This dissertation is about the incorporation of labor migrants from Turkey in the context of precarious U.S. labor markets. Labor market transitions and work experiences are two aspects of incorporation. This dissertation analyzes the process by which first-generation Turkish male immigrants arrive in the United States, enter low-wage jobs, and then shift to the trucking industry. This shift brings a significant upward mobility for them. This discussion explains how the socio-economic cleavages within the immigrant community both conform to and challenge the dynamics of immigrant-dominated sectors. Moreover, this study examines the work life of immigrant truckers through their conception of money, time, occupation, entrepreneurship, and labor. This dissertation addresses two sets of research questions: The first set analyzes the structural reasons of labor market transitions by looking at the limitations that immigrants face. The second set looks at the role of agent, examining the formation of family-based and community-based networks and resources. It asks the question of how migrants navigate the labor market by changing jobs and sectors as well as by forming businesses. The findings of this research draw from investigations spanning three years. The qualitative data is based on 24 in-depth interviews, as well as several hundred hours of participant observations among first-generation Turkish immigrants who work as truckers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The present study contributes to sociological knowledge in general and specifically to three areas of the discipline. First, it enriches the limited literature on Turkish immigrants in the United States, as there is a dearth of research on their labor market incorporation in the trucking industry. Second, it contributes to the theoretical discussions on the entrepreneurship of first-generation immigrants by focusing on small and understudied immigrant communities. Third, this study extends the academic knowledge about the work experiences of immigrant truckers. It examines how the varying immigrant work experiences outcomes are influenced by employment status and the structure of trucking segments. Chapter 2 develops a conceptual framework regarding the labor transitions of immigrants focused on three dimensions: the migration policies of sending and receiving countries, the structure of labor markets in the receiving context, and the characteristics of the immigrant community. Chapter 3 details the methodology and methods used in this study. Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 encompass the empirical sections of this dissertation. Chapter 4 discusses the migration patterns of truckers by focusing on the importance of social networks. Chapter 5 explores the pre-trucking period during which Turkish immigrants work in dead-end jobs and prepare to become truckers. Chapter 6 examines the work life of truckers by revealing the processes of obtaining commercial driver's licenses (CDL), choosing the segment of the industry where they will work, and their search for and selection of trucking companies and loads. Chapter 7 scrutinizes the acts of entrepreneurship in which these migrants are engaged. Chapter 8 summarizes the empirical findings while engaging with the theoretical debates within sociology on the incorporation of migrants. First, the labor demands of U.S. capitalism attract immigrants to certain low-income jobs with little promise. After the early years of settlement, nonetheless, migrants are able to mobilize networks and resources to change this early labor-intensive occupational entrapment. Such a change provides income and status increases for the migrants. I term this new concentration “creative occupational entrapment,” which can (potentially) bring migrants some economic success via entrepreneurship. However, the accessed immigrant resources are constrained by the limitations of the dynamics within the trucking industry. The segmentation within the trucking sector is not something created by immigrants, as they only fill out the existing segments depending on their resources and ties. Second, the characteristics of a migrant community heavily shape the differentiation within the trucking industry in terms of an individual’s sector segment and employment status. The way in which immigrants mobilize ties are affected by three dynamics: hometown background, class-based dispositions, and family-based resources. I define three segments of trucking in this study: (1) national tractor-trailer trucking, (2) regional tractor-trailer trucking, and (3) local dump trucking. National tractor-trailer trucking attracts a variety of immigrants who tend to leave this “tough” segment after a brief while due to opportunities in the other segments. Immigrants of relatively higher education levels from urban backgrounds are more likely to work in the “cool” regional tractor-trailer throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania. These individuals have loose ties to the immigrant community and have no tight-knit community ties. Conversely, immigrants of relatively lower education levels from rural background tend to concentrate in “dirty” dump trucking in specific counties of New Jersey. They have closer ties with the immigrant community and strict ties with their tight-knit community. Within each segment, new differentiations based on employment status are formed. Through the course of this research, five categories of immigrants were identified. Such categories depend on an individual’s employment status and the number of trucks they have: pre-trucking migrant workers have nothing to sell but labor (Employment 1), company truckers (Employment 2), survivalist truckers with one truck (Employment 3), family truckers with two trucks (Employment 4), and boss truckers who have more than three trucks (Employment 5). For the regional tractor-trailer segment, having class-based dispositions (such as English proficiency and the familiarity with the economic system) enables for the transitions from Employment 2 to Employment 3. Those who have family resources are more likely to increase their position from Employment 3 to Employment 4 and 5. For the local dump trucking segment, having tight-knit community ties and resources is usually enough to jump from Employment 2 to Employment 3. Thus, class-based dispositions are not strictly required given their tight-knit community resources. Those who have family-based resources have additional likelihood to increase their position from Employment 2 to Employment 4 and Employment 5. While individual-based resources are important to be self-employed due to the lack of community resources in regional tractor-trailer trucking, an individual’s tight-knit community helps truckers in local dump trucking to be self-employed. In both segments, family-based resources are key to becoming employers. The use of labor characterizes the labor market experiences of immigrants. For my participants, such a process begins with taking commands from employers, and ends with giving commands to their own employees. Labor matters when immigrants are exploited in non-trucking as well as trucking businesses. It also matters when they exploit themselves and family members in individual or family-based trucking businesses respectively. Only those who have several trucks are exempted from getting exploited. Although entrepreneurship might be economically beneficial for some, success is not always guaranteed in the long-term. Moreover, entrepreneurship potentially brings destructive competition, long hours of work and the intensive use of family labor. / Sociology

