Death of a sibling represents a stressful life event and could be a potential trigger of myocardi... more Death of a sibling represents a stressful life event and could be a potential trigger of myocardial infarction (MI). We studied the association between loss of an adult sibling and mortality from MI up to 18 years after bereavement. We conducted a follow-up study for Swedes aged 40 to 69 years between 1981 and 2002, based on register data covering the total population (N=1 617 010). Sibling deaths could be observed from 1981 and on. An increased mortality rate from MI was found among women (1.25 CI 1.02 to 1.54) and men (1.15 CI 1.03 to 1.28) who had experienced death of an adult sibling. An elevated rate some years after bereavement was found among both women (during the fourth to sixth half-years after the death) and men (during the second to sixth half-years after the death), whereas limited support for a short-term elevation in the rate was found (during the first few months since bereavement). External causes of sibling death were associated with increased MI mortality among wo...
In light of possibilities and limitations of data from the Finnish population register, and the g... more In light of possibilities and limitations of data from the Finnish population register, and the general demographic development of Finland, this paper illuminates the complex interrelation between internal migration and mortality. We explore the roles played by health selection, birth region, and migration as a potentially harmful event. A five per cent random sample from a longitudinal data file that contains deaths for a period of 24 years is used. The focus is on people aged 40–59 years living in Southern Finland, who are defined by birth region and time since immigration. We find some indications of a healthy-migrant effect, but also that migrants may have integration difficulties or that they are negatively selected with regard to health behaviours and lifestyles. In line with previous studies on Finland, birth region is found to be a very decisive mortality determinant.
Using population register data from Finland, we study international family migration in the conte... more Using population register data from Finland, we study international family migration in the context of moves between highly developed and gender-equal societies. We focus on the Swedish-speaking population, a group with high international migration rates and good labour market prospects in the primary host country Sweden. Of specific interest is the influence of each spouse's educational level on emigration and return migration risks. We find a strong and independent effect of wife's education on migration, which presumably reflects these women's strong household bargaining position. If the wife has basic or higher-level education, the family emigration risk is 50 per cent higher than if she has vocational education, when also controlling for husband's education. These family-level estimates conform to previous results based on individual-level data. Much emigration is of temporary nature. Almost half of all families who emigrate return to Finland within ten years ti...
This paper compares wage income of Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking employees in the Helsink... more This paper compares wage income of Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking employees in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Longitudinal data are analysed with random-effects tobit models. We find that Swedish-speaking males on average have 17 per cent higher wages than Finnish-speaking males. Two thirds of this wage gap can be attributed to characteristics differences, particularly education and age. For females the wage difference is very small. The findings echo previous research in the sense that they point out a favourable labour market performance of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland and that differences between language groups are larger among males than among females.
Previous research concerned with the Finnish-Swedish mortality differential in Finland tends to h... more Previous research concerned with the Finnish-Swedish mortality differential in Finland tends to have overlooked the fact that many Finnish speakers who live in the same coastal area as the Swedish speakers originate from parts of the country with high death rates. Using an extract from Statistics Finland's longitudinal employment statistics fi le, we fi nd that geographical extraction is an important factor underlying variation in both mortality and disability retirement in working-aged people. Finnish speakers born in eastern and northern Finland have substantially poorer health than those originating from western Finland. It is consequently not suffi cient to restrict analyses only by present region of residence. Still, there remains a between-group health differential also in people born in the coastal area, which suggests that health behaviors and risk factors could be relevant.
This paper shows that the issue of immigrants' integration in terms of wealth accumulation ha... more This paper shows that the issue of immigrants' integration in terms of wealth accumulation has the potential for being extended to analyses also at the regional level. A geographical area in Finland that has experienced great immigration of people from other parts of the country is studied with longitudinal data. The original settlers of the area can be distinguished from the within-country immigrants. In correspondence with previous findings related to international migration, the results reveal that regional natives have higher wealth levels than immigrants, and they also suggest that immigrants do not reach parity with natives within one generation. The native-immigrant wealth gap is further found to be larger in males than in females, which has to do with differences in local geographical concentration and gender variation in wealth concentration, which in turn are interrelated with self-employment propensities, family-owned businesses and industrial structure.
