpréter selon deux chaînes causales qui font toutes deux appel à la santé des parents. Dans une première approche, le revenu familial améliorerait la santé des parents, qui elle-même influencerait positivement la santé des enfants. Dans une seconde approche, la santé des parents aurait un effet à la fois sur le revenu familial et la santé des enfants, créant par là-même une corrélation fallacieuse entre revenu et santé des enfants. L’effet des politiques publiques sur la santé des enfants sera différent selon les effets à l’oeuvre. Si le revenu des parents influence la santé des parents qui elle-même agit sur la santé des enfants, alors une politique qui augmente le revenu de certains ménages entraînera une amélioration de la santé des parents puis des enfants. Mais si la corrélation entre revenu et santé des enfants est fallacieuse, alors une politique de hausse de revenu ne se traduira pas par une amélioration de la santé des enfants. De plus, si la santé des parents a un effet causal sur la santé de leur progéniture, toute mesure permettant d’améliorer la santé des parents est susceptible de bénéficier également aux enfants. Cet article utilise les données de l’Enquête Santé et Protection Sociale de 1994-2008 pour étudier les relations entre le revenu familial et plusieurs aspects de la santé des enfants et des parents. Nos résultats suggèrent que le revenu a un impact sur la santé digestive et pondérale des enfants, indépendamment de l’effet de la santé des parents. Ce résultat pointe vers le rôle des conditions de vie dans les inégalités sociales de santé pendant l’enfance.

We measure the effects of the 1993 French pension reform on health, especially the reform has gradually increased the length of the contribution period required to benefit from a full pension, as well as the number of earnings years taken into account to calculate pension benefits. Most importantly, the reform heterogeneously has affected different cohorts of individuals, creating a quasi-experimental framework. Given that this reform concerned only private sector workers, we use the results of a survey on health ran in 2005 and a difference-in-differences analysis to compare health outcomes between two population samples, one composed of private sector workers and another of public sector workers. The results show significant differences between these two samples in two health measures – perceived health and physical health – but concentrated on less-educated individuals exclusively.

En dépit d'un accès aux soins universel, on observe un gradient de santé dans l'enfance en France, c'est-à-dire une association positive entre le niveau de revenu familial et l'état de santé des enfants. Cette corrélation peut s'interpréter selon deux chaînes causales qui font toutes deux appel à la santé des parents. Dans une première approche, le revenu familial améliorerait la santé des parents, qui elle-même influencerait positivement la santé des enfants. Dans une seconde approche, la santé des parents aurait un effet à la fois sur le revenu familial et la santé des enfants, créant par là-même une corrélation fallacieuse entre revenu et santé des enfants. L'effet des politiques publiques sur la santé des enfants sera différent selon les effets à l'œuvre. Si le revenu des parents influence la santé des parents qui elle-même agit sur la santé des enfants, alors une politique qui augmente le revenu de certains ménages entraînera une amélioration de la santé des parents puis des enfants. Mais si la corrélation entre revenu et santé des enfants est fallacieuse, alors une politique de hausse de revenu n'aura aucun impact favorable sur la santé des enfants. En revanche, si la santé des parents a un effet causal sur la santé de leurs enfants, toute mesure permettant d'améliorer la santé des parents est susceptible de bénéficier également aux enfants. Cet article utilise les données de l'Enquête santé et protection sociale (ESPS) de 1994-2008 pour étudier les relations entre le revenu familial et plusieurs aspects de la santé des enfants et des parents. Nos résultats suggèrent que le revenu a un impact sur la santé digestive et pondérale des enfants, indépendamment de l'effet de la santé des parents. Ce résultat pointe vers le rôle des conditions de vie dans les inégalités sociales de santé pendant l'enfance

The role of gender norms in determining women’s and men’s health has been largely overlooked by the economic discipline. This paper is among the first to evaluate the role of social norms on health disparities, a topic that has received limited attention. By combining two European cross-country data sources, I propose a novel approach to measuring gender norms and identifying the causal effect of changes in social norms on individuals’ health. I exploit the European Value Study (EVS) and build time-varying measures of gender norms in the family and the work domains at the country-year level. These measures are then linked with the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) data, which is representative at the older population in Europe. I set up an OLS model, including individuals and time-fixed effects, and investigate the role of norms on health status. I show that stronger traditional gender norms in the family increase women’s depression. I also find that more gendered norms at work decrease women’s reporting of poor health. I disentangle some potential mechanisms to test the precise channel by which the type of norm leads to the selected outcomes: financial difficulties, smoking and drinking are among the most critical drivers. Given that reducing gender health inequalities is crucial for fostering an equitable society, targeting neutral gender norms remains a crucial goal of public policies

