www.hsph.harvard.edu/cpds • Spring/Summer 2015

News and Ideas from the Harvard Center for Population and

Development Studies

In recognition of the growing challengesarising from the United States’ agingpopulation, the Harvard Center for

Population and Development Studies (PopCenter) has created the “Sloan Fellowship onAging and Work” postdoctoral trainingprogram. Made possible by a grant from theAlfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Center willhost and support five fellows over a three-year period, beginning in September 2016.With resources, infrastructure, and faculty

mentorship from numerous Harvard schoolsand departments, the fellows will conductself-directed, interdisciplinary research intocritical issues related to aging and the work force.

“At the Sloan Foundation, we areworking to cultivate the next generation of exceptional scholars interested in the aging work force,” says KathleenChristensen, program director, Alfred P.Sloan Foundation. “This multidisciplinary

approach will help us understand theimplications of employment patterns,obstacles to employment, and the ensuingeconomic impact."

What an aging labor pool means Since the 1950s, the U.S. has seen a ten-year increase in life expectancy at birth. The life expectancy for those who live to age65 has also increased since the 1950s—from 12.7 years to 15.3 years for men, and

from 14.7 years to 19.6 years forwomen.

On the surface, the news thatpeople are living longer appears tobe positive and uncomplicated. Butthe reality of these demographicchanges means that the concepts ofretirement and working into olderages will need to evolve to meet the needs of both employers andemployees.

An aging work force hasresulted in other important issues,such as changes in labor forceparticipation for women, a factorthat dramatically shifts family

dynamics (e.g., the rise of single parenthood,caretaking responsibilities, and divorce).Another complicating factor is the increasingdivide between social classes that the UnitedStates has experienced over recent decades.Those in the upper classes are remainingemployed and married more than those in lower and working classes, whereunemployment and single parenthoodcontinue to rise. This inequality has createdan urgent need to determine how to optimally

Sloan Foundation funds “Fellowship on Aging and Work”New postdoctoral training program will address challenges of an aging labor pool

continues on page 2

INSIDE THIS ISSUE1 Aging and Work Fellowship

3 News Briefs

4 Maternity Leave and Mental Health

adapt work, labor force participation, andretirement to these diverse needs.

With the complex issues associated withan older work force comes the need for newworkplace practices that support the healthand economic well-being of workers andencourages them to remain in the laborforce. Such practices could include part-timehours, increasing control over schedules,attention to the way that responsibilities areallocated, and the development of incentivesfor employers to offer more flexibleemployment models.

An interdisciplinary approachAddressing the challenges of an agingsociety requires identifying and under-standing the demographic conditions thatwill create opportunities for the U.S.population to work longer and lead healthierlives, and for employers to develop adaptiveand resilient policies in response to thesedemographic changes.

To date, economists have tackled someof these issues, but their main focus has been

BOW STREET BULLETIN

on matters related to pensions andretirement. Understanding the full impact—particularly in terms of labor practices andpolicies—will require the type of inter-disciplinary effort from experts in publichealth, business, law, economics, and othersocial sciences. This is a cornerstone of the new Sloan Fellowship Program. Some ofthe crucial, nuanced areas that will beexplored include: ■ Evaluating lifecourse impacts on olderworkers to understand the ability of older workers to physically and mentally continue to work late in life. The goal is to shape patterns of employment, educationaltraining, and work-family balance that are compatible with a longer work-lifetrajectory.■ Identifying and assessing the policies andpractices of employers at the local and statelevel to determine their impact on thecapacity and opportunities for older workersto continue in the labor force. This willinclude consideration of the erroneousstereotypes through which many employersview older workers (i.e., older workers resistchange or lack the drive to innovate).■ Determining the multiple trajectoriesnecessary for older workers to remainemployed longer and experience a successfulretirement. Efforts to retain older workerswill be critical, but so will addressing theneeds of those who are no longer able to beproductive in the work force. Recognizingthe existences of multiple work-lifetrajectories will lead to the identification ofdifferent strategies for engaging olderworkers.

The launch of the programExpectations are that the research derivedfrom the fellowship will be used to supportimproved workplace policies, as well asincrease the public’s understanding of agingand labor force challenges. The Sloan Fellowswill be required to produce at least one peer-reviewed paper during their tenure andpresent their work at major conferences. The Pop Center will also begin hosting anew seminar series on “Aging and Work”that will provide fellows and facultymembers with the opportunity to participatein interdisciplinary exchange, explore new

and relevant debates, train in research andanalytical methods, and review and critiquework in progress.

The Sloan Fellowship program will beled by Harvard Pop Center Director LisaBerkman and an executive committee ofdistinguished faculty from across HarvardUniversity, including: David Canning,associate director of the Pop Center;Mauricio Avendano, principal researchfellow, London School of Economics Centrefor Health and Social Care, and facultymember at the Pop Center; Jason Beckfield,professor of Sociology; David Cutler, OttoEckstein Professor of Applied Economics;Frank Dobbin, professor of Sociology; DavidLaibson, Robert I. Goldman Professor ofEconomics; and Gloria Sorensen, professorof Social and Behavioral Sciences. Executivecommittee members will also serve asmentors, with others slated to be engagedfrom the Harvard Business School andHarvard Law School.

