This work explores the way in which the texts and practices of Remembrance of the First World War in Northern Ireland can be seen as not only constructing discourses about the past but also discourses of identity, including national identity, in the present. It will examine how Remembrance is used to shape such identities and how an understanding of this can be, and is being, used to tackle the transformation of conflict in the region. In the process it will ask questions about the production of meaning and the role of power in such production. This will lead to an exploration of the range of actors engaged with Remembrance and how they use it to achieve their aims. It will explain the way in which such ‘memory work’ has been used in the construction of discourses of the nation on the island of Ireland and how this contributed to discourses of division amongst its population. It will conclude by attempting to summarise the functions of Remembrance and its role in the construction and shaping of the nation and national identity. The research focuses on the ‘Republican’ Falls Road, ‘Loyalist’ Shankill Road, the Cenotaph in Belfast, and the Island of Ireland Peace Park in Belgium. One of the main methods of research has been the production and analysis of photographs and many of these are used throughout this presentation to enable the reader to both better understand and also join in with the sense-making that such a project inevitably entails.

This research uses a mixed-method approach to build on previous research which has shown Pakistani women have low rates of labour market participation. In doing so, this thesis contributes to the argument that intersectionality is crucial when exploring labour market participation, whilst contributing to a body of research that continues to problematise the gendered nature of labour market participation in the UK. Through the exploration of factors relating to life-stage, education, and skills, this thesis demonstrates a variety of ways Pakistani women might seek to participate in the labour market, and therefore differ in the types of support they need. Although cultural preferences do have an impact, this thesis characterises Pakistani women’s labour market participation as heavily constrained by structural factors, shaped by a climate of Islamophobia as well as a labour market that is persistently gendered, and therefore challenges lay conceptions of Muslim women as ‘submissive’ and ‘oppressed’. This thesis makes policy suggestions that aim to support Pakistani women who wish to participate in the labour market, as well as those who are distanced from the labour market, and suggests that future research could consider Pakistani women’s experiences in the work place, and could also explore the experiences of a wider range of ethnic groups.

This research investigates the social and political framings and experiences of actors involved or concerned with ova exchanges following two cases of cross-border ova ‘trafficking’ from Romania. I explore the impact that these two cases have had on the subsequent regulation of ova provision in the country, and on the procurement of female gametes for IVF treatments. During eight months of ethnography in Romania I interviewed 37 participants from various backgrounds connected to the world of IVF. I conducted observation in medical and institutional settings, and analysed relevant EU and Romanian regulations, as well as media stories related to ova ‘trafficking’. My findings show that, following the ova commercialisation cases, Romanian authorities have established an official regime of ova provision rooted in a set of regulations, institutions, and practices that ensure all exchanges are ‘free and altruistic’. However, the regime’s ambiguity has allowed its circumvention by IVF patients and ova providers, who sometimes engage in direct monetary exchanges. Additionally, the regime has attracted the criticism of many stakeholders, who have engaged in identity performances to legitimise their claims. Nevertheless, power differentials and the challenging of the identities of those opposing the regime have curtailed attempts at changing the current framing of ova provision, with practical and ethical consequences that affect the most vulnerable: infertile persons and ova providers. This thesis is the first to give an in-depth understanding of Romanian ova provision. Rooted in STS scholarship, my findings contribute to the understanding of ova provision ‘in the making’, as it is enacted in a multiplicity of contexts, under the action of a diversity of apparatuses. I challenge the country’s portrayal as a victim of exploitation and emphasise its role as a consumer of foreign reproductive services, arguing for a more nuanced approach to the analysis of reproductive stratification.

This thesis is concerned with the relationship between the political economy and UK governments’ approaches since the 1970s to out-of-work disability benefits. It uses a historical materialist analysis of both the current mode of production and the social model of disability to understand how and why there is a disconnect between government approaches to disability and disabled people’s lived experiences. The concept of a ‘validating device’ – the mechanism used to determine who is exempt, on the grounds of disability, from having to seek employment - is utilised to analyse changes in out-of-work disability benefits and the accompanying assessments. The thesis pulls together four different areas of study which are key to understanding why the disconnect has occurred. The first area of research and analysis relates to the position and importance of the administrative category of disability to the functioning of capitalism, arguing that it is impossible to fully understand the current position of disabled people who are unable to engage in waged labour without considering their role and position in the capitalist mode of production. The second area is strongly linked to the first and concerns the history and current situation of out-of-work disability benefits in the UK, making links with what is known about changes in the labour market. The third area uses documentary analysis to chart the development of the conceptual framework underpinning the current validating device, the Work Capability Assessment, showing how a system was created which treats disabled people’s experiences as contentious. The fourth area directly relates to disabled people’s experiences of the assessment process. Data from focus groups, interviews and online surveys explores both how people experience the assessment and the nature of the relationship that is created by the validating device. The thesis concludes that changes in the determination of who is eligible for out-of-work benefits have been driven primarily by developments in the political economy rather than by individual capacity or need; and that it is there is a consequent disconnect between current policy approaches to disability and disabled people’s lived experiences. It argues that neither previous developments nor the current situation can be understood without a wider analysis which places disabled people’s experiences in the context of past and current developments of the capitalist mode of production.

