PurposeThe Lifelines COVID-19 cohort was set up to assess the psychological and societal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and investigate potential risk factors for COVID-19 within the Lifelines prospective population cohort.ParticipantsParticipants were recruited from the 140 000 eligible participants of Lifelines and the Lifelines NEXT birth cohort, who are all residents of the three northern provinces of the Netherlands. Participants filled out detailed questionnaires about their physical and mental health and experiences on a weekly basis starting in late March 2020, and the cohort consists of everyone who filled in at least one questionnaire in the first 8 weeks of the project.Findings to date>71 000 unique participants responded to the questionnaires at least once during the first 8 weeks, with >22 000 participants responding to seven questionnaires. Compiled questionnaire results are continuously updated and shared with the public through the Corona Barometer website. Early results included a clear signal that younger people living alone were experiencing greater levels of loneliness due to lockdown, and subsequent results showed the easing of anxiety as lockdown was eased in June 2020.Future plansQuestionnaires were sent on a (bi)weekly basis starting in March 2020 and on a monthly basis starting July 2020, with plans for new questionnaire rounds to continue through 2020 and early 2021. Questionnaire frequency can be increased again for subsequent waves of infections. Cohort data will be used to address how the COVID-19 pandemic developed in the northern provinces of the Netherlands, which environmental and genetic risk factors predict disease susceptibility and severity and the psychological and societal impacts of the crisis. Cohort data are linked to the extensive health, lifestyle and sociodemographic data held for these participants by Lifelines, a 30-year project that started in 2006, and to data about participants held in national databases.

This paper reviews the literature on saving behavior and portfolio choice after retirement and provides a descriptive analysis of this behavior by Dutch elderly households. Studying saving behavior in the Netherlands is informative because of the very different institutional background compared to the US, for which most of the empirical evidence is. In the Netherlands, the generous pension system and almost complete coverage of the public health-and long-term care insurance system makes precautionary saving less necessary. Using detailed administrative data, we present evidence on the extent to which the financial resources of retirees are affected by shocks such as the decease of a spouse or deteriorating health-similar to recent empirical studies by Poterba et al. ( 2014) for the US. Moreover, we examine the extent to which retirees who do not experience any shocks are able to keep positive wealth at their disposal and sustain their consumption level during retirement. Our results show that the death of the spouse results in a significant reduction of household wealth compared to surviving couples-which is also found in the USwhile health shocks result in higher household savings in old-age due to the almost complete coverage of health care expenditures. Although retirees in the Netherlands face limited uncertainty about health expenditures, our analysis shows that the elderly, on average, keep large amounts of assets even at a very old age. Our findings suggest that (1) the generous pension benefits are protective of household wealth, (2) illiquid housing wealth constrains the decumulation of household wealth, (3) bequests and transfers after the death of the first spouse are important.

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We document new facts on the distributions of male wages, male earnings, and household earnings and income (before and after taxes) in the Netherlands and the United States. We find that, in both countries, wages display rich dynamics, including substantial asymmetries and nonlinearities by age and previous earnings levels. Individual-level male wage and earnings risk is relatively high for younger and older people, and for those in the lower and upper parts of the income distribution. In the Netherlands, the behavior of hours and family labor supply have noticeable effects on earnings persistence and on the skewness and kurtosis of wage changes, but government transfers are a major source of insurance. Instead, the role of family insurance is much larger in the U.S. and also affects the standard deviation of wage changes, in addition to its skewness and kurtosis, and wage persistence. Family and government insurance reduce, but do not eliminate these non-linearities in household disposable income by age and previous earnings in both countries.

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Purpose There is growing awareness that the employer plays an important role in preventing early labor market exit of workers with poor health. This systematic review aims to explore the employer characteristics associated with work participation of workers with disabilities. An interdisciplinary approach was used to capture relevant characteristics at all organizational levels. Methods To identify relevant longitudinal observational studies, a systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO and EconLit. Three key concepts were central to the search: (a) employer characteristics, (b) work participation, including continued employment, return to work and long-term work disability, and (c) chronic diseases. Results The search strategy resulted in 4456 articles. In total 50 articles met the inclusion criteria. We found 14 determinants clustered in four domains: work accommodations, social support, organizational culture and company characteristics. On supervisor level, strong evidence was found for an association between work accommodations and continued employment and return to work. Moderate evidence was found for an association between social support and return to work. On higher organizational level, weak evidence was found for an association between organizational culture and return to work. Inconsistent evidence was found for an association between company characteristics and the three work outcomes. Conclusions Our review indicates the importance of different employer efforts for work participation of workers with disabilities. Workplace programs aimed at facilitating work accommodations and supervisor support can contribute to the prevention of early labor market exit of workers with poor health. Further research is needed on the influence of organizational culture and company characteristics on work participation.

The contribution of employer characteristics to continued employment of employees with residual work capacity: evidence from register data in The Netherlands by van Ooijen R, Koning PWC, Boot CRL, Brouwer S This paper assesses the contribution of employer characteristics to continued employment of employees with residual work capacity using register data. We found sizable differences in employment outcomes between similar employers in terms of size, sector and workforce-composition, implying that encouraging employers to invest in disability-related policies and practices may result in better employment opportunities for employees with residual work capacity.

The COVID−19 pandemic has affected billions of people around the world not only through the infection itself but also through its wider impact on public health and daily life. To assess the effects of the pandemic, a team of researchers across a wide range of disciplines developed and implemented the Lifelines COVID−19 questionnaire, leading to the development of the Lifelines COVID−19 cohort. This cohort is recruited from participants of the Lifelines prospective population cohort and the Lifelines NEXT birth cohort, and participants were asked to fill out detailed questionnaires about their physical and mental health and experiences on a weekly basis starting in late March of 2020 and on a bi−weekly basis staring in June 2020. The Lifelines region covers the three Northern provinces of the Netherlands−Drenthe, Groningen and Friesland−which together account for about 10% of the Dutch population. To date, >70,000 people have responded to the questionnaires at least once, and the questionnaire program is still ongoing. Data collected by the questionnaires will be used to address four aspects of the outbreak: (1) how the COVID−19 pandemic developed in the three northern provinces of the Netherlands, (2) which environmental risk factors predict disease susceptibility and severity, (3) which genetic risk factors predict disease susceptibility and severity and (4) what are the psychological and societal impacts of the crisis.