Dec 2, 2013 | Demography, Science and Policy
By Raya Muttarak, Research Scholar, IIASA World Population Program
For many years social scientists have observed a connection between economic downturns and a reduction in both unhealthy behaviors and mortality—a paradigm known as “healthy living in hard times.” One possible explanation for such counterintuitive findings was that people when people lose their jobs, have more spare time to dedicate to physical activities. Moreover, under an increased threat of unemployment, those who were still employed might limit their smoking and alcohol consumption in order to reduce their chances of being laid off. So the general agreement among social scientists has been that we should not worry too much about the impact of an economic crisis on health and mortality.
Our current global economic recession is the worst economic recession in contemporary history, however. And in a new study we found out that in fact, its consequences for health are very different from previous economic downturns. Since 2008, the number of smokers has increased substantially along with the increase in unemployed people.
In the new study, published in the journal Tobacco Control, we analyzed the effects of the current economic crisis on smoking in the United States, using data for around 2 million people from the Center for Disease Control’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey for 2005 to 2010. In contrast to previous economic literature, we found an estimated increase of around 600,000 smokers due to the economic crisis.
Our study took into account the increase of the US population, the pre-crisis trends in smoking prevalence and the change in the distribution of population by socio-demographic characteristics.
We did find that “healthy living in hard times” still holds true for the employed individuals. Perhaps for fear of being laid off due to insurance reasons, these people maintain their healthy lifestyle. On the other hand, once without a job, people either started smoking or relapsed, possibly because of stress related to their new economic situation.
In contrast to previous economic literature, the new study finds an estimated increase of around 600,000 smokers due to the economic crisis. © Alexander Babich | Dreamstime.com
Since smoking prevalence by employment status remained more or less the same as before the crisis, a sharp increase in the number of unemployed individuals consequently led to a massive rise in the number of smokers. This has counterbalanced the trend in declining smoking rate among the employed.
Two main lessons can be drawn from our findings. First of all, YES…. this time it is different. The magnitude of the crisis has substantially changed the share of those with and without a job, with the latter being much more likely to engage in risky health behaviors. This in turns reversed most of the conclusions drawn by the previous literature. Second, we should not underestimate the impact of job-related stress factors on healthy behaviors. The idea that joblessness could be seen as a holiday where someone can engage in self-empowering activities is nice and reassuring, but it is meant to fail when unemployment is essentially unexpected and unwanted.
Reference
Gallus S, Ghislandi S, Muttarak R. Effects of the economic crisis on smoking prevalence and number of smokers in the USA. Tob Control. 2013 Aug 16. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2012-050856. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23956058.
About the author
Raya Muttarak is a Research Scholar with the World Population (POP) Program. She came to IIASA in September 2011. Her current research covers three broad themes: 1) educational inequality and vulnerability and adaptation to climate change, 2) immigrant integration and ethnic inequality in education, the labor market and climate change adaptation, and 3) socioeconomic determinants of health risks and behaviors. More>>
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Nov 27, 2013 | Demography, Poverty & Equity
A new study by IIASA researchers Katie Bowen and Vegard Skirbekk examines the stereotypes people have about older people, and what factors influence those views across a number of countries. In this interview Bowen describes the new findings and their implications.
The new study shows a connection between the proportion of older people who work or volunteer in a society, and the broader perception of their competence.
Why did you decide to examine perceptions about older people’s competence?
A common stereotype about older people is that they are rather incompetent, that is, that people over a certain age are slower, out-of-date, less able to learn and generally less able to perform tasks in everyday life. However, the extent to which older people are viewed as incompetent varies across countries: In some countries older people are regarded as more competent, and in other countries older people are regarded as less competent. We wanted to know if there was a connection between national stereotypes of older people’s competence and the roles older people fulfill within a certain society.
Since employed people tend to be perceived as being particularly competent, we thought that there might be a connection between the proportion of older people working—paid or unpaid—in a country and the extent to which older people in general are perceived as competent.
What did you find?
Our results indicate that older adults are indeed seen as more competent in countries in which more older people work and volunteer. Importantly, our results suggest that the proportion of older people working and/or volunteering is related to stereotypes of older people’s competence over and above the actual competence of the older population. We had no indication that it matters whether older adults are participating in paid or volunteer work.