The outsourcing of public services often involves public sector workers transferring their employment to a private or non-profit company, yet little is known about what this transition is like for the employees themselves. This thesis investigates the employee experience of ‘being outsourced’ in the public leisure sector, which is an under-researched area, and concentrates attention toward the implications for the employment relationship. The research draws on social exchange theory as way of conceptualising the employment relationship and henceforth explores changes to it during the process of outsourcing. The research is primarily based on three longitudinal case studies (leisure services outsourced to Leisure Trusts) which includes the collection of 85 semi-structured interviews. In general, the findings suggest that the pre-transfer experience of outsourcing is likely to be a difficult emotional process to go through, with post-transfer implications including the worsening of terms and conditions and less than expected developmental opportunities. Yet, despite the difficulties of the transition, the findings also challenge the notion that the longer-term post-transfer implications are ‘all negative’ for employees, especially with regards to the quality and socioemotional side of the employment relationship – however these latter outcomes seem to be heavily dependent on the values and managerial style of the Leisure Trust managers, as well as any changes made to terms and conditions.

In this Thesis we study two features of production networks: their emergence and their vulnerability to idiosyncratic shocks. In order to understand the relation between economic incentives leading to the formation and the systemic properties of the network we map our economic analysis into the mathematical theory of networks. In the first Chapter we develop a simple model of endogenous formation of input-output economies to address the theoretical nexus between trade-credit, bank credit and credit contagion. We make two contributions. First, we show that competitive markets in which heterogeneous price-taker firms compete strategically by setting trade-credit maturities have a unique symmetric equilibrium in trade-terms and the equilibrium dictates the production flow along the supply chains. Secondly, we find that the network can have a role either as shock absorber or shock amplifier and this is determined by a testable condition which holds for a general class of trade-credit networks. On these grounds, we argue that the proportional credit rationing used by banks (i.e., richer borrowers obtain larger loans) may have ambiguous effects on systemic vulnerability. In the second Chapter we develop a model of economic networks formation which links Internal Capital Markets to the formation of Business Groups. Our model is stylized as it focuses on two interacting channels: the debt-to-equity regulations and investment profitability. In our model, a growing group of heterogeneous and financially constrained firms have a limited capability to coordinate production in a competitive market by means of pairwise credit arrangements. We show that usage of inter-firm credit is sustained by an individually rational mechanism which match several empirical features. In the third Chapter, we look at the complex effects of financial frictions in a non-stationary market economy with heterogeneous agents. We study two classes of dynamic equilibria for which the market converges to the expression of a single type of seller.

Empirical likelihood is a non-parametric, likelihood-based inference approach. In the design-based empirical likelihood approach introduced by Berger and De La Riva Torres (2016), the parameter of interest is expressed as a solution to an estimating equation. The maximum empirical likelihood point estimator is obtained by maximising the empirical likelihood function under a system of constraints. A single vector of weights, which can be used to estimate various parameters, is created. Design-based empirical likelihood confidence intervals are based on the χ² approximation of the empirical likelihood ratio function. The confidence intervals are range-preserving and asymmetric, with the shape driven by the distribution of the data. In this thesis we focus on the extension and application of design-based empirical likelihood methods to various problems occurring in survey inference. First, a design-based empirical likelihood methodology for parameter estimation in two surveys context, in presence of alignment and benchmark constraints, is developed. Second, a design-based empirical likelihood multiplicity adjusted estimator for multiple frame surveys is proposed. Third, design-based empirical likelihood is applied to a practical problem of census coverage estimation. The main contribution of this thesis is defining the empirical likelihood methodology for the studied problems and showing that the aligned and multiplicity adjusted empirical likelihood estimators are √n-design-consistent. We also discuss how the original proofs presented by Berger and De La Riva Torres (2016) can be adjusted to show that the empirical likelihood ratio statistic is pivotal and follows a χ² distribution under alignment constraints and when the multiplicity adjustments are used. We evaluate the asymptotic performance of the empirical likelihood estimators in a series of simulations on real and artificial data. We also discuss the computational aspects of the calculations necessary to obtain empirical likelihood point estimates and confidence intervals and propose a practical way to obtain empirical likelihood confidence intervals in situations when they might be difficult to obtain using standard approaches.

