This pilot will examine empathy as a motive for intergenerational inter-vivos transfers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We propose to study how empathy varies with kinship and whether empathy is related to one's willingness to make self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. Adapting an established protocol for measuring pain empathy responses in the human brain with fMRI (Singer et al.

This project investigates whether adult children's educational attainment improves the health of their elderly parents and determines the transfer of monetary and in-kind support to parents using two waves of the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS).

This study will examine the joint contributions of schooling and genetic risk to morbidity and mortality. There is considerable evidence linking genes to a broad spectrum of health outcomes. There is also considerable evidence linking schooling to many of the same outcomes. Indeed, there is growing consensus that, of all the features of socioeconomic status, schooling has the strongest and most robust relationship with health. Nevertheless, few if any studies have combined these interests and explored the role of schooling in moderating genetic risk factors.

Menopause is a biologic marker of aging common to all women. The association between local ecologies and hormone levels in women of reproductive age is well established (Ellison 1994; Nuñez de la Mora et al. 2007): women who live in a nutrient-poor environment tend to have lower levels of reproductive hormone than women who mature in richer environments. There also are differences in how women experience menopause across populations and cultures (Obermeyer and Sievert 2007; Sievert et al. 2007). Are these two findings associated?

Microeconomic research generally assumes that workers are able to determine and follow optimal saving and retirement paths, and that to this end they have all the information necessary regarding the pension plan rules covering them. For instance, labor supply and saving outcomes at older ages are conventionally modeled by economists as depending on specific Social Security benefit and tax incentives that impart important notches and kinks in workers’ lifetime budget constraints.

Rising life expectancy and falling fertility rates are leading to marked increases in the proportion of elderly persons worldwide. This phenomenon has received relatively little attention in many developing countries despite the fact that the proportion of the elderly in developing countries is predicted to treble by 2050. This increase coincides with slow progress in many developing countries in addressing poor levels of nutrition, schooling and health amongst young people.