This thesis studies the effect of the ‘Besluit passende arbeid WW en ZW’ on alcohol and tobacco use of the unemployed who were treated by this reform. It is expected that the unemployed will...Show moreThis thesis studies the effect of the ‘Besluit passende arbeid WW en ZW’ on alcohol and tobacco use of the unemployed who were treated by this reform. It is expected that the unemployed will increase their alcohol and tobacco use due to the increased stress caused by the reform. The study uses a difference-in-difference with fixed effects to estimate the causal effect. The results show that there is an overall higher chance of suffering from stress and that the treated female unemployed have a higher chance of smoking. The results do not indicate an effect on men or alcohol consumption. All in all, there are some indications that the reforms leads to smoking but further research is necessary.Show less
The Dutch government is aiming at a smoke-free generation in 2040 by implementing new policies. The smoking rate is not decreasing enough to reach this target. This study looks at the association...Show moreThe Dutch government is aiming at a smoke-free generation in 2040 by implementing new policies. The smoking rate is not decreasing enough to reach this target. This study looks at the association between smoking behavior and life satisfaction to find ways to influence smokers to quit. This study aims to assess what the association is between life satisfaction and smoking behavior in the Netherlands. It will also look into the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on smoking behavior and the effect that age has on the relationship between life satisfaction and smoking behavior. Data from the LISS-panel is used to conduct a fixed effects regression analysis. The results show that there is no significant association between life satisfaction and smoking behavior in any of the cases. This is contradictory to past research, which all found a significant negative association. The only significant associations are between the control variables anxiety and exercise, and smoking behavior. Both have a negative association with smoking behavior. The effect of exercise on smoking behavior is the strongest for people aged 65 and older. Based on these results, the policy recommendation is to stimulate exercise, which can lead to a healthier lifestyle and reduce the number of cigarettes people smoke.Show less
Women tend to visit the doctor more often is the common expectation. But why? It seems to become a long-lasting academic puzzle which is still not solved. First, it is a relevant issue because of...Show moreWomen tend to visit the doctor more often is the common expectation. But why? It seems to become a long-lasting academic puzzle which is still not solved. First, it is a relevant issue because of this unclarity it is not clear whether these gender differences are actually desired, by society but also by the men and women themselves. Therefore, this study focusses on the factors which are expected to determine the relationship between gender and healthcare utilisation, operationalized as doctor visits. The theoretical framework consists of three theories: social constructionism theory, social role theory and the theory of planned behaviour. Based on this theoretical framework, hypothesis have been formulated for every factor which is expected to determine the researched relationship. The actual and perceived health status were expected to make the gender difference bigger: the level of health and perceived health status is expected to be more a reason for women to visit the doctor than it would be for men. The second factor is mental health. This factor does not have a expected direction but still, a gender difference is expected. The same is the case for the fourth and fifth included factor: ‘education level’ and ‘financial situation and job status’. The third factor is risk aversity and this factor is expected to more a reason for men to visit the doctor or not than it would be for women. This is the opposite of what is expected with the factor actual and perceived health status. These expectations got tested by an OLS regression model in a cross-section study. 26 independent variables are included which are mostly part of the operationalisation of the five factors. 7,313 respondents form the selected sample. These variables and respondents are retrieved from the SHARE database wave 5, which refers to the year 2013. However, the results could not confirm the expectations formulated in the theoretical framework. None of the null hypotheses, which expected no intervention of the factor on the correlation between gender and healthcare utilisation could be rejected. This raises the need for further research in this direction, concrete suggestions have been formulated at the end of this study.Show less
With the aim of enhancing parents’ participation in the labour market, the provision of affordable childcare services has become a central policy issue in recent years. One of the main methods...Show moreWith the aim of enhancing parents’ participation in the labour market, the provision of affordable childcare services has become a central policy issue in recent years. One of the main methods governments use to provide this support is subsidising childcare costs. As such, this study aims to assess how an increase in free childcare hours affects the extensive and intensive labour supply margins and the subjective well-being of parents. In order to do so, the effect of the United Kingdom’s (UK) 2016 Childcare Act on parents is assessed. This policy increased the number of free childcare hours available for working parents of 3-to-4-year-olds from 15 hours/week to 30 hours/week for 38 weeks of the