This study examines reasons why successful and dedicated women classroom teachers become disillusioned with teaching. The four women teachers who participated in this study embody the "good and ideal" woman teacher. Yet, over a three year period of time during which we engaged in a written correspondence, they disclosed personal stories about teaching that showed their anger, pain and disillusionment. The purpose of drawing on the narratives of these women was two-fold. First, I wanted their stories to better inform my practice as a teacher educator. I reasoned that if it is successful and dedicated women teachers who become disillusioned with teaching, then it follows that their stories are worth listening to. For pre-service teachers who enter teaching for any number of reasons, these stories help us to better understand the entirety of what it means "to be a teacher". Second, I wanted to situate their stories throughout the body of literature on women teachers that challenges age-old stereotypes and the notion of teaching as "women's work". Of particular interest to the study was their silence, their unwillingness to give voice to these feelings. As such, I named this essence I was seeking to better understand, "teacher shadows": those stories that dedicated and successful women teachers are reluctant to tell, but highlight their feelings of being devalued by a society that doubts their abilities, and a structure of schooling that has little room for shared authority.

This dissertation consists of four papers aimed at understanding the complex relationship between employment and health. One paper is a systematic review of the return to work literature, while the other three papers used secondary data from three cohorts of people with HIV to examine the association between employment and health-related quality of life. The systematic review looked at longitudinal studies that reported health outcomes associated with return to work in relation to other employment trajectories. This review supported the beneficial effect of return to work on health in a variety of populations, times, and settings, and also found evidence that poor health interferes with the prospects of returning to work. Two other papers looked at the association between employment and health-related quality of life in people with HIV; one paper used a cross-sectional sample of people with HIV, while the other paper used a longitudinal sample of men who have sex with men. These two studies found evidence to support the association between employment and both physical and mental health-related quality of life. They also found that employment had a stronger relationship with physical than mental health, suggesting an adaptation process to the experience of unemployment. Finally, another paper examined the cross-sectional association between job security and quality of life in men and women living with HIV. This study found that job security offered additional mental health quality of life benefits, over and above participation in employment alone, for men living with HIV. On the other hand, women benefited from the availability of work, but the perception of job security failed to offer additional health benefits. The current level of evidence on the relationship between work and health in HIV needs to be strengthened by further research to develop and support practical clinical and policy recommendations.

The objective of this research is to study peoples’ reasons for rural-urban migration in the Babati district of Tanzania and the outcomes of such a migration on the migrants’ quality of life in Babati town. This qualitative study is based on semi-structured interviews and secondary sources. The interviews were performed with poor people in urban Babati town and two villages in rural Babati district. In the last thirty years the population of Babati town has increased more than threefold. The causes of rural-urban migration to Babati town are to be found in economical, social and cultural factors. The economic predominate, with the search for employment mentioned by all the migrants in the study. The migrants in Babati town emphasized adequate housing as a very important factor for a good life in town. This need was in many cases not fulfilled. Many were also still lacking social services and could not afford to buy basic necessities. The greatest asset for the people who have moved to Babati town was the diverse market of employment. The benefits of living in Babati town seem to outnumber the problems for most of the urban migrants. For the villagers of Mutuka the greatest asset was good natural conditions for agriculture and lifestock. In Magugu a great advantage was trade, the affordability of houses, food and necessary things. Due to differences of the dynamics of the two villages the people of Mutuka were more eager to move to Babati town than the inhabitants of Magugu. Small harvests and an insufficient market for farming products were great concerns as well as lack of social services.

This dissertation consists of four papers aimed at understanding the complex relationship between employment and health. One paper is a systematic review of the return to work literature, while the other three papers used secondary data from three cohorts of people with HIV to examine the association between employment and health-related quality of life. The systematic review looked at longitudinal studies that reported health outcomes associated with return to work in relation to other employment trajectories. This review supported the beneficial effect of return to work on health in a variety of populations, times, and settings, and also found evidence that poor health interferes with the prospects of returning to work. Two other papers looked at the association between employment and health-related quality of life in people with HIV; one paper used a cross-sectional sample of people with HIV, while the other paper used a longitudinal sample of men who have sex with men. These two studies found evidence to support the association between employment and both physical and mental health-related quality of life. They also found that employment had a stronger relationship with physical than mental health, suggesting an adaptation process to the experience of unemployment. Finally, another paper examined the cross-sectional association between job security and quality of life in men and women living with HIV. This study found that job security offered additional mental health quality of life benefits, over and above participation in employment alone, for men living with HIV. On the other hand, women benefited from the availability of work, but the perception of job security failed to offer additional health benefits. The current level of evidence on the relationship between work and health in HIV needs to be strengthened by further research to develop and support practical clinical and policy recommendations.