This paper analyses the simultaneous impact of various transfer programs on individual labour mar... more This paper analyses the simultaneous impact of various transfer programs on individual labour market transitions in a local Finnish labour market. The purpose is to study if the disincentive situations that arise in hypothetically constructed household models are of empirical importance for the transitions from unemployment into employment and out of the labour force. Cox proportional hazard models are used. A stock sample and a flow sample are analysed separately. After allowing for time-varying effects of the used replacement rate, one can see that a high pecuniary gain of the transfer system has a negative impact on the transition probability from unemployment. The results also suggest that the effect of the replacement rate on the transition probability is increasing, i.e. positive, in unemployment duration.
During the second half of the 20th century half a million Finns migrated, mainly to Sweden. A maj... more During the second half of the 20th century half a million Finns migrated, mainly to Sweden. A majority of these also returned to Finland. This paper utilises Finnish longitudinal population registers in order to identify the return migrants and analyse their employment rates as compared with non-migrants. We find that both male and female return migrants have odds of employment that are only about half those of non-migrants, also when factors such as age, education, mother tongue and place of residence are accounted for. Even within higher-educated people, return migrants are in a worse employment position than observably similar non-migrants. The employment rates tend to deteriorate with migration duration and improve with time subsequent to return migration. This suggests that there could be an effect of lost contact with the home country labour market when being abroad, which may override any premium that accrues through human capital of foreign work experience or other practices...
This paper explores how individual employment propensityinterrelates across countries and time, u... more This paper explores how individual employment propensityinterrelates across countries and time, using data that linkpopulation registers from Sweden and Finland. Migrants areobserved before emigration, after emigration, and in a follow-up in cases both where they were still living in the hostcountry and if they had return migrated. The interrelation isfound to be strong, suggesting that migrants’ employmentproblems need not necessarily be due to failures in integrationpolicies or because of problems in assimilation inducedby migration as an event. They could also be explained bythe fact that many persons, in latent subgroups, have inherentlyelevated failure risks.
Exit rates from unemployment are analysed by distinguishing two destinations: employment and non-... more Exit rates from unemployment are analysed by distinguishing two destinations: employment and non-participation. Unlike most of the earlier empirical Finnish studies of transitions from unemployment, we allow for different behaviour of males and females. A database constructed from three register data files of the Employment Service of Vasa in 1996 is used. Results of the estimated duration models suggest that
Death of a sibling represents a stressful life event and could be a potential trigger of myocardi... more Death of a sibling represents a stressful life event and could be a potential trigger of myocardial infarction (MI). We studied the association between loss of an adult sibling and mortality from MI up to 18 years after bereavement. We conducted a follow-up study for Swedes aged 40 to 69 years between 1981 and 2002, based on register data covering the total population (N=1 617 010). Sibling deaths could be observed from 1981 and on. An increased mortality rate from MI was found among women (1.25 CI 1.02 to 1.54) and men (1.15 CI 1.03 to 1.28) who had experienced death of an adult sibling. An elevated rate some years after bereavement was found among both women (during the fourth to sixth half-years after the death) and men (during the second to sixth half-years after the death), whereas limited support for a short-term elevation in the rate was found (during the first few months since bereavement). External causes of sibling death were associated with increased MI mortality among wo...
In light of possibilities and limitations of data from the Finnish population register, and the g... more In light of possibilities and limitations of data from the Finnish population register, and the general demographic development of Finland, this paper illuminates the complex interrelation between internal migration and mortality. We explore the roles played by health selection, birth region, and migration as a potentially harmful event. A five per cent random sample from a longitudinal data file that contains deaths for a period of 24 years is used. The focus is on people aged 40–59 years living in Southern Finland, who are defined by birth region and time since immigration. We find some indications of a healthy-migrant effect, but also that migrants may have integration difficulties or that they are negatively selected with regard to health behaviours and lifestyles. In line with previous studies on Finland, birth region is found to be a very decisive mortality determinant.
Using population register data from Finland, we study international family migration in the conte... more Using population register data from Finland, we study international family migration in the context of moves between highly developed and gender-equal societies. We focus on the Swedish-speaking population, a group with high international migration rates and good labour market prospects in the primary host country Sweden. Of specific interest is the influence of each spouse's educational level on emigration and return migration risks. We find a strong and independent effect of wife's education on migration, which presumably reflects these women's strong household bargaining position. If the wife has basic or higher-level education, the family emigration risk is 50 per cent higher than if she has vocational education, when also controlling for husband's education. These family-level estimates conform to previous results based on individual-level data. Much emigration is of temporary nature. Almost half of all families who emigrate return to Finland within ten years ti...