year. To conduct this study, data from the UK’s Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) was used to conduct a Difference-in-difference methodology with fixed effects. The results show that increasing the number of free childcare hours available to parents increased the subjective well-being of mothers and led to the expansion of their intensive labour supply margins. As for fathers, more free childcare hours were found to have little to no effect on their intensive labour supply margins. However, the results do not find evidence in support of the expectation that the Policy would increase the extensive labour supply of mothers and have little to no effect on that of fathers. Nor do the results support the expectation that the Policy would boost fathers’ well-being. Nonetheless, these results continue to be of value to governments since mothers are the group whose labour market activity and well-being are most affected by childcare, and this Policy was found to boost both.Show less
This thesis is primarily concerned with exploring a potential association between receiving healthcare allowance and mental health in the Netherlands. This association may be expected based on the...Show moreThis thesis is primarily concerned with exploring a potential association between receiving healthcare allowance and mental health in the Netherlands. This association may be expected based on the human-capital theoretical assumption that financial means enable an individual to invest Four indicators of mental health were defined, from very broad to narrow: selfreported general health, self-reported happiness, a derived neuroticism scale and a derived financial distress scale. The existence of an association between the amount of healthcare allowance and these independent variables is assessed using a fixed effects regression model that also controls for other population characteristics, of which income is the most important. LISS-panel data from the years 2015 to 2019 was used, which can be seen as representative for the Dutch population. It was found that receiving a higher sum healthcare allowance was negatively associated with one indicator of mental health, namely financial stress. This means that persons receiving a higher amount of healthcare allowance reported lower financial stress. Since experiencing financial problems is explicitly linked to mental health in the academic literature, the healthcare allowance may be an appropriate tool for governments aiming to improve the mental health of the (low-income) population. For the other, more broadly defined indicators of mental health, no significant association was found using this model. It is proposed that these indicators may be too broad to measure an association with the healthcare allowance because receiving benefits could come with stigmatization and other negative consequences.Show less
Among many other factors, sociological developments drive individual savings behavior. Social interaction, in terms of organizational membership, can help the individual participate and take an...Show moreAmong many other factors, sociological developments drive individual savings behavior. Social interaction, in terms of organizational membership, can help the individual participate and take an active role in the intimidating process of savings behavior. This study investigates the influence of organizational membership on savings behavior, conditional on interpersonal trust. This analysis partially supports the existing theories that social interaction might alter savings behavior through social norms and human capital accumulation. The results of multivariate, logistic, and hierarchical regression models on a Dutch representative dataset indicate that organizational membership has a mixed effect on savings behavior. The effect mainly depends on the type of organization. On the one hand, membership in religious and political organizations is negatively associated with savings behavior. On the other hand, membership in cultural or scientific organizations is positively associated with savings behavior. Furthermore, there is no statistically significant interaction effect between organizational membership and interpersonal trust. Finally, interpersonal trust has the largest share in explaining the variance in savings behavior.Show less
This thesis will analyze the effect of the 2015 reform, which restructured the Dutch student financial aid structure, on students’ reported effort, motivation, and satisfaction. From September 2015...Show moreThis thesis will analyze the effect of the 2015 reform, which restructured the Dutch student financial aid structure, on students’ reported effort, motivation, and satisfaction. From September 2015 onwards, new Dutch students were not automatically eligible for a so-called basic grant. Instead, these students were now only able to loan this money. Prior research has shown how this has increased parental contributions to students and lowered student expenditure (Broeders, Been & Knoef, 2020). But since criticism in Dutch society rose due to unfulfilled promises of extra investments into the higher education system and reports stating that students are experiencing more stress due to stricter finances (NOS, 2019; ISO, 2019), it also seems appropriate to research if this reform affected students’ effort and motivation and satisfaction. The findings of this study are mainly in line with our expectations. This study finds that the 2015 reform positively affects reported effort and motivation. We also find a decrease in reported satisfaction, but this result is not statistically significant. The coefficients of the effects are small, and therefore there are no major effects visible on reported effort and motivation.Show less
