Research
Research
Abstract: Health screenings are potentially powerful tools to mitigate adverse health and labour outcomes. We conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the labour market and health effects of a diabetes warning in a country that has not introduced such a screening system. Using data from over 160,000 participants in Lifelines, a Dutch cohort study, and a multidimensional regression discontinuity design, we estimate the short- and long-run impacts of a diabetes risk warning. Individuals under 40 increase their employment rate following a warning, with effects that are especially pronounced and persistent for women. These employment gains are accompanied by improvements in self-reported health among women and reduced smoking among men. Among older individuals, the responses are more heterogeneous: Women are more likely to retire and reduce alcohol consumption, while men are less likely to receive disability benefits and more likely to visit their general practitioner in the short term. Our findings provide novel evidence that health information can influence labour market outcomes through gender- and age-specific behavioural adjustments.
Other work in progress
Abstract: A central debate in the literature on reproductive rights concerns the relative importance of different contraceptive technologies—most notably the contraceptive pill and abortion—in shaping women’s life-cycle outcomes. Existing evidence is largely based on the United States, where overlapping reforms limit the ability to separately identify their effects. This paper studies the Netherlands, where early access to the pill for minors was introduced in 1970, while abortion was legalized only in 1984. Exploiting this institutional separation and provincial variation in religious opposition to contraception, I estimate the effects of early access to the pill and abortion using linked administrative data and a continuous difference-in-differences design. Early access to the pill delayed fertility and marriage, increased childlessness, reduced completed fertility, and raised women’s educational attainment. Early access to abortion reduced teenage fertility and completed fertility but had no effect on childlessness or education and primarily shifted births from the early to the late twenties. I further document intergenerational effects of the pill on children’s fertility timing and education. This paper provides the first systematic evidence outside the United States on the relative and intergenerational effects of the pill and abortion.
Abstract: Noncognitive abilities are increasingly recognized as important determinants of labour market success. While a large literature studies how these traits affect employment outcomes, less is known about whether labour market policies themselves can influence noncognitive abilities and whether such changes help explain policy effectiveness. This paper examines whether the employment effects of traditional active labour market policies (ALMPs) may be partially explained by changes in noncognitive skills. Using the IZA/IAB Linked Evaluation Dataset for recently unemployed individuals in Germany, we analyse the impact of short-term training programs and wage subsidies on locus of control and four of the Big Five personality traits. We find no evidence that wage subsidies affect noncognitive abilities. In contrast, short-term training generates significant changes in personality traits that differ by gender: women experience increases in emotional stability, while men exhibit increases in conscientiousness. These changes are consistent with traits known to predict labour market success and may help explain the positive employment effects of short-term training, particularly for women. Our findings suggest that traditional ALMPs can influence labour market outcomes not only through human capital accumulation but also through changes in noncognitive abilities.