This paper compares wage income of Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking employees in the Helsink... more This paper compares wage income of Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking employees in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Longitudinal data are analysed with random-effects tobit models. We find that Swedish-speaking males on average have 17 per cent higher wages than Finnish-speaking males. Two thirds of this wage gap can be attributed to characteristics differences, particularly education and age. For females the wage difference is very small. The findings echo previous research in the sense that they point out a favourable labour market performance of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland and that differences between language groups are larger among males than among females.
Previous research concerned with the Finnish-Swedish mortality differential in Finland tends to h... more Previous research concerned with the Finnish-Swedish mortality differential in Finland tends to have overlooked the fact that many Finnish speakers who live in the same coastal area as the Swedish speakers originate from parts of the country with high death rates. Using an extract from Statistics Finland's longitudinal employment statistics fi le, we fi nd that geographical extraction is an important factor underlying variation in both mortality and disability retirement in working-aged people. Finnish speakers born in eastern and northern Finland have substantially poorer health than those originating from western Finland. It is consequently not suffi cient to restrict analyses only by present region of residence. Still, there remains a between-group health differential also in people born in the coastal area, which suggests that health behaviors and risk factors could be relevant.
This paper shows that the issue of immigrants' integration in terms of wealth accumulation ha... more This paper shows that the issue of immigrants' integration in terms of wealth accumulation has the potential for being extended to analyses also at the regional level. A geographical area in Finland that has experienced great immigration of people from other parts of the country is studied with longitudinal data. The original settlers of the area can be distinguished from the within-country immigrants. In correspondence with previous findings related to international migration, the results reveal that regional natives have higher wealth levels than immigrants, and they also suggest that immigrants do not reach parity with natives within one generation. The native-immigrant wealth gap is further found to be larger in males than in females, which has to do with differences in local geographical concentration and gender variation in wealth concentration, which in turn are interrelated with self-employment propensities, family-owned businesses and industrial structure.
This paper analyses the simultaneous impact of various transfer programs on individual labour mar... more This paper analyses the simultaneous impact of various transfer programs on individual labour market transitions in a local Finnish labour market. The purpose is to study if the disincentive situations that arise in hypothetically constructed household models are of empirical importance for the transitions from unemployment into employment and out of the labour force. Cox proportional hazard models are used. A stock sample and a flow sample are analysed separately. After allowing for time-varying effects of the used replacement rate, one can see that a high pecuniary gain of the transfer system has a negative impact on the transition probability from unemployment. The results also suggest that the effect of the replacement rate on the transition probability is increasing, i.e. positive, in unemployment duration.
During the second half of the 20th century half a million Finns migrated, mainly to Sweden. A maj... more During the second half of the 20th century half a million Finns migrated, mainly to Sweden. A majority of these also returned to Finland. This paper utilises Finnish longitudinal population registers in order to identify the return migrants and analyse their employment rates as compared with non-migrants. We find that both male and female return migrants have odds of employment that are only about half those of non-migrants, also when factors such as age, education, mother tongue and place of residence are accounted for. Even within higher-educated people, return migrants are in a worse employment position than observably similar non-migrants. The employment rates tend to deteriorate with migration duration and improve with time subsequent to return migration. This suggests that there could be an effect of lost contact with the home country labour market when being abroad, which may override any premium that accrues through human capital of foreign work experience or other practices...
This paper explores how individual employment propensityinterrelates across countries and time, u... more This paper explores how individual employment propensityinterrelates across countries and time, using data that linkpopulation registers from Sweden and Finland. Migrants areobserved before emigration, after emigration, and in a follow-up in cases both where they were still living in the hostcountry and if they had return migrated. The interrelation isfound to be strong, suggesting that migrants’ employmentproblems need not necessarily be due to failures in integrationpolicies or because of problems in assimilation inducedby migration as an event. They could also be explained bythe fact that many persons, in latent subgroups, have inherentlyelevated failure risks.
Exit rates from unemployment are analysed by distinguishing two destinations: employment and non-... more Exit rates from unemployment are analysed by distinguishing two destinations: employment and non-participation. Unlike most of the earlier empirical Finnish studies of transitions from unemployment, we allow for different behaviour of males and females. A database constructed from three register data files of the Employment Service of Vasa in 1996 is used. Results of the estimated duration models suggest that
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Papers by Jan Saarela