Besides people’s volunteer or work participation, what other factors could explain the relationship between stereotypes about older people’s competence and the proportion of older people working or volunteering and how did you control for these factors?
Being older means different things in different countries. For instance, the health of the older population, as for instance roughly indicated by average life expectancy, varies significantly across Europe. Another example is education: in some countries, the older population is highly educated, whereas in some countries the older population has only limited formal education. As a third example, since women tend to live longer than men, women tend to make up a larger part of the older population, although this varies across countries. Finally, research has shown that the objective cognitive performance of the older population also varies significantly across countries.
All of these factors—health, education, gender, and cognitive performance—are also linked with perceptions of competence. For instance, men tend to be perceived as more competent than women, healthier people tend to be perceived as more competent, and so on. It could be that national stereotypes about older people’s competence reflect ‘real’ differences in the competence of the older population as captured by the educational level, health, and cognitive skills of the older population, or that differences in perceptions of older people’s competence are mixed up with stereotypes about women’s competence. Furthermore, at least in some countries, working and volunteering older people tend to be healthier, more educated and more cognitively fit relative to their non-working/volunteering peers. It was therefore important to try to separate out the extent to which national stereotypes of older people’s competence were related to the health, education and cognitive fitness of the older population versus the participation of older people in roles that allow them to demonstrate their competence.
In our new study, we did this by statistically controlling for average life expectancy, education level of the older population, and proportion of women within the older population in each country. In a subsample of countries, we were also able to control for the average objective cognitive skills of the older population. When we controlled for these factors, there was a clear link between the proportion of older people participating in paid and/or volunteer work and national stereotypes of older people’s competence.
What methods did you use to conduct the study?
We used data from the 2008 European Social Survey (ESS). The ESS includes data from representative samples from 28 countries regarding perceptions of older people’s competence. We analyzed the data with a multi-level regression model. As our dependent variable, we used data from 43,376 individuals aged below 65 years, who indicated the extent to which older people in their country are perceived as competent. We used data from the ESS and other sources like the OECD for information on the participation of older people in paid and/or volunteer work, as well as average education of the older population, the gender ratio of the older population, and the average life expectancy in each country. For a subsample of 11 countries, we had data on the average cognitive abilities of the older population in each country from the SHARE study.
Were there any surprises in your results?
Well, Hungary was a bit of an outlier. According to our data, there are very positive perceptions of older people’s competence in Hungary which are not well explained by the characteristics of the older population which we included in our model.
Why are the results of this study important for society?
Our study shows that the opportunities that older people have for participating in a society really matter. Paid and volunteer work can be an important way for older people to demonstrate their competence. Our results imply that social policies and structural factors at the country level that create opportunities for older adults to participate in work and volunteer roles may contribute to more positive perceptions of older adults’ competence. This matters not only for older people, but also for younger people who form expectations about their own aging based in part on how they perceive older people over the course of their lifetime. Several longitudinal studies have now demonstrated that what you expect from aging is what you get: people with more positive perceptions of aging tend to actually age better.
The takeaway of our study is this: social institutions influence the roles that older people have in society, and roles contribute to how older people are perceived.
“Our study shows that the opportunities that older people have for participating in a society really matter,” says Bowen.
Reference
Bowen, C.E., & Skirbekk, V. (2013). National stereotypes of older people’s competence are related to older adults’ participation in paid and volunteer work. Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 68(6), 974–983, doi:10.1093/geronb/gbt101. 974983 http://psychsocgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/68/6/974.full
About
Katie Bowen is a developmental psychologist interested in understanding how social (e.g., country-level) and individual predictors together influence patterns of adult development. To date her research has focused on images of aging (i.e., mental representations of older people and the aging process), aging and the work context, and adult personality development.
Bowen joined IIASA’s World Population (POP) program in November 2013, to research social and individual predictors of longevity preferences.
