Mario Martinez-Jimenez

Can greater exposure to job insecurity at labor-market entry have lasting effects on fertility? We study Spain’s 1984 reform, which sharply expanded fixed-term hiring for new entrants while preserving protection for permanent workers. Using differences in reform exposure across nearby birth cohorts of low- and high-skilled women, we find that the reform increased years of non-permanent employment and lowered contribution-based income among low-skilled women, without a detectable change in days worked. Exposed low-skilled cohorts experienced a 15.2% decline in births per woman at the cohort level and delayed first motherhood by about five months. Mechanism evidence suggests that employment insecurity constrains the realization of fertility plans, with exposed low-skilled women more likely to have fewer children than they desire. We build and estimate a life-cycle model linking early-career employment risk to fertility decisions over the reproductive horizon. The model attributes the fertility decline primarily to adverse entry conditions and accumulated employment insecurity, rather than lower early-career resources or the mechanical consequences of later childbearing, and shows that reducing insecurity can recover some forgone fertility. Together, the evidence shows that reforms increasing early-career job insecurity can delay motherhood and reduce realized fertility.

Economic crises are common, but their timing is uncertain. This paper examines whether the mental health and well-being effects of retirement change in the presence of major economic shocks. Using a range of causal empirical methodologies, with a particular focus on a fixed-effects instrumental variables approach, we analyse longitudinal data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) covering a representative sample of over 50-year-old individuals in England. We exploit regional variations in unemployment rates following the economic crisis in the short term (2004-2013) and the longer term (2004-2019). The findings show that moving into retirement while living in a region and year particularly hit by the crisis significantly decreases the probability of reporting a new depression or anxiety diagnosis by 4.9 percentage points, mostly driven by white-collar and men retirees. We show that financial security, healthy lifestyles, and the ability to early retirement help maintain the mental health benefits of retirement during economic crises. These findings suggest that policies enhancing financial security and resilience and promoting healthy lifestyle initiatives could bolster retirees' resilience and support healthy ageing.

This paper examines how early-life conditions are associated with children's adaptive behavior at age three in the United Kingdom. We study two indicators of adverse perinatal health, low birth weight and preterm birth, alongside breastfeeding as an early postnatal investment. Using data on 4,335 children from the Understanding Society Pregnancy and Early Childhood dataset observed between 2011 and 2023, the primary analysis combines weighted ordinary least squares with inverse-probability-weighted regression adjustment; correlated random effects and within-sibling comparisons are used as complementary sensitivity analyses. Low birth weight and preterm birth are associated with lower adaptive behavior, with the largest gradients in the physical domain. Breastfeeding is more strongly associated with communication and socio-emotional functioning. In the preferred specification, the estimated associations are about 0.3 standard deviations for low birth weight, 0.2 to 0.25 standard deviations for preterm birth, and 0.1 to 0.15 standard deviations for breastfeeding. A supplementary pathway analysis using maternal engagement measured in a survey wave preceding the age-three outcome provides suggestive evidence of a positive engagement component, especially for socio-emotional development; it is reported as a model-based rather than causal decomposition. These findings show how risks visible around birth map into functional differences relevant for screening, referral, and targeted family support in the preschool years.