There is an urbanization trend in the world. Sweden is no exception. Today, approximately 85 percent of Sweden's population live in urban areas, which means that urbanization has grown considerably since the beginning of the 19th century when 90 percent of Sweden's population lived in rural areas. At the same time as urbanization has grown stronger, employment commuting, both within and across municipal boundaries, has increased. Improved infrastructure in the form of better road networks, faster and denser public transport and an increased number of passenger cars are all contributing factors to this. As an effect of the increased commuting, local labour markets have been expanded in many places and so-called regional enlargement has been created.   The aim of this study is to map and analyse the development pattern, with the focus on the population, in the Umeå region during the period 2000 to 2015. The purpose is also to discuss the development in the region and it’s connection to theories and the general development.   The study is a descriptive quantitative study based on municipal statistics from SCB. The study describes population development in different demographic dimensions for all municipalities in the Umeå region.   The study's results indicate that the Umeå region has had a positive development between 2000 and 2015, but the differences within the region are high. Umeå municipality is the municipality that had the strongest growth, while the surrounding municipalities had a weak, and in some cases also a negative development. You can see clear traces of urbanization in the region, not only Umeå municipality has had a positive development, but primarily Umeå city.     Keywords: population development, urbanization, local labor markets, regional enlargement, growth poles

Esta tese apóia-se em um estudo de caso realizado na Grande Santa Rosa, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil, para discutir a categoria analítica mercado de trabalho. Restrições ao conceito emergem em um tratamento teórico inspirado na nova sociologia econômica e se evidenciam na abordagem empírica. O trabalho de campo desenvolveu-se em 2002 e, a seguir, entre 2006 e 2007. Foram realizadas observações de inspiração etnográfica e entrevistas em profundidade; dados censitários, registros administrativos e pesquisa de documentação histórica constituíram-se em fontes complementares. Na região autodenominada o Berço Nacional da Soja, expressando o peso econômico e simbólico do produto , a elevada participação da agricultura familiar na ocupação, a grande parcela de trabalho não-remunerado e as pequenas populações dos municípios que a integram seriam características suficientes para interpelar o caráter mercantil do uso do trabalho, bem como as ferramentas analíticas consagradas nas pesquisas sobre mercados de trabalho. O quadro regional, entretanto, se torna ainda mais desafiador pois abriga um setor industrial moderno, nucleado por duas empresas multinacionais, que empregam grande número de trabalhadores, influenciam fortemente a vida institucional da região e a inserem em circuitos de interações globais. A interconexão entre essas duas formas de circulação e uso do trabalho não sustenta uma interpretação dualista, e só adquire coerência quando se traz a problemática espacial para o centro da análise. Os nexos, historicamente tecidos, entre os múltiplos fatores - sociais, culturais e institucionais -, tão pertinentes na análise sociológica de um mercado de trabalho, associam-se às especificidades de uma configuração espacial concreta, atravessada pelas múltiplas escalas (local, nacional, global) que se sobrepõem e se articulam para constituí-la. / This thesis explores a case study in the Grande Santa Rosa region (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) aiming to contribute to recent discussions on the pertinence and heuristic value of labor market as an analytical tool in sociological analysis. Weaknesses of this concept grow from both a theoretical approach inspired in the new economic sociology, and the empirical results. Field research has been conducted in two periods: 2002 and 2006-2007 based upon ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews; census and administrative data as well as primary documents and historical information completed the collection of data sources. In this region known as the National Cradle of Soya Beans, evidence of the economic and symbolic importance of the product some characteristics like the high labor force engagement on family based agriculture, the weight of non-paid work and the very small size of population in the municipalities would confront interpretations on the mercantile character of work relations and would challenge the pertinence of analytical tools currently used on sociological analysis of labor market. The nature of its social reality, however, looks even more challenging due to the presence of a modern industrial sector, driven by two large transnational corporations, employing a significant contingent of regional workers; those firms are major players on regional institutional life, brokering Grande Santa Rosa connections with global circuits. The links between those two different forms of labor circulation and economic insertion do not stand for dualistic interpretation. Coherence to be reached requires the spatial dimension to be brought to the center of analysis. The historical intertwine of social, cultural or institutional factors, crucial for the sociology of labor markets, requires the analysis to be grounded in the uniqueness of concrete spatial configuration, taking into account the overlapping and interaction of its multiple scales (local, national and global).