Note: This article gives the views of the interviewee, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Nov 14, 2013 | Environment, Science and Policy
By Aline Mosnier, IIASA Research Scholar
Aline Mosnier
Deforestation and forest degradation contribute substantially to greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in developing countries. The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus forest conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) Initiative, launched in 2008 by the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aims to help developing countries prevent such deforestation and degradation. It creates a mechanism that would provide financial compensation to developing countries that make efforts to address these problems. Some funding has started to flow to build REDD+ readiness plans and forest monitoring capacity. However, many methodological issues stand in the way of reaching agreements and attracting enough funding for the initiative to succeed.
One of the core ideas of REDD+ is that payments should be based on results. But particularly in Congo Basin countries, where I recently spent three weeks meeting with stakeholders and policymakers on REDD+ plans and goals, determining results is not an easy task.
How do we measure performance? First, we must agree on a benchmark to which the future efforts can be compared. The simplest benchmark is perhaps just to compare current efforts to the past: using past data has the advantage of being based on facts and consequently less prone to inflation. But for this to work, one has to believe that the past is the best predictor of the future.
The Congo Basin countries have a problem: they have high forest cover and low historical deforestation rates… but fast-growing needs.
Yaounde, Cameron. Photo credit: Aline Mosnier.
The low historical deforestation rates in the Congo Basin countries result from several factors. Some argue that conflicts, unfavorable investment climate, lack of infrastructure, and low levels of economic development have led to a “passive protection” of the forests. But the context is changing. Presidents of the Congo Basin countries have big plans–they want to become emerging countries within the next two decades–and they are looking for new opportunities. Foreign investment projects in mining, oil, agro-industrial plantations, and large-scale agriculture are now flourishing in the Congo Basin, and protected areas are under threat. Local communities could be threatened by expropriation and pollution from large scale projects, but at the same time these communities are also eager to see new employment opportunities.
What does this situation tell us about REDD for the Congo Basin? First, payments for living forests are necessary to avoid deforestation because this is the only way to convince developing countries that forests are valuable. These payments have to benefit both local communities who are living next to the forest, and governments who are making the decisions about large-scale conversion of forests.
Second, if payments are conditional to reduction compared to past deforestation, we can’t expect much from REDD in the Congo Basin countries. If payments are delivered based on lower future deforestation rates and are not underestimated compared to what could be foreseen according to countries development needs, the international community has a chance to make a change.
But this needs trust. Trying to quantify future emissions from deforestation and forest degradation is challenging and undoubtedly involves large uncertainties. However, by engaging with stakeholders to understand the local context while having independent funding, by building the models under the necessary scrutiny and scientific rigor, and by clearly communicating the results to the international community, scientists could play an important role in finding a fair deal to fight against future deforestation.
At IIASA, we are contributing to this objective under our REDD-PAC project by combining land use and systems analysis tools from IIASA, regional expertise of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in Brazil and the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) in the Congo Basin, and the experience of UNEP-WCMC on the multiple benefits of REDD+.
Aline Mosnier contributed to work that will be presented at a special session organized by UNEP-WCMC and IIASA at the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) at the COP 19th in Warsaw, highlighting the role of land use change models in supporting landscape-scale planning. She recently returned from travels through the Congo Basin, where she met with stakeholders and policymakers.
Nov 7, 2013 | Energy & Climate, Science and Policy
Peter Lemke, head of the Climate Sciences Research Division at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, is an expert on sea ice, a polar explorer, and the Chair of the IIASA Council. In this interview Lemke explains how climate change is affecting the Earth’s polar regions, and talks about a recent winter expedition to Antarctica.
On Monday, 11 November Lemke will give a public lecture on the topic at IIASA in Laxenburg.
Peter Lemke – Credit: Stephanie von Neuhoff (AWI)
How did you get interested in the cryosphere? What drew you to the poles?
When I was a young scientist, I was involved in climate modeling and especially the role of polar regions. For my PhD thesis I worked on sea ice extent data, trying to understand why we see changes.
That was in the late seventies, so it was not really climate change which was driving us, we just wanted to understand the climate system. Polar regions are an important part of the climate system. We tried to understand how they impact the other regions on the globe such as mid-latitudes and even the tropics.
When did you realize that climate change was affecting the polar regions?
