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This dissertation explores how different labor market policies implemented following the transition to market system in Eastern Europe affected labor market outcomes. As the result of different policies implemented countries of Eastern Europe that were very similar at the beginning of the transition achieved different economic outcomes. We focus on Lithuania and Ukraine that represent two groups of countries with respect to the broad approach to economic transition. Our analysis explores change in gender wage gap in the two countries as well as evolution in returns to human capital. We compare labor market institutions and composition of the labor force for these two countries. Labor market of the Soviet Union serves as a reference point for this comparison. The data from Household Budget Surveys is utilized for this analysis. Returns to education levels are examined in both countries. We find no evidence of increase in returns to higher education in Ukraine following the decentralization of the wage setting system. However, higher educated workers in Lithuania were able to benefit from the transition. The second part of this dissertation focuses on evolution of the gender wage gap. We decompose gender wage gap using Oaxaca decomposition as well as Juhn, Murphy, and Pierce decomposition. We consistently find that it is the “unexplained” component that is single handedly responsible for the gender wage differential in both countries.

The United States has seen tremendous growth since it has achieved a population of 300 million. Interestingly, events like this mask the heterogeneity of fertility behavior particularly along racial/ethnic lines. Unfortunately, despite the voluminous literature examining the dynamics and differentials of fertility, extant studies suffer from several limitations including the treatment of racial/ethnic groups as homogenous, the cross-sectionality of their analyses, or their focus on either current or cumulative fertility ultimately underplaying the complexity of fertility behavior. Therefore, this dissertation investigates the fertility behavior of Mexican American and white women paying particular attention to race/ethnicity and social mobility by conducting a quantitative analysis of current and cumulative fertility behavior of women at three different points in their life course. The findings demonstrate the significant effect that socioeconomic characteristics and race have on explaining the higher fertility of Mexican American women in the United States thus, encouraging the adoption of a racial/ethnic stratification framework in studies of fertility.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Uppsala University, 2003. / Added thesis t.p. and abstract inserted. Includes bibliographical references.

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Using interviewers' ratings of respondents' physical appearance this study examined the relationship between physical attractiveness and wages treating the former as marginal to a baseline, human-capital derived equation. To test the hypotheses about the consequences of physical attractiveness alone or conditioned by other factors on earnings and wage growth we estimated wage and wage growth equations using 3 cross-sectional and 3 panel data sets derived from the Canadian Quality of Life survey. The cross-sectional estimates indicated that the effect of physical attractiveness on earnings was a plausible one and likely to be conditioned by other characteristics such as firm size, occupation, union membership, frequency of on-the-job supervision, and level of formal schooling. The 'above average' rated workers received pay premia ranging from +2.2% to 6.1% while those 'below average' received pay penalties ranging from-2.7% to -13.0% relative to the grand mean. The 'average' rated workers received pay penalties ranging from -0.7% to -3.4%. The main source of these wage differentials appears to be discrimination based on looks. The results of panel specifications also provided some support for the notion that physical attractiveness ratings were associated with differential wage growth and that the relationship between physical attractiveness and wage growth might be moderated by other individual or institutional characteristics of the workers, especially before adjustments for the lagged effects of wages were made. Overall, these results provide a moderate level of support for the thesis that physical attractiveness plays a role in the wage determination process in modern labour markets.

This thesis looks at the effects of flexible working arrangements on workers' labour market outcomes. The particular type of flexible working arrangement analysed in this thesis is called "flexitime". This is an arrangement which gives workers the freedom to choose when to start and end their work. Flexitime provides workers with a new way to cater to their domestic responsibilities and in turn may reduce the costs of participating in the labour market. Therefore, it is closely connected with workers' compensation structure, human capital accumulation process, labour supply and job mobility. The effects of flexitime on workers' labour market outcomes are analysed from three aspects: wage, labour supply, and job mobility. The first chapter gives an introduction and overview of the thesis. The second chapter is a study on the compensating wage differentials associated with flexitime. In general I do not find convincing evidence showing the existence of compensating wage differentials associated with flexitime. One possible reason might be that flexitime brings additional benefits to firms (such as increased productivity and reduced turnover rate) so that firms may not necessarily need to reduce actual wages in exchange for flexitime provision. In the third chapter, I develop a model describing how flexitime may affect workers' labour supply decisions. The main finding of the model is that flexitime will increase workers' labour supply when the benefit associated with flexitime (increased child care production efficiency) is high relative to the cost of wage reduction (prediction 1). Meanwhile, the model also predicts that flexitime causes high human capital workers to increase their labour supply more than low human capital workers (prediction 2). Empirical findings show that flexitime is positively associated with working mothers' labour market hours, which confirms model prediction 1. However, there is arguably insufficient empirical evidence verifying model prediction 2. The fourth chapter considers the relationship between flexitime and workers' job satisfaction and job mobility. Flexitime is associated with high job satisfaction levels for both male and female workers. It also reduces the probability of quitting for female workers with young children. Male workers' job mobility decisions are not significantly affected by flexitime. The fifth chapter gives the conclusion of the thesis.

The study deals with the causes of unjustified differences in pay between women and men in the banking sector. The purpose of this paper has been to examine how a gender project implemented in the private banking organizations from a gender-and implementation perspective. The aim of the project examined is to even unjustified differences in pay between men and women in the banking and finance sector. The main issues are: ● How has the project been implemented and what are the real and perceived results? ● How can the opportunities and barriers to successful implementation course with emphasis on gender? The method used is a qualitative study, where the empirical material consisted of focus group interviews. The two main conclusions that we can say is : First, the organization's managers needs to take action in practice for implementation to be successful in the organization, otherwise they constitute an obstacle to the implementation of equal pay for equal work. The barrier consists of the implementation cannot be realized without active management actions. From a gender perspective, this can be understood as the prevailing gender structures maintained and thus unwarranted pay differentials. Second, long-term need for equality implementation. A long-term approach is essential , from a gender perspective to gender patterns are deeply rooted in our culture. They are so ingrained in our way of thinking about gender which can´t change in just a few years. It requires long-term and duration to correct overcoming unwarranted pay differentials. Short-term work preserves gender structures and therefore constitutes an obstacle in the implementation of equal pay for equal work by segregating them or become a side issue.

A Kahler category axiomatizes the algebraic geometric theory of Kahler Differentials in an abstract categorical setting. To facilitate this, a Kahler category is equipped with an algebra modality, which endows each object in the image of a specified monad with an associative algebra structure; universal derivations are then required to exist naturally for each of these objects. Moreover, it can be demonstrated that for each T-algebra of said monad there is a natural associative algebra structure. In this paper I will show that under certain conditions on the Kahler category, the universal derivations for the algebras arising from T-algebras exist and arise via a coequalizer. Furthermore, this result is extended to provide an alternative construction for universal derivations for a more general class of algebras, including all algebras in a Kahler category. A prospective categorical formulation of the theory of noncommutative Kahler differentials is then given, and the above said results are shown to apply in this context. Finally, another class of algebras is constructed via a colimit, and the modules of differential forms for these algebras is computed.