As with all the Center’s postdoctoraltraining programs, a structured learningenvironment will be created so fellows cometo appreciate the perspectives and methods ofother social science disciplines beyond theirown. The most important means toachieving this is through sound mentorship.Postdoctoral fellows are matched, at aminimum, to a mentor from their “home”discipline, as well as to one or more from a“stretch” discipline. The development ofleadership skills is also emphasized, as ismedia relations.

Recruitment for postdoctoral fellowswill begin in earnest this coming September,with the first cohort starting at the PopCenter in the fall of 2016. ■

2 • Bow Street Bulletin

THE HARVARD CENTER FOR POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

DIRECTOR Lisa Berkman, PhDThomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy,Epidemiology, and Global Health and Population, HSPH

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR David Canning, PhDRichard Saltonstall Professor ofPopulation Sciences, HSPH

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEEJason Beckfield, PhDProfessor of Sociology and Director of Graduate Studies, Department ofSociology, Harvard University

Amitabh Chandra, PhDProfessor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Rohini Pande, PhDMohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

SV Subramanian, PhDProfessor of Population Health andGeography, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, HSPH

BOW STREET BULLETIN EDITORIAL STAFFEditor/Writer: Michelle Choate

Co-Editor and Contributing Writer: Laura Price

Contributing Writers: Nicole Goguen

Photo Credits: Claudette Agustin, Shutterstock

Bow Street Bulletin welcomessuggestions. Please contact us at:popcenter@hsph.harvard.edu

BOW STREET BULLETIN

Follow us on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/HarvardPopCenterand Twitter @HarvardPopCtr

Aging and work fellowship, continued from page 1

Applications for both the Sloan Fellowship in

Aging and Work and the David E. Bell Fellowship will

be accepted between September 1, 2015 and

November 30, 2015. Visit www.hsph.harvard.edu/cpds

for details.

Aditi Krishna,a doctoral stu-dent at theHarvard Pop

Center, looks strong at the half-way point of the BostonMarathon, which took place April 20. It was her first timerunning in Boston and her bestmarathon time yet at 3:09:54

Congratulations, Aditi!

www.hsph.harvard.edu/cpds • 3

Announcements:The Inaugural Forum on Population Health Equity at the Harvard T.H. ChanSchool of Public Health will take place onSeptember 10-11, 2015. The event, whichwill be held at the Martin ConferenceCenter in the Longwood Medical Area, willfeature an array of international speakers.

Awards:■ Harvard Pop Center faculty member anddirector of the Program on the GlobalDemography of Aging (PGDA) David E.Bloom was named one of 32 inauguralAndrew Carnegie Fellows. This newlyestablished fellowship supports scholarlywork in the areas of social sciences andhumanities, and can enable recipients todevote between one to two years to research■ Harvard Pop Center faculty memberNancy Krieger has received the prestigiousAmerican Cancer Society Clinical Research

Professor Award for hercontributions to cancerresearch. Krieger worksto challenge the main-stream approach tosocial inequalities incancer, with the goal of

establishing a sound scientific basis for theelimination of these inequalities.■ Michael R. Reich, Harvard Pop Centerfaculty member and former director, has beennamed to the Japanese Government’s SpringHonor List as the recipient of The Order ofthe Rising Sun, Gold Rays with NeckRibbon, for helping to promote Japan’s globalhealth policy and advancing public health inthe country.

Moving On:■ Mariana Arcaya, current Yerby Fellow,joins MIT as assistant professor of UrbanPlanning and Public Health at MIT inSeptember.■ Current RWJF Health & Society ScholarAdam Lippert will join University ofColorado, Denver, as assistant professor ofSociology in the fall.

■ This fall, Mark McGovern, currentPGDA Fellow, will become a lecturer inEconomics, Queen’s University Belfast.■ Current RWJF Health & Society ScholarSelena Ortiz moves to Penn State this fall to become assistant professor in the department of Health Policy andAdministration.■ Current Bell Fellow Fahad Razak returnsto the University of Toronto and the St.Michael’s Hospital, where he is an attendingphysician and research scholar.■ J.M. Ian Salas, current Bell Fellow, will become an assistant scientist in theDepartment of Population, Family, andReproductive Health at the Johns HopkinsBloomberg School of Public Health this fall.■ Jessica Williams, current RWJF Health& Society Scholar, has accepted a position asassistant professor, Department of HealthPolicy and Management, School ofMedicine, University of Kansas MedicalCenter.■ Pop Center Researcher Laura Yasaitiswill join the Health Policy Division,Perelman School of Medicine, University ofPennsylvania, as a postdoctoral fellow this fall.

