Firms and the Intergenerational Transmission of Labor Market Advantage

Recent research finds that pay inequality stems both from firm pay-setting and from workers’ individual characteristics. Yet, intergenerational mobility research remains focused on transmission of individual traits, and has failed to test how firms shape the inheritance of inequality. We study this question using three decades of Swedish population register data, and decompose the intergenerational earnings correlation into firm pay premiums and stable worker effects. One quarter of the intergenerational earnings correlation at midlife is explained by sorting between firms with unequal pay. Employer or industry inheritance account for a surprisingly small share of this firm-based earnings transmission. Instead, children from high-income backgrounds benefit from matching with high-paying firms irrespective of the sources of parents’ earnings advantage. Our analysis reveals how an imperfectly competitive labor market provides an opening for skill-based rewards in one generation to become class-based advantages in the next.

Digitalisation of state and municipal services, using the federal state information system “Unified Population Register” as an example

The article formulates the prerequisites that prompted state authorities to implement the project of the federal state information system “Unified Population Register” in order to promptly obtain the most complete and reliable information on the citizens of the Russian Federation. The results of an overview of changes for citizens and government agencies from the introduction of a population information system have been presented. The relevance of the project has been analysed and the pros and cons have been considered. The creation of a single population register will simplify interdepartmental cooperation, facilitate the provision of e-services and social assistance to the population, help to combat crime more effectively, and further develop the information society.

Automatic Estimation of Age Distributions from the First Ottoman Empire Population Register Series by Using Deep Learning

Recently, an increasing number of studies have applied deep learning algorithms for extracting information from handwritten historical documents. In order to accomplish that, documents must be divided into smaller parts. Page and line segmentation are vital stages in the Handwritten Text Recognition systems; it directly affects the character segmentation stage, which in turn determines the recognition success. In this study, we first applied deep learning-based layout analysis techniques to detect individuals in the first Ottoman population register series collected between the 1840s and the 1860s. Then, we employed horizontal projection profile-based line segmentation to the demographic information of these detected individuals in these registers. We further trained a CNN model to recognize automatically detected ages of individuals and estimated age distributions of people from these historical documents. Extracting age information from these historical registers is significant because it has enormous potential to revolutionize historical demography of around 20 successor states of the Ottoman Empire or countries of today. We achieved approximately 60% digit accuracy for recognizing the numbers in these registers and estimated the age distribution with Root Mean Square Error 23.61.

Rapid mortality surveillance using a national population register to monitor excess deaths during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in South Africa

This paper describes how an up-to-date national population register recording deaths by age and sex, whether deaths were due to natural or unnatural causes, and the offices at which the deaths were recorded can be used to monitor excess death during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, both nationally, and sub-nationally, in a country with a vital registration system that is neither up to date nor complete. Apart from suggesting an approach for estimating completeness of reporting at a sub-national level, the application produces estimates of the number of deaths in excess of those expected in the absence of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic that are highly correlated with the confirmed number of COVID-19 deaths over time, but at a level 2.5 to 3 times higher than the official numbers of COVID-19 deaths. Apportioning the observed excess deaths more precisely to COVID, COVID-related and collateral deaths, and non-COVID deaths averted by interventions with reduced mobility and gatherings, etc., requires access to real-time cause-of-death information. It is suggested that the transition from ICD-10 to ICD-11 should be used as an opportunity to change from a paper-based system to electronic capture of the medical cause-of-death information.

Gauging Opinions About the Citizenship Amendment Act and NRC

Today, the advent of social media has provided a platform for expressing opinions regarding legislation and public schemes. One such burning legislation introduced in India is the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and its impact on the National Citizenship Register (NRC) and, subsequently, on the National Population Register (NPR). This study examines and determines the opinions expressed on social media regarding the act through a Twitter analysis approach that extracts nearly 18,000 tweets during 10 days of introducing the scheme. The analysis revealed that the opinion was neutral but tended to a more negative reaction. Consequently, recommendations on improving public perception about the scheme by suitable for interpreting the Act to the public are provided in the paper.

L'adresse de référence, la citoyenneté des invisibles

In Belgium, registration in the Population Register is a prerequisite for access to social rights, as well as an indicator of integration and social recognition. For homeless people, an administrative system has been set up: the reference address. Among other things, this allows the person to be registered in the population register and to obtain a legal and administrative existence. However, today, its application differs from one social welfare organization (called CPAS) to another, the controls being most of the time driven by the fight against social fraud, itself defined by a specific policy of each CPAS. En Belgique, la domiciliation et l’inscription au Registre de la population constituent un préalable à l’accès aux droits sociaux, ainsi qu’un indicateur d’intégration et de reconnaissance sociale. Pour les personnes sans‑domicile, un dispositif administratif a été mis en place : l’adresse de référence. Celui‑ci permet, entre autres, de disposer d’une inscription au registre de la population et pour la personne d’obtenir une existence de droit et administrative. Pourtant, aujourd’hui, son application diffère d’un organisme d’aide sociale (appelés CPAS) à un autre, les contrôles étant la plupart du temps motivés par la lutte contre la fraude sociale, elle‑même définie par une politique propre à chaque CPAS.

Weekly population testing could stop this pandemic and prevent the next

The rapid spread of the SARS-COV-2 delta variant in the UK despite high vaccination coverage will inevitably accelerate when social restrictions end unless testing and contact tracing become much more effective. To minimize further social and economic damage, the effect on R of introducing weekly population testing as social restrictions are relaxed should be evaluated. The large increase in testing capacity required can be achieved with self-taken saliva samples analysed by RT-LAMP in local testing facilities. The costs and effectiveness can be evaluated in whole-city demonstration studies. A local population register in each city or district is essential to issue weekly invitations, manage sample collection, monitor results and achieve rapid notification of households and other contacts when a test is positive. In the UK, weekly test invitations should be managed, like vaccination invitations, by the NHS, with social and financial support for quarantined households to make self-isolation acceptable. A framework for effective population testing that had been established and evaluated during this pandemic could be rapidly reinstated to suppress the next pandemic while vaccines for a new and perhaps more deadly virus are developed and rolled out.