Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT are transforming how scientists conduct and validate research, offering promise as tools to improve scientific reproducibility. However, computational reproducibility and error detection remain expensive and labor-intensive. We experimentally test how collaboration between researchers and LLM assistants influences the reproduction of quantitative social science findings across different levels of AI autonomy. We randomly assigned 288 researchers to 103 teams working under three conditions: human-only, AI-assisted (using ChatGPT as a collaborative tool), or AI-led (ChatGPT operating with minimal human oversight). Teams reproduced published results from leading social science journals, detected coding errors, and proposed robustness checks. Human-only and AI-assisted teams achieved comparable reproduction rates (94% vs. 91%) and performed similarly on most outcomes, except human-only teams identified significantly more major coding errors. Both substantially outperformed AI-led teams, which achieved only a 37% reproduction rate, detected fewer errors across all categories, proposed weaker robustness checks, and required more time. This autonomous approach, however, likely represents only a lower bound of AI capabilities. Despite rapid model advances, expert human judgment currently remains indispensable for reliable empirical verification. While AI assistance did not degrade most outcomes, it provided no measurable advantages and was associated with reduced detection of major errors. However, the 37% autonomous reproduction rate indicates that AI could provide value in settings where scale or cost constraints preclude human review of papers, even though general-purpose LLMs offer no immediate advantages for human-supervised verification.
OBJECTIVES:Maintaining control over the retirement transition is crucial for post-retirement well-being. Yet, studies show that between 10% and 40% of employees experience involuntary retirement. This study investigates 3 separate reasons for involuntary retirement: poor health, organizational pressures, and reaching the quasi-mandatory pension age. Guided by a life-course framework of agency and structure, we analyze how collective and individual perceptions of development, accommodation, and post-retirement work climates shape separate reasons for involuntary retirement, as opposed to voluntary retirement. METHODS:Using multilevel panel data from the Netherlands, we estimate multilevel logistic regression models on 3,735 respondents nested in 501 organizations. We assess how organizational climates, which vary systematically between organizations, and individual-relative perceptions, which vary systematically within organizations, are associated with different involuntary retirement reasons. RESULTS:Reaching the quasi-mandatory retirement age was the main reason for involuntary retirement. Across organizations, a supportive organizational climate for development reduced involuntary retirement. At the individual level, employees who perceived more supportive accommodation and post-retirement work climates relative to their colleagues were less likely to experience involuntary retirement. Organizational and individual-relative climates revealed distinct associations with different reasons for involuntary retirement. DISCUSSION:Our results suggest that involuntary retirement is a multidimensional phenomenon shaped by micro-, meso-, and macro-level constraints. Supportive organizational policies and practices enhance employees' agency, with some differences depending on the reason for involuntary retirement. Policies encouraging training of older workers may increase both labor force participation and older employees' choices as they near retirement.
This article examines the realisation of short-term fertility intentions in the Republic of Moldova using longitudinal data from the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) Waves 1 (2020) and 2 (2023). Moldova faces persistent below-replacement fertility and high emigration rates, yet survey evidence indicates that individuals’ desired number of children exceeds the actual number of births. By tracking approximately 650 respondents who intended to have a child within three years in 2020, we assess the extent to which these intentions were realised and identify the factors that facilitated or hindered their realisation. Descriptive and multivariate analyses reveal that only about one-third of intended births occurred within the observation period, reflecting significant unmet reproductive intentions. Partnership status, age, parity, and subjective well-being emerge as key determinants of successful realisation, while economic insecurity, unstable relationships, and migration contribute to unmet plans. The analysis also contextualises these outcomes within Moldova’s recent social and economic shocks as well as major family policy reforms adopted in 2022, which aim to strengthen parental leave, childcare availability, and financial protection around childbirth. The findings highlight substantial structural barriers that limit individuals’ ability to achieve their reproductive goals and underscore the need for sustained policies that enhance family support, gender equality, and economic stability, helping align fertility outcomes with citizens’ aspirations.
House prices rose rapidly in rich societies over the past decade, inhibiting young adults’ access to affordable, family-friendly housing. Over the same period, fertility has declined. Some recent studies have examined the connection between these trends, but the individual-level mechanisms that link house prices to fertility remain underexplored. We address this research gap by using register data on the full population of the Netherlands between 2012 and 2023, a period during which house prices increased dramatically. We link variation in changes in house prices across NUTS-3 regions to yearly conception risks and examine the mediating and moderating role of individual-level homeownership. Results show that increasing house prices are associated with lower fertility, which can partly be explained by the lower propensity of young adults to be homeowners and partly by decreased fertility among renters in more expensive housing markets. In contrast, increasing house prices increase the fertility of homeowners. This positive home equity effect is found only among those who entered into homeownership more than three years ago. These results indicate that rising house prices have likely contributed to the fertility decline observed after 2010 among younger cohorts and may amplify fertility differences between housing market insiders and outsiders.
Unemployment is not only a significant risk for the mental health of those affected but also to their interlinked family members, such as their parents. Recent studies have shown a negative association between children’s unemployment and their parents’ mental health, drawing on mechanisms based on linked lives and stress processing within the intergenerational family. However, the role of the broader economic context for this association, particularly regarding prevailing family support cultures, remains less understood. Therefore, our study aims to investigate the association between children’s unemployment and their parents’ mental health in 12 European countries with varying (de)familism regimes before, during, and after the Great Recession of 2008. Using longitudinal panel data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we analysed 14,954 parents and their 26,382 children over 5 SHARE waves from 2004 to 2015 (N = 92,667) applying pooled longitudinal and fixed-effects linear probability regression. We found significant mental health declines in mothers with their children's unemployment, which was, however, not generally moderated by the economic context. The associations varied across European regions and (de)familism regimes, particularly for mothers in Southern Europe when accounting for individual confounding. Our study provides novel and robust evidence for intergenerational mental health effects of family economic stress, especially in more familistic regime contexts.