This article explores subjective perceptions of retirement in France, using original quantitative data on the customers of a not-for-profit insurance company. The sample contains individuals aged 4084, who are either in the labour force (N=923) or retired (N=705). Perceptions of retirement are measured using closed questions on views of the retirement transition (these views can be positive, negative, or neutral) and definitions of retirement (retirement can be interpreted as a period of freedom, boredom, greater risk of precariousness, etc.). Using a number of different social indicators, we examine whether differences in social conditions translate into heterogeneous perceptions. We also investigate whether social differences in perceptions fade away with increasing age. Both working-age individuals and retirees generally have a positive view of the retirement transition and often define retirement as a period of freedom. Perceptions of retirement are shaped by social conditions: a higher level of education and income, greater wealth, better health, and stronger social involvement go hand in hand with rosier perceptions. Moreover, we uncover a strengthening of this social gradient with increasing age. Finally, perceptions are positively correlated with satisfaction in various domains, for retirees.

We here address the causal relationship between maternal depression and child human capital using UK cohort data. We exploit the conditionally-exogenous variation in mothers' genomes in an instrumental-variable approach, and describe the conditions under which mother's genetic variants can be used as valid instruments. An additional episode of maternal depression between the child's birth up to age nine reduces both their cognitive and non-cognitive skills by 20 to 45% of a SD throughout adolescence. Our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests addressing, among others, concerns about pleiotropy and the maternal transmission of genes to her child.

This paper uses an original telepsychology European survey conducted by the EFPA (European Federation of Psychologists Associations) Project Group in e-Health between March 18th and May 5th, 2020, to consider online practices of psychologists. We set up evidence from France compared with other European countries. First, we observe that France is the European country where psychologists’ perception of the concept of online consultations is the worse. It goes through the lowest rate of specific training concerning online consultations. Also France is the European country where psychologists have the worse experience (after Belgium) with online consultations, prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. Second, we address the issue of determinants of the teleconsultation feelings. We take advantage of this survey panel of 13 European countries that allows us to consider within-country telepractice behaviour. Our results show that a specific training is a key factor for a positive feeling with the concept of online consultation practices. In addition, telepresence (feeling of being connected with one another) and positive overall experience capture the effect of the specific training. French psychologists differ from the other European countries telepsychologists by an absence of specific training effect on the feeling with online consultation that may be explained by the lack of specific training. However, as for European psychologists, French psychologists’ perception of telepractice depends on their level of telepresence and on their overall experience in telepractice.

We analyse a measure of loneliness from a representative sample of German individuals interviewed in both 2017 and at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Both men and women felt lonelier during the COVID-19 pandemic than they did in 2017. The pandemic more than doubled the gender loneliness gap: women were lonelier than men in 2017, and the 2017-2020 rise in loneliness was far larger for women. This rise is mirrored in life-satisfaction scores. Men's life satisfaction changed only little between 2017 and 2020; yet that of women fell dramatically, and sufficiently so to produce a female penalty in life satisfaction. We estimate that almost all of this female penalty is explained by the disproportionate rise in loneliness for women during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We here address the causal relationship between the maternal genetic risk for depression and child human capital using UK birth-cohort data. We find that an increase of one standard deviation (SD) in the maternal polygenic risk score for depression reduces their children's cognitive and non-cognitive skill scores by 5 to 7% of a SD throughout adolescence. Our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests addressing, among others, concerns about pleiotropy and dynastic effects. Our Gelbach decomposition analysis suggests that the strongest mediator is genetic nurture (through maternal depression itself), with genetic inheritance playing only a marginal role.

We use an overlapping generations model to investigate the role of parental health investment and children's schooling on the aggregate level of human capital and inequality. In our model, parental longevity affects children's human capital since it impacts human capital transmission. When poor parents cannot afford to invest in health, poverty traps may arise as human capital levels remain low in the long run. Both health costs and public school quality are crucial in determining whether households fall into the poverty trap. We demonstrate that high-quality schools ensure that successive generations become more educated, eventually attaining a higher human capital steady state. However, public health investments are particularly effective, as they affect household income and schooling and allow for human capital transmission through generations. We calibrate our model for Brazil and Chile and show that our model predicts that a poverty trap will arise in Brazil but not in Chile.

We here show that individual-level economic insecurity, based on the time profle of economic resources, is detrimental to both physical and mental health in long-run Australian panel data. This relationship is found in panel data, comparing an individual’s change in economic security over time to the changes in her health. A heterogeneity analysis reveals that economic insecurity is par-ticularly detrimental to the health of the most-deprived, those over the age of 30, and men rather than women.