Mit der Querschnittsstudie "Wir und die Anderen – Gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit im organisierten Sport in Brandenburg" wurde das Syndrom Gruppenbezogener Menschenfeindlichkeit im organisierten Sport untersucht. Das Konzept der Gruppenbezogenen Menschenfeindlichkeit – ausgehend von einer Ideologie der Ungleichwertigkeit – wurde von Prof. Wilhelm Heitmeyer (Universität Bielefeld) entwickelt. Die Ergebnisse ermöglichen explizite Aussagen über Ausmaß und Ursachen Gruppenbezogener Menschenfeindlichkeit für den gesellschaftlichen Bereich des Sports. Die Studie wurde im vereinsorgansierten Sport im Bundesland Brandenburg durchgeführt. Insgesamt wurden 1.760 Sportlerinnen und Sportler von Oktober 2014 bis Januar 2015 befragt. In der Stichprobe spiegeln 175 Sportvereine mit 44 Sportarten die Vielfalt der Sportpraxis wider. Es wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie Menschen im Sport auf Grund ihres Geschlechts, ihrer sexuellen Identität, Religion oder ihrer kulturellen und ethnischen Herkunft wahrgenommen werden und ob diese Merkmale mit feindseligen Mentalitäten im Sport einhergehen können. Vorurteile gegenüber Menschen mit diesen bestimmten Gruppenzugehörigkeiten teilen einen gemeinsamen Kern, der sich auch im Gesellschaftsbereich Sport als Ideologie der Ungleichwertigkeit empirisch identifizieren lässt. Das Syndrom der Gruppenbezogenen Menschenfeindlichkeit setzt sich in dem vorliegenden Bericht aus den Elementen Fremdenfeindlichkeit, Islamfeindlichkeit, der Abwertung von Homosexuellen (Homophobie), Rassismus, Antisemitismus, Sexismus und der Abwertung von Menschen mit Behinderung zusammen. Die untersuchten Vorurteile hängen empirisch eng miteinander zusammen. Im Ergebnis zeichnen sich zwar Fremdenfeindlichkeit, Rassismus, Islamfeindlichkeit und die Abwertung von Homosexuellen im organisierten Sport als vorrangig handlungsrelevante Dimensionen ab, gleichwohl lässt sich feststellen, dass Sporttreibende, die einer bestimmten Gruppe gegenüber feindselige Mentalitäten haben, auch häufiger dazu neigen, andere Gruppen wie Frauen, Juden/Jüdinnen oder Menschen mit Behinderung abzuwerten. Das Ausmaß Gruppenbezogener Menschenfeindlichkeit lässt sich teilweise durch soziodemografische und strukturelle Faktoren (Alter, Geschlecht, Bildung, Gemeindegröße) und (sport-) spezifische Faktoren wie Nationalismus, Demokratiekritik, Autoritarismus und Gewaltbilligung erklären. / The cross-sectional study "Us and Them – Group-Focused Enmity in Organized Sports in Brandenburg" is the study to investigate the syndrome of group-focused enmity in organized sports. The concept of group-focused enmity, at the heart of which is an ideology of inequality, was developed by Prof. Wilhelm Heitmeyer at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. The findings now put us in a position to make substantiated statements about the extent and causes of group-focused enmity in the social domain of sports. The study was conducted in organized club sports in the German state of Brandenburg. A total of 1,760 athletes were surveyed during October 2014 until January 2015. The sample includes respondents from 175 sports clubs and covers 44 different sports so as to reflect the diversity of everyday sports. The study pursues the question of how people are perceived in sports in terms of gender, sexual identity, religion, or cultural and ethnic background and whether these attributes are associated with hostile mentalities in sports. Prejudice towards people belonging to these groups shares as its common core an ideology of inequality, which can be identified empirically also in the social sphere of sports. The syndrome of group-focused enmity addressed in this report consists of the elements of xenophobia, islamophobia, homophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, and the devaluation of handicapped persons. These prejudices are closely interconnected. Although we do see that xenophobia, racism, islamophobia, and homophobia are the primary motives that are ultimately translated into action, athletes who harbor a hostile mentality toward a particular group frequently tend to express prejudice against other groups such as women, Jews, or people with handicaps as well. The extent of group-focused enmity can be explained, in part, by socio-demographic and structural factors (age, gender, education, size of the municipality) and (sports-)specific factors such as nationalism, criticism of democracy, authoritarianism, and acceptance of violence.

