This thesis evaluates the efficiency of educational policies, especially those which result in surplus education. In particular, in Chapter 2 we explore whether the positive return of overeducation is due to increases in productivity or due to ability signals. We adopt the methodology proposed by Wolpin (1977) and implemented by Brown and Sessions (1999) to examine our hypothesis. We find significant evidence supporting the strong screening hypothesis which infers that surplus education has purely private returns. Furthermore, in Chapter 3 we test whether our results hold using a panel dataset. Chapter 4 examines the often accepted statement that additional education decreases unemployment. We analyse how educational mismatch, and in particular surplus education, affect the likelihood of job loss and the re-employment rates especially in a period of economic crisis. We employ a pooled data logit model, and examine the partial relationships between the probability of job loss and over, under and adequate education. In addition, we evaluate the effect of surplus education on the re-employment hazard profiles using a discrete time duration model. Finally, in Chapter 5 we use an alternative methodology to test the signalling effects of surplus education. In particular we adopt the employer learning specification which assumes that the longer an individual is in the labour market and gains experience, the more likely it is to reveal his or her true productivities to employers (Farber and Gibbons, 1996). We expect that if the interaction term of required or surplus education with experience has a positive sign then we have evidence of productivity effects. If the coefficient of the interaction term is negative then the model provides evidence of signalling.

This thesis emphasises human capital accumulation in early life, and analyses whether and how interruption of this accumulation process in childhood will influence both the stock of human capital and other socioeconomic outcomes in adulthood. Based on the theoretical framework of dynamic complementarity and the foetal origin hypothesis, Chapters 2, 3 and 4 provide empirical evidence on the life cycle mechanism of human capital investment. Chapter 2 analyses the relationship between household income and infant mortality in developing countries. Using international commodity prices as a source of exogenous variation in household income, this study discusses the potentially different influences of labour-intensive and capital-intensive commodity price changes on infant mortality, a marker of investments in child health. Using comparable Demographic and Health Survey data for 65 developing countries, this chapter finds that infant mortality is decreasing in labour-intensive commodity prices, whereas it is increasing in capital-intensive commodity prices. Chapter 3 examines the long-run consequences of exposure to natural disasters in early life using the event of the Valdivia earthquake in Chile in 1960, the largest recorded earthquake in history. It analyses whether human capital stocks were lower for cohorts exposed to this disaster at birth, or whether they had recovered three to four decades later. The results show that children born in Valdivia after the earthquake had lower schooling, a deficit of 1.5 months on average compared with earlier birth cohorts, but there are no significant differences in their health and socioeconomic status. Chapter 4 studies the influences of educational disruption on human capital accumulation and labour market performance in the long term in the context of the Chinese Cultural Revolution which imposed school and university closure. Using China census and survey data, this chapter reveals that approximately two million students were unable to finish their education, and there were unfavourable impacts on their employment status, job quality and income.

The aim of this study is to analyse the personal change experienced by graduates during the transition from university to employment. The research addresses four questions: (1)- How do graduates construe their new context? (2)- How do their construe their new role? (3)- How do they revise their self construction? (4)- How does construing their new role and reality affect the way graduates look at themselves? It is argued that Personal Construct Psychology (Kelly, 1955) provides a valuable framework for exploring these questions. The theoretical framework for the research suggests that graduates will engage in constructive revision as they encounter events which do not fit their existing patterns of understanding. Constructive revision is said to be channelled by the individual's existing construction system, and hence to reflect individual differences rather than socialisation effects. Role construction and reality construction are seen as two key mechanisms through which graduates might revise their self construction. Three factors are said to affect the extent of change: invalidation, tightness of the construction system, and threat; and two factors are said to affect change in self~steem: role meaningfulness, and initial self-steem. The study is based on a three phase longitudinal design over nine months from entry, and involves fifty-six graduates from a single organisation Data were collected through semi-structured interviews (at Tt, 1'2, and T3), repertory grids (completed at Tl and T2 and in which constructs were elicited at both times), and questionnaires (T3). The analysis is based on both the identification of group patterns, and the analysis of individual cases. The results suggests that, on the whole, graduates undertook some significant change in their construction system, their construction of organisational reality, and of themselves during the period of transition. However, both the extent and nature of change are marked by great individual differences, making the group analysis sometimes blurred and inconclusive. As predicted, the extent of change in reality construction is positively related to social invalidation, and is negatively related to tightness and threat. The extent of change in self construction is negatively related to tightness, while threat was found to encourage change along existing constructs. Four patterns of change in self~steem are identified, and increase in self~steem was found to be positively related to role meaningfulness, while initial self-esteem moderates this relationship. An important new concept emerged from the analysis: Discovery (perceived 8 difference between oneself and people at work); it was found to encourage the development of new constructs, and change in self construction. In line with the literature on organisational entry, the results suggest that graduates were commonly surprised (more often negatively than positively) by their role. The analysis concerning the relationships between role, reality, and self construction produces mixed results. On the one hand, the holistic analysis shows that the way graduates construed their role and reality had some significant influence on the way they construed themselves, as suggested by the theoretical framework. On the other hand, the correlational analysis (parameters approach) provides weak\support for the hypotheses and propositions concerning the relationships between role, reality and Self construction. It is suggested that the weakness of the results of the parameters approach could be due to the wide variety of patterns deriving from individual differences. Given the complexity of these individual differences in adjustment, it is not surprising that many of the correlations are small; furthermore, the sample of fifty-six is only large enough to reliably detect "true" correlations of moderate size (0.35 or above). In conclusion, the theoretical, practical, and methodological significance of the results is discussed, and some weaknesses of the research are outlined.