The association between maternal work and child malnutrition is a long studied topic that has been revisited in developed countries due to the concern with the increasing rates of childhood overweight alongside increased female labour force participation (FLFP). Emerging countries, such as Brazil and India, have experienced pronounced economic growth, with different outcomes in terms of work opportunities for women, social development, and child nutrition. However, there is a lack of information about how maternal work relates to child nutrition in these contexts. This thesis explores changes in FLFP in Brazil and India and investigates the effects of maternal work on child stunting and overweight. Two waves of the Demographic and Health Surveys were used for each country, allowing comparisons of associations over time, using a sample of mothers and their children younger than 60 months. Multilevel models were estimated to examine child stunting, followed by separate analysis for each country. In India, a matching procedure was used to eliminate selection bias between working and non-working mothers; in Brazil, structural equation modelling was used to understand the mechanisms linking maternal work to child’s BMI. Given the different contexts of Brazil and India, the effect of FLFP went in opposite directions by year and in its effect on child nutrition. In India, the increased likelihood of child stunting when the mother worked was related to poverty. In Brazil, maternal work was associated with increased food availability, which reduced stunting, but also increased child BMI. Stratified analysis highlighted the importance of maternal education for better work opportunities, the importance of the partner and family members in dividing childcare responsibilities, and the importance of policies that provide employment rights and support childcare for working mothers. These can minimize the negative effects of the constraints on maternal-child time experienced by working mothers, while at the same time contributing to economic growth and social development, of which FLFP and child’s health are direct contributors.

This thesis investigates the roles of individual, household and country in individuals’ proenvironmental behaviours and aims to understand the relationship between environmental attitudes and behaviours using a multilevel modelling approach. The first and second papers analyse factors influencing individuals’ environmental behaviours in the United Kingdom using data from Wave 4 of the Understanding Society, UK Household Longitudinal Study. General environmental behaviour, as well as home-, transport- and purchasing-related behaviours are studied. The main focus is to highlight the role of the household on these individual behaviours. To account for the complex hierarchical structure of the survey data, where households are clustered within interviewers and geographical areas, both studies propose, for the first time, a cross-classified multilevel modelling approach. Results show that household, interviewer and area have significant effects on the reported environmental behaviours. The findings also suggest that individuals’ personal and environmental values have significant impacts on their behaviours. The third paper examines cross-national differences in individuals’ environmental behaviours by exploring how individual- and country-level factors influence their behaviours and how the relationship between personal environmental attitudes and behaviours varies across countries using a multilevel modelling approach. Analysis is conducted on the 2010 Environmental module of the International Social Survey Programme, a cross-national survey that deals with environmental behaviours and attitudes. General environmental behaviour, as well as home-, purchasing-, transport- and recycling-related behaviours are considered. Results show that both individual- and national-level variables have substantial effects in explaining different types of environmental behaviours. The inclusion of the random slope on environmental attitude also provides evidence that the effects of individuals’ environmental attitudes on their environmental behaviours vary significantly across nations.

Despite several family planning interventions, there has been little improvement in contraceptive use in Nigeria where fertility rates have remained high for the last few decades. Using a mixed-methods approach, this thesis aims to understand the pertinent factors underlying the resistance to fertility decline in the country, with a focus on social and cultural barriers to family planning. The analyses are based on quantitative data drawn from the 2013 Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) and qualitative data collected from a semi-urban residential area in Ekiti State. The findings of the thesis are presented in a three paper format. The first analysis applied life tables and proportional hazard regression to NDHS data to examine the association between child mortality and fertility behaviour. The findings show that recurrent experience of child deaths exacerbate the risks to higher parity transition. The second analysis used couple dataset from the NDHS to investigate the influence of men’s contraceptive perceptions on family planning demand and use. The findings highlight that men’s perception of contraception as women’s business did not significantly influence family planning demand, however their concern that wife’s contraceptive use may lead to promiscuity was associated with lower demand for family planning and higher traditional method use. The third analysis used vignette and thematic analysis from qualitative data to examine couples’ contraceptive decision-making processes and wife’s empowerment to adopt family planning in situations where husband opposed family planning. The findings demonstrate imbalance in power relation and decision-making within marital relationships, and that women are poorly empowered to overtly use contraceptives when opposed by their partners. The findings direct the need to adopt targeted approach focusing on couples, and reorient policy and program efforts for FP counselling and behavioural changes in men. Interventions aimed at reducing fertility in Nigeria should aim at promoting child survival and family planning concurrently.