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Preschool attendance is widely recognized as a key ingredient for later socioeconomic success, mothers' labor market participation, and leveling the playing field for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, the empirical evidence for these claims is still relatively scarce, particularly in Europe. Using data from the 2011 Austrian European Union Statistics of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), we contribute to this literature in all mentioned dimensions. In particular, we investigate the effect of preschool attendance on an individual's later educational attainment, the probability that they work full time and their hourly wages, the likelihood of the mother working when the child is 14 years old, and on the overall distribution of wages. We find strong and positive effects of preschool attendance on educational attainment, the probability of working full time, hourly wages, and the probability that the mother is in the labor market. Full time workers at the bottom and the top of the distribution tend to benefit less than those in the middle. Women in particular benefit more in terms of years of schooling and the probability of working full time. Other disadvantaged groups (second migration migrants; people with less educated parents) also often benefit more in terms of education and work. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Generally, immigrants face different challenges adapting to their new environment while starting a new life in the new environment. One of these problems is related to employment as they find it difficult finding jobs in their host countries. A number of them are often jobless or having jobs that do not correspond with their educational qualification. This is one of the factors that influence the earnings of immigrants in the Swedish labour market. This study focused on the factors influencing the underutilization of immigrant’s foreign educational credentials in the Swedish labour market. The study is based on human capital theory, cultural shock theory and discrimination theory. Through qualitative research design, rich detailed data about the phenomenon was collected from participants that participated in the study. Findings of the study revealed that the two major factors that influence the underutilization of immigrant’s foreign educational credential in the Swedish labour market are structural factors and individual factors (lack of social network with Swedish natives, inability to fluently communicate in Swedish, and loss of professional knowledge due to lack of practice).

Despite efforts of U.S. education institutions to encourage study abroad participation, Black and low income students are severely underrepresented compared with their White and higher income peers. Literature reveals that a combination of individual and institutional factors influences study abroad involvement; however, they fail to address how these factors work to limit the participation of interested students. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 21 Black and White students to investigate how they navigate the study abroad process. Cultural and social capital theories were used to understand their experiences. My findings demonstrate that for students that did not study abroad, Blacks compared to Whites encountered more difficulties when trying to activate their available resources to navigate the process. Also, non participating White students were more likely to make the conscious decision not to invest their class privileges to study abroad compared with their Black counterparts. Together, these findings suggest that race and class play a role in the activation and usage of cultural and social resources to study abroad.

This paper argues that the cumulative causation processes between wealth and power risk leading to an escalation of wealth inequality. We confirm with new survey data for the Eurozone Piketty's conclusions that wealth is highly concentrated and that this inequality is perpetuated through dynastic wealth. This leads to an ever-concentrating ability to shape economic and political institutions. While neoclassical economics has a blind spot where power is concerned, we discuss how heterodox approaches have attempted to conceptualize this structural power which influences the framework of economic activity. Finally, we discuss three concrete channels through which the unequal distribution of private assets may affect power relations and economic activity.

This thesis consists of three chapters that analyze theoretically the role of income inequality in consumer markets. Each chapter introduces distributional considerations into an economic model where previously inequality did not play a major role. Chapter one uses a consumer search model to show under what conditions the distribution of income within a community is related to the type of firms that exist within that community, impacting the level of prices. We show that if time and money costs of search are high enough, only the middle class have incentive to search and therefore are the most aggressive shoppers. Using a supply side model, we argue that firms located in more informed communities are more likely to enter the market as large low-priced retailers. Connecting these two results, the model shows under what conditions the size of the middle class can have a negative relationship with the level of prices. Chapter two demonstrates how firm pricing strategy and determinants of household location can interact to determine city structure. In this city, consumers and firms live on a continuous line interval. The model consists of two types of firms; many high-cost perfectly competitive firms located in the Central Business District, and one large low-cost "Superstore", choosing its price strategically. We show how the shopping habits of the consumer population, as determined by the relative price of the Superstore and the Corner Stores, can contribute to the various income segregation outcomes described in previous literature. In addition we consider the impact of city population structure on the pricing decision of a monopolist facing a competitive fringe. Chapter three uses a simple model of banking services to consider how deposit-taking banks price for their services and choose the type of deposit customers that they target. This chapter goes beyond previous theoretical work on consumer banking, identifying the role of household income in the access to deposit services. We show that a higher rate of return on investments available to banks lowers financial exclusion, increasing the profitability of low-income consumers for deposit-taking institutions. This suggests that the possibility of financial exclusion increases in periods of recession. The chapter demonstrates how an increase in income dispersion can lead to a greater proportion of consumers excluded from mainstream banking.