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This paper is based on research into the lived experience of female call centre workers in South Korea. A call centre has become a representative field-site to investigate the suffering of female workers in Korea, having been likened to the ‘sweatshop of the 20th century’ because of its panopticon-like supervision, regimentation of time, repetitive work. In reality, the current lives of female call handlers in Seoul Digital Industrial Complex seems not to improve compared to the past lives of the factory girls of the textile industry in the 1970s and 80s at the same industrial area, called Guro Industrial Complex. It can be inferred particularly from the perspectives of ‘chemical employeeship’ (i.e. workers depending on chemicals including caffeine and cigarette to work longer and harder for securing one’s job) and ‘cultural gravity’ (i.e. workers following the cultural force operating to demand their body be docile and industrious) In the context of Korean call centre industry, I have sought the worker’s reality of labour, protest and health through focusing on three different types of ‘hands up.’ The first ‘hands up’ describes that call handlers have to put one’s hands up to go to the toilet, which is humiliating to them and represents the unfair working condition. Secondly, the use of ‘hands up’ is a gesture of defiance of the first call centre labour union in Korea. I explored how hard it was physically and mentally to establish the collective resistance, but also observed the call handlers’ shrunken bodies or daunted mind could stretch out through the opportunity created by the labour union. Lastly, I found female call handlers’ ‘hands up’ gesture as a self-healing exercise, called ‘mompyeogi undong’ meaning ‘stretching body exercise.’ This exercise helped the participants improve their health physically and mentally as well as elevating self-esteem.

This thesis examines claims that transnational youth mobility represents a means for students and graduates to invest in employability through the adoption of a cross-national comparative approach. It employs qualitative interviews with former working holidaymakers, careers advisers, and employers in Britain and Japan, comparing accounts both within and across country contexts. The research investigates how student and graduate aspirations, orientations, and career trajectories - and employer perceptions and values - are shaped by both the economic and socio-cultural context(s) within which they are situated and their own position within this context. The research further explores variation in how experiences are mobilised and valued (i.e., as cultural and symbolic capital) according to national context, employment sector, institutional arrangements, and cultural values. It highlights how differing perceptions of experiences of work and travel overseas, and different ideas about what constitutes the ideal employable graduate, are embedded within - and illuminate key features of - specific economic and socio-cultural contexts. This challenges notions of employability that position graduate skills and attributes as discrete and measurable objects existing in an external world, carried by students and graduates, and valued by a neutral labour market. Further, the relationship between mobility and privilege itself is also shown to vary with economic and socio-cultural context. What constitutes the "right story" about experiences of work and travel overseas - and how such activities may be linked to the (re)production of social inequalities - is thus also shown to be highly contingent on context.

The aim of this study is to highlight the importance of learning and competence building, specifically in terms of skilled workers. Specifically, it aims to explore the mismatch between supply and demand of information and communication technology (leT) labours, referring to the case in Malaysia. The research therefore answers four important questions. Firstly, it explores and identifies the nature of the skills gap, by looking at skills and competencies for employability. Secondly, this research aims to integrate both supply and demand aspects through the issue of mismatch between supply and demand of leT labour; this is necessary because of the lack of attention to the demand side of the employability concept. Thirdly and fourthly, this research focuses on the role of higher education in relation to the mismatch issue, based on collaboration between universities and industry, industrial training placement as well as the integration of lifelong learning in higher education. A combination of research strategies - questionnaire survey, structured interviews and secondary data - was used to address the key research questions. From the study, it has emerged that there is a mismatch between supply and demand of leT labour, specifically focused on leT graduates in Malaysia. The study has confirmed that the elements of skills and competencies, referred to as transferable skills, are important for employability. In addition, the need for collaboration between universities and industry, industrial training placement as well as the integration of lifelong learning for employability, is confirmed.

The failure of governmental and intergovernmental institutions to implement effective labour legislation has resulted in a rich variety of private (or non-governmental) regulatory initiatives that seek to address labour standards and enforcement in a wide range of global product chains. While some view these non-governmental regulatory systems as a negative development associated with globalization, neo-liberalism and the hollowing-out of the nation state, this research argues that these systems represent a site of contention and collaboration between different social and economic forces which could potentially have an emancipatory impact for workers and civil society.