New Harvard Pop Center faculty members:■ Mauricio Avendano, PhD, principalresearch fellow & deputy director of LSEHealth, London School of Economics;adjunct associate professor, Department ofSocial and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health.■ Mary C. Brinton, PhD, ReischauerInstitute Professor of Sociology; Chair,Department of Sociology, Harvard University.■ Jessica L. Cohen, PhD, assistant professorof Global Health, Harvard T.H. Chan Schoolof Public Health.■ Jorge Dominguez, PhD, AntonioMadero Professor for the Study of Mexico;vice provost for International Affairs atHarvard University; and chairman of theHarvard Academy for International and Area Studies.

News briefs:Below is a sampling of the recent activities of Pop Center faculty, fellows, affiliates, and staff.

■ Filiz Garip, PhD, associate professor ofSociology, Harvard University.■ Ashish Jha, MD, K.T. Li Professor ofHealth Policy, Harvard T.H. Chan School ofPublic Health; director of the HarvardGlobal Health Institute; and physician at theVA Boston Healthcare System.■ David Laibson, PhD, Robert I.Goldman Professor of Economics, HarvardUniversity.■ Cindy H. Liu, PhD, director of multi-cultural research, Commonwealth ResearchCenter, Beth Israel Deaconess MedicalCenter; and instructor in Psychiatry, HarvardMedical School.■ Mario L. Small, PhD, Grafstein FamilyProfessor of Sociology, Harvard University.■ Atheendar S. Venkataramani, MD,PhD, instructor in Medicine (Starting July 2015), Division of General InternalMedicine, Department of Medicine,Massachusetts General Hospital, HarvardMedical School.■ Michelle A. Williams, ScD, Stephen B.Kay Professor of Public Health, and chair,Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health.

According to a study of European women, paid maternity leavefollowing the birth of a first child appears to have positivebenefits on women’s mental health later in life. The findings

were published in the May 2015 issue in Social Science & Medicine, andco-authored by Mauricio Avendano, Pop Center faculty member andformer Bell Fellow, Giacomo Pasini, Pop Center visiting scientist,and Lisa Berkman,Harvard Pop Center director. Harvard T.H. ChanSchool of Public Health senior writer Marge Dwyer, interviewedBerkman on the study. Excerpts from that are reprinted below:

Q: How did you become interested in the connectionbetween maternity leave and health?We know that life expectancy for U.S. women has not kept pace withthat of women in many European countries. This wasn’t true 30 or50 years ago. We used to rank in the middle of these countries, butother OECD countries have overtaken us. Life expectancy for womenin the U.S. now is 81 compared to 85 in France or 86 in Japan. Wespeculated that stresses associated with lack of social protection, suchas maternity leave, when coupled with high labor force participationamong women with children, would lead to poorer health inAmerican women. We wanted to know if having paid maternity leavewould reduce work-life challenges in early adulthood and, ultimately,make a difference in women’s mental health in later adulthood.

Q: Is trouble brewing down the road for older adults in the U.S.?It occurred to us that the U.S. has the perfect storm for a shortenedlife expectancy for women. We have a large number of womenworking; over 70% of women with young children are in the laborforce today. American women have more stable fertility rates and oftenhave more children than women in many European countries, andmany American women are missing paid maternity benefits. Since1960, many European countries have adopted policies that providepaid maternity leave benefits to working women, while U.S. women

Harvard Center for Population and Development StudiesHarvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health9 Bow StreetCambridge, MA 02138

Study finds link between paid maternity leave and mental health

have only the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which providesemployees with job protection and unpaid leave for the birth of achild and other family reasons. We hypothesized that the strains ofbeing in the work force along with family responsibilities is stressfulin the absence of social protection policies.

For our study, we looked at data on the work and family historyand maternity benefits for women aged 50 years and older from 13 European countries who participated in the SHARE (Survey ofHealth, Ageing and Retirement in Europe) study. We assessedwhether having three months of paid maternity leave would impactlater life mental health. We thought depression would be important tolook at because there’s an increased burden of depression in old age.We hypothesized that the lack of paid maternity leave might have longterm or “scarring” effects as people get older. While the analyticapproach we used is complex, the bottom line is not: women withseveral months of maternity benefits with full wages were 16.2% lesslikely to be depressed than women without paid maternity leave.

Q: What are your thoughts on why women who don’treceive maternity leave benefits would be more prone todepression?A period of leave shortly after birth may improve mother-childrelationships, which may in turn improve maternal well-being inolder age. Women with prior episodes of depression are more likelyto experience divorce and marital difficulties. Maternity leave benefitsmay also influence employment and lifetime earnings, which maygenerate positive outcomes, including stable pensions and lead tobetter late-life mental health.

One can imagine that it must feel good for a mother to know thatshe is financially secure and can take time off and bond with a babyand have a job. The idea that this would have an impact 30 years lateris amazing. As you’re raising children it’s not just the three months thatare important; it’s setting in motion something that will last over the restof your life, long after the maternity leave benefit has disappeared. ■