The Cost of Widowhood: Matching Studies of Process and Event

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The first three weeks (1-20 July) of the ODISSEI Incubator for Lifecourse Modelling will be hosted at the CCSS. Every Friday there will be a presentation that is open to the general public and will take place at the CCSS living room (MIN4.16) from 13:00-14:00.

The Cost of Widowhood: Matching Studies of Process and Event
Dr. Zachary van Winkle
18th of July 13:00-14:00
Widowhood is a common life transition entailing far-reaching consequences. The consequences of widowhood are examined in a novel way by assessing the consequences of bereavement for meaningful comparison groups allowing the impact of bereavement to be evaluated before and after the event. The analysis of the cost of widowhood for mental health and economic wellbeing focuses on two scenarios: unexpected and expected widowhood. The first scenario models a two-period process in which effects of widowhood occur only after the event. The second models a three-period process in which effects of widowhood also occur before spousal loss. US Health and Retirement Study data and a combination of random-coefficient modelling, propensity score matching, and regressions are used to estimate the consequences of widowhood from ten years before to six years after spousal loss. Results on mental health show a slow but full recovery for unexpected widowhood, but larger and lasting declines for expected widowhood. Findings on economic wellbeing show sizable losses for expected widowhood due to the economic cost of the pre-widowhood period. In sum, the impact of widowhood is smaller for unexpected compared to expected events. This approach advances knowledge about spousal loss, but also research on life events more generally.

The ODISSEI Incubator for Lifecourse Modelling
For the month of July, ODISSEI will be conducting an incubator where a multidisciplinary group of researchers will work in collaborative groups to establish new standards and data models for analyzing lifecourse data in the Secure Environment at Statistics Netherlands. Lifecourse research has huge potential for understanding a wide range of complex social outcomes from fertility through to political polarization. However, we have seen in other fields that developing such models requires intensive coordination across a research field, the setting of benchmarks, and the establishment of common standards. This incubator aims to encourage this level of coordination and standardization whilst fully respecting and enforcing the stringent and necessary security protocols that are in place when working with this data. By the end of the incubator it is hoped that the teams will have agreed on, developed, and deployed common and effective approaches for modelling lifecourse processes that are usable not only in the context of the Netherlands but in equivalent data environments. To supplement the work of the incubator and broaden engagement, participants and external speakers will provide presentations on their work every Friday at lunchtime. These talks are open to any interested parties who might like to learn more about the work of the incubator. The results of the Incubator will be presented at the ODISSEI Conference in November.

Other presentations from this workshop that are open to the general public:

 

Start date and time
End date and time
Location
Physical Meeting >> CCSS Living Room, Room 4.16, Minneartgebouw
Entrance fee
FREE
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