<b>Asymptotic cones.</b> A finitely generated group has a word metric, which one can scale and thereby view the group from increasingly distant vantage points. The group coalesces to an "asymptotic cone" in the limit (this is made precise using techniques of non-standard analysis). The reward is that in place of the discrete group one has a continuous object "that is amenable to attack by geometric (e.g. topological, infinitesimal) machinery" (to quote Gromov). We give coarse geometric conditions for a metric space X to have N-connected asymptotic cones. These conditions are expressed in terms of certain filling functions concerning filling N-spheres in an appropriately coarse sense. We interpret the criteria in the case where X is a finitely generated group &Gamma; with a word metric. This leads to upper bounds on filling functions for groups with simply connected cones -- in particular they have linearly bounded filling length functions. We prove that if all the asymptotic cones of &Gamma; are N-connected then &Gamma; is of type F_N+1 and we provide N-th order isoperimetric and isodiametric functions. Also we show that the asymptotic cones of a virtually polycyclic group &Gamma; are all contractible if and only if &Gamma; is virtually nilpotent. <b>Combable groups and almost-convex groups.</b> A combing of a finitely generated group &Gamma; is a normal form; that is a choice of word (a combing line) for each group element that satisfies a geometric constraint: nearby group elements have combing lines that fellow travel. An almost-convexity condition concerns the geometry of closed balls in the Cayley graph for &Gamma;. We show that even the most mild combability or almost-convexity restrictions on a finitely presented group already force surprisingly strong constraints on the geometry of its word problem. In both cases we obtain an n! isoperimetric function, and upper bounds of ~ n² on both the minimal isodiametric function and the filling length function.

The aim of this thesis is to explore several aspects of occupation-based inequality in post-Soviet Russia that have previously been given little attention in the literature. The data sources for statistical analysis are the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) and the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). Various statistical techniques have been used, such as regression models with random and fixed effects, nonparametric and semiparametric regression models, survival models and log-multiplicative models for contingency tables. First, the thesis looks at the validity of the application of the European Socio-Economic Classiffcation (ESeC) in Russia. The results show that ESeC classes in Russia are different in respect to several aspects of their employment contract, such as the probability of informal employment, the index of fringe benefits and unemployment risks. This confirms the validity of the ESeC for Russia. Second, the association between earnings and age is analyzed. The shape of cross-sectional age-earnings profiles in Russia is different from the shape in Western countries, especially for men. There is little variation in earnings across age groups, and younger men have higher average earnings than older men. The thesis suggests and discusses several explanations for this, such as age segregation in the labour market and the effect of class structure. Third, the thesis explores the class gap in mortality. Non-manual classes have lower mortality risks than manual classes, both for men and women. The size of the class gap in mortality in Russia is larger than in Western European countries. Fourth, the thesis constructs an occupational status scale and analyzes its properties. The scale is based on the information about intermarriages between occupational groups. The Russian scale is similar to the scales previously constructed for European countries and the USA. Overall, the thesis demonstrates similarity in the patterns of occupation-based inequality in Russia and in Western industrial countries. It also discusses some technical aspects of class analysis and suggests a more clear separation between the descriptive and causal logic within it.

Data on the managerial and professional specialty occupations that were specified by the United States Census of the Population for the years 1950 through 1980 were used to analyze the influence of occupational sex ratios, growth rates, and male and female salary levels on the ability of females to move into those occupations. An analysis of the change in the Standardized Occupational Sex Ratio (SSR) showed that, over the thirty year period studied, growth rates became more important than salary levels in influencing movement toward parity in high status occupations. Before the 1980 census year, occupational growth rates were found to interact with both male and female salary levels. During all four census years, slowly growing occupations experienced the smallest movement toward parity regardless of salary level. The lack of movement toward parity in slowly growing occupations shows evidence of gender division. In rapidly growing fields, lower salary levels for both males and females led to greater movement toward parity for females. Movement toward parity in rapidly growing fields that offered lower salaries was taken as evidence of less sheltering. In declining fields, occupations with above median female salaries allowed greater female entry than did those with below median female salaries. The opportunity for women to move into declining fields showed evidence of chain mobility. By 1980, females were moving into managerial and professional specialty occupations at every salary level and growth rate; however, the greatest movement toward parity occurred in those occupations that were rapidly growing. Movement toward parity in rapidly growing occupations provided evidence of structural mobility. By 1980, rapidly growing occupations were experiencing fair sharing of occupational opportunity. The slowly growing occupations, though experiencing some female growth, still showed evidence of male sheltering.