Well the globe was already warming when I was starting my research in the mid-1970s. Sea ice was decreasing in extent, and ice was melting on the continents. Year by year, this trend became more significant. By the 1990s it was quite clear that there was a trend which was not just natural variation. The third IPCC report in 2001 just made it clear that man had an impact on the warming; at least a substantial part of it was due to increased greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
A helicopter that was used to measure sea ice during Lemke’s 2013 Antarctic expedition. Credit: Peter Lemke (AWI)
What is happening now?
The changes we see now are even more dramatic than before, especially considering the Arctic sea ice. It hit a record low minimum in 2007 and we thought that this was the ultimate—as low as it would go. But then ice extent went even lower in 2012. While the ice extent this last summer was not quite so low, there is a strong trend in summer extent of sea ice. Our data indicate that it’s not just the extent but the thickness that’s changing. Measurements of sea ice thickness which our institute has performed over the last decade or so show a sharp thinning of the sea ice in the interior of the Arctic: The sea ice has thinned from an average of 2.5 to about 1 meter in only 10 years.
The other thing that is interesting is that the sea ice extent in the Antarctic is not decreasing at the same rate. On the contrary, it’s increasing in extent slightly. The question is of course is the ice mass also increasing, or is it just spreading out and thinning—like a dough that you roll out, getting wider but thinner?
How do you explain the growth in Antarctic sea ice, while Arctic sea ice is declining?
One explanation is that in the Southern Hemisphere the westerly winds are increasing, and through friction this drives the ice towards lower latitudes and the extent is getting a bit bigger. When the ice expands there is open water between ice floes, and it’s still cold enough in winter that ice freezes in the open patches.
There are other physical processes that may be involved, such as the heavy snow cover that blankets the Antarctic sea ice. Sometimes the heavy snow load submerges the ice floe underwater so that the interface of ice and snow is actually below sea level, and seawater drains into the snow and freezes. That may be one process, but there are others that are not really resolved yet.
We don’t yet have the answers to these questions, because there are very few measurements and you cannot deduce snow from satellite remote sensing data, yet. To find out, you have to go there and make measurements yourself. But winter expeditions are very rare. There are very few icebreakers that can actually go into the Antarctic winter into the sea ice. I have participated in four expeditions over the last 25 years: in 1989, 1992, 2006, and now 2013.
Working site during the 2013 Antarctic expedition. The wind chill was often between -50 and -60°C. Credit: Peter Lemke (AWI)
What did you find on your latest expedition?
Most of the data have yet to be analyzed. But from our early results, it looks like that the sea ice mass around Antarctica has increased slightly. Our measurements showed that the sea ice was more extensive, thicker and more densely packed as compared to our 1992 expedition, which was on the same track during the same season.
We have also observed a continuous warming in the deep ocean, which indicates that the warming trend that we see over the last couple decades is continuing. This indicates that the ocean has taken up a large fraction of the heat due to the increased greenhouse effect.
Why should people care what happens in the Arctic or in Antarctica?
Both polar regions are pristine regions not affected by humans as much as lower latitudes. Still you see the effects of mankind there. Once the sea ice is gone in the Arctic, we have lost an entire ecosystem which is adapted to the sea ice. Sea ice is a porous medium, and in the small cavities, there is rich life—tiny algae, crabs, krill—and this ecosystem supports an entire food chain up to the polar bear, whales, penguins that you find depending on which pole you are looking at.
Do you think that IIASA has a role to play in polar research?
IIASA is currently considering a new Arctic initiative, which could involve not just the climate system and the ecosystem but also the human system. Changes in the Arctic are already affecting people living at the coastlines. This coastline is made up of sand and ice, which is thawing. And as the sea ice is retreating, the coastline is now exposed to the increasing waves in the open ocean. Already now villages are already eaten up by the sea. At the same time, hunting grounds are changing for Inuit and other indigenous people who rely on sea ice for hunting. I think that’s something that IIASA can actually look at from a holistic view: human system, ecosystem, climate system.
What is one thing you want people to know?
Well often the poles, especially the Arctic, seem so far away that people don’t think that it is important for their lives. But if you have a polar storm coming from Svalbard, within two days it reaches the German coast, and within 10 days the entire Northern Hemisphere may be affected. The Arctic is only a few days away from us, and conditions that are changing in the Arctic will affect the climate conditions also in our region.