The provision of retraining programmes has been adopted by many countries in addressing the problem of unemployment among middle-aged workers. This review of retraining programmes for the middle-aged unemployed covers documents and research studies on these programmes. Retraining has been and is still the most popular strategy adopted by nation states in tackling the problem of unemployment of the low skilled middle aged. "Who is responsible for financing retraining programmes" has been a hotly debated topic, but as unemployment among the middle aged has become persistent, it is found that governments' responsibility in financing such programmes has been more well-accepted; nevertheless, how to enhance the cost-effectiveness of the programmes remains an issue. The present researcher has identified from the research work three other issues which are considered crucial for the successful implementation of retraining programmes. These are: the implementation approach, the programme delivery model and setting programme objectives. Since most evaluative and research studies on the subject matter have been conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) and mainly cover European countries, the present researcher will conduct an evalutive study in Hong Kong and Shanghai. This will attain two purposes: first, to evaluate the effectiveness of this retraining programme and second, to identify some critical factors that are crucial for effective retraining programmes. / Thesis (DBA(DoctorateofBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia, 2004.

Thesis (MEd (Human Resource Studies)) -- University of South Australia, 1995

This thesis investigates Japanese married men??s views on their wives?? employment and married women??s employment in general. I was inspired to undertake this study by the relatively low rate of wives, particularly mothers, in full-time employment in Japan. 291 Japanese husbands in Kawasaki and the Tokyo area answered the questionnaire. Their occupations were company employees, teachers and self-employed men and their ages ranged from the 20s to 50s. The results of my survey revealed that these Japanese husbands did not actively participate in housework and childcare. Their participation increased somewhat when wives were highly educated or older. However, a wife??s higher income was the most powerful incentive to encourage their participation. Husbands also participate in these tasks in accordance with their preferences rather than their expressed abilities. With respect to their views on married women and employment, many husbands acknowledged a general relationship between power and finance (that is, that income-earning is connected with domestic power), yet denied that it applied to themselves when asked about it. The majority showed supportive or sympathetic attitudes towards full-time housewives, which were rarely extended to employed wives except for those who work (part-time) due to clear financial necessity. Concerning men??s views on their wives, they were likely to appreciate a wife??s additional income. Nonetheless, a majority wanted their wives either to earn less than themselves or to have no income, even though the majority had income-earning wives. Their most popular employment status for a wife was part-time employment. The study revealed that most of these husbands had a strong identity as the ??breadwinner?? or ??head of the house??. In this study I explored a new dimension to Japanese husbands?? perceptions of their wives?? employment: the possibility that husbands?? attitudes and preferences were militating against their wives?? employment. My study demonstrated that husbands especially resist full-time employment for their wives, and seek to maintain traditional gender roles because this sustains their self-esteem. This is clearly one significant reason for the comparatively low rate of participation of Japanese wives in full-time employment.

Thesis (MEd (Human Resource Studies)) -- University of South Australia, 1995

This is an empirical investigation of Australian secondary school students who have part-time jobs. It is based on analyses of national longitudinal data covering a period of almost twenty years, from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s. Data from four separate age-based cohorts of young people are analysed, with a focus on the youngest cohort, that born in 1975, as well as additional data from a more recent sample of students who were in Year 9 in 1995. The extent of student involvement in part-time work is described, with reference to rates of employment and to average hours worked per week. Although there is some variation by age and year level, by the early 1990s one third of senior school students spent an average of nine hours per week in a part-time job. The background characteristics of student-workers are examined. Students who were lower school achievers were less likely to be employed, as were those from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds. These patterns, matching observations from other countries in which there are comparable or higher rates of student employment, indicate that some students may be disadvantaged in this part-time job market. Students had generally positive perceptions of their jobs. A large proportion enjoyed their work, and the money and the independence that it gave them, and they believed it would improve their future employment prospects. Apart from these subjective views of students, the longitudinal nature of these data enabled the outcomes of in-school employment to be investigated. (For complete abstract open document)

Human and financial costs generated by nurse shortages, within a context of increasing numbers of patients requiring nursing care, demonstrate the potential significance of this study which aims to identify work related factors contributing to New Zealand nurses' intent to leave the job. Two hundred and seventy five usable paper and pencil surveys (Response rate = 68.8%) from a random sample of 400 nurses employed in one New Zealand District Health Board were used to explore intent to leave the job. Three research questions directed the description of levels of job satisfaction, job stress, and burnout found in nurse participants, correlations between the three variables, and the identification of variables predicting intent to leave the job through regression analyses. Levels of job satisfaction were high, job stress was low, and burnout was average. Specifically, lack of opportunity to participate in organisational decision making, control over work conditions, control over what goes on in the work setting (key Magnet Hospital characteristics) were not evident, and with pay rates, were the main sources of job dissatisfaction. Workload was the most frequently experienced source of stress by nurse participants. Twenty-five per cent of nurse participants reported high levels of intent to leave the job. Correlations suggested that reductions in job satisfaction influenced increases in job stress and burnout. Job stress was associated with increases in emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion was influenced by eight job satisfaction, job stress, and burnout subscales. Five subscales (professional opportunities, praise and recognition, interaction opportunities, extrinsic rewards, lack of support) explained 26.2% of the variance in nurse participant's intent to leave. Issues of power and control were associated with job dissatisfaction, job stress and burnout in nursing practice. However, predictors of intent to leave the job suggest a growing realisation by nurse participants that postgraduate education and nursing research may provide the tools to create positive change in the health care environment and make nursing visible, valued and appropriately rewarded.