Emperor penguins spotted during Lemke’s 2013 Antarctic expedition. Credit: Peter Lemke (AWI)
Nov 5, 2013 | Alumni, Food & Water
In a new commentary (subscription required) in Nature Geoscience, IIASA researchers Michael Obersteiner, Marijn van der Velde, and colleagues write about the problems facing the world’s food supply as we exhaust our supplies of phosphorus. Projections show that phosphorus supplies could run out in the next 40 to 400 years. In this interview, Obersteiner and van der Velde give more background on the “phosphorus trilemma.”
Fertilizers containing phosphorus are vital for crop production – but phosphorus is limited in availability and growing scarcer.
Why is phosphorus so important?
MV: Phosphorus is essential for life on Earth. It is a key component of DNA and cell membranes, and vital for cellular energy processes. Crops need phosphorus to grow. And to maintain crop production, and to make sure that soils remain productive, we have to add extra nitrogen and phosphorus as fertilizer. This is one of the food security issues in Africa where soils are suffering from nutrient depletion without replenishment.
Where do we get phosphorus and why is that supply in danger?
MO: Phosphorus is ubiquitous in the Earth’s crust. However, most of it is strongly bound in the soil , where plants cannot access it. Modern agriculture (which made human population explode) essentially began when we found ways to extract nitrogen from the air and phosphorus from minerals to make fertilizers for agricultural purposes.
The problem is that minable phosphorus is geographically concentrated in very few places. For example 75% of known reserves are located in Morocco and these reserves are limited. If, for example, political turmoil restricted access to the mines of Morocco, we would be in danger of short-term shortages that could lead to rising food prices or food insecurity in poor countries.
What problems do you expect as phosphorus becomes even more limited?
MO: The biggest problem we face is limited or no access to phosphorus fertilizers by the poor and food insecure.
MV: At the same time, rich countries apply excess fertilizers causing eutrophication to their lakes and rivers, while the poor cannot afford fertilizers.
What can be done about these problems?
MV: More efficient fertilizer application would make fertilizers cheaper to poor farmers, and at the same time help address the environmental problems. But in the long run we need to figure out how to produce food in a way that recycles nutrients at minimum loss rates. (This also includes losses from human excrement!)
To better solve the issues around long-term phosphorus availability and equitable use we also need better data on how much phosphate rock is remaining in the world and where it is located. Countries will need to be persuaded to collaborate on both these issues to ensure equity.
How does IIASA research inform this debate?
MV: In a paper we published earlier this year in PLOS ONE we showed the importance of soil phosphorus and the significant increases in yields that could be achieved in Africa with balanced micro-dosed applications of nitrogen and phosphorus. Available phosphorus in soils is generally low, especially in older weathered soils in the tropics where a lot of the phosphorus can be locked up in iron and aluminum complexes. We are currently investigating what application rates of nitrogen and phosphorus would be optimal for a range of soils and climates. This can then lead to better soil and nutrient management.
MO: In addition researchers in the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases program have been very active in finding solutions to the problem. For example: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/resources/multimedia/Podcasts/Our-Nutrient-World—Wilfried-Winiwarter-on-Reality-.en.html
What should people to know about this issue?
MO: Many things in nature that we like or depend on for our livelihood are substitutable. But phosphorus is in everything we eat and cannot be substituted by any element. If we continue business as usual we will squander this resource and thereby potentially compromising the wellbeing of our daughters and sons.
Further Reading
M. Obersteiner, J. Peñuelas, P. Ciais, M. van der Velde, and I.A. Janssens, 2013. The phosphorus trilemma. Nature Geoscience, 6, 897-898, doi:10.1038/ngeo1990 [COMMENTARY].
M. van der Velde, L. See, L. You, J. Balkovič, S. Fritz, N. Khabarov, M. Obersteiner and S. Wood, 2013.Affordable nutrient solutions for improved food security as evidenced by crop trials. PLoS ONE 8(4): e60075. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060075 [OPEN ACCESS].
Marijn van der Velde is a Research Scholar with IIASA’s Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program
Michael Obersteiner is the leader of IIASA’s Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program.
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