Esta tese apóia-se em um estudo de caso realizado na Grande Santa Rosa, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil, para discutir a categoria analítica mercado de trabalho. Restrições ao conceito emergem em um tratamento teórico inspirado na nova sociologia econômica e se evidenciam na abordagem empírica. O trabalho de campo desenvolveu-se em 2002 e, a seguir, entre 2006 e 2007. Foram realizadas observações de inspiração etnográfica e entrevistas em profundidade; dados censitários, registros administrativos e pesquisa de documentação histórica constituíram-se em fontes complementares. Na região autodenominada o Berço Nacional da Soja, expressando o peso econômico e simbólico do produto , a elevada participação da agricultura familiar na ocupação, a grande parcela de trabalho não-remunerado e as pequenas populações dos municípios que a integram seriam características suficientes para interpelar o caráter mercantil do uso do trabalho, bem como as ferramentas analíticas consagradas nas pesquisas sobre mercados de trabalho. O quadro regional, entretanto, se torna ainda mais desafiador pois abriga um setor industrial moderno, nucleado por duas empresas multinacionais, que empregam grande número de trabalhadores, influenciam fortemente a vida institucional da região e a inserem em circuitos de interações globais. A interconexão entre essas duas formas de circulação e uso do trabalho não sustenta uma interpretação dualista, e só adquire coerência quando se traz a problemática espacial para o centro da análise. Os nexos, historicamente tecidos, entre os múltiplos fatores - sociais, culturais e institucionais -, tão pertinentes na análise sociológica de um mercado de trabalho, associam-se às especificidades de uma configuração espacial concreta, atravessada pelas múltiplas escalas (local, nacional, global) que se sobrepõem e se articulam para constituí-la. / This thesis explores a case study in the Grande Santa Rosa region (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) aiming to contribute to recent discussions on the pertinence and heuristic value of labor market as an analytical tool in sociological analysis. Weaknesses of this concept grow from both a theoretical approach inspired in the new economic sociology, and the empirical results. Field research has been conducted in two periods: 2002 and 2006-2007 based upon ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews; census and administrative data as well as primary documents and historical information completed the collection of data sources. In this region known as the National Cradle of Soya Beans, evidence of the economic and symbolic importance of the product some characteristics like the high labor force engagement on family based agriculture, the weight of non-paid work and the very small size of population in the municipalities would confront interpretations on the mercantile character of work relations and would challenge the pertinence of analytical tools currently used on sociological analysis of labor market. The nature of its social reality, however, looks even more challenging due to the presence of a modern industrial sector, driven by two large transnational corporations, employing a significant contingent of regional workers; those firms are major players on regional institutional life, brokering Grande Santa Rosa connections with global circuits. The links between those two different forms of labor circulation and economic insertion do not stand for dualistic interpretation. Coherence to be reached requires the spatial dimension to be brought to the center of analysis. The historical intertwine of social, cultural or institutional factors, crucial for the sociology of labor markets, requires the analysis to be grounded in the uniqueness of concrete spatial configuration, taking into account the overlapping and interaction of its multiple scales (local, national and global).

Research questions/Empirical data. This thesis includes four papers that study selected aspects of the labor market transformation during the transition in Russia. In particular, the studies address the issues of non-wage employee compensation in Russian firms, location choices and labor market outcomes for the Russian migrants to Russia, the health effects of occupational change during the transition. The empirical data used come from the surveys of firms and individuals in Russia. The research results. In these studies author finds that Russian firms used in-kind benefits to bargain for the government support and to attach employees in the tight labor markets; Russian migrants to Russia sorted themselves across locations according to the demand for their skills; occupational changes during the transition lead to the declining health and increasing levels of alcohol consumption and smoking. A short description of the author. Olga Lazareva has received her B.Sc. in Economics from Novosibirsk State University in Russia and her M.A. in Economics from Central European University in Hungary. Currently she is a Ph.D. candidate at the Economics Department of the Stockholm School of Economics and a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Economic and Financial Research in Russia. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2009

Labor market intermediaries (LMIs) have taken on a greater role in regional labor markets as flexibility of work has increased over the past thirty years. These shifting roles necessitate a greater look at institutions that act as LMIs and the services they perform for workers and employers. Community colleges have recently been highlighted as one of the institutions serving workers that offer market molding activities, going beyond more traditional LMI market matching activities. This study compared four LMI placement and career activities - project based learning, internships and cooperative education, specialized accreditation, and industry advisement through councils - for five similar programs of study at community colleges in the City University of New York (CUNY) system to analyze the effects of these activities on employment placement. Greater utilization of these activities by community college departments was found in most cases to be beneficial for students as it regards employment placement in career fields related to the field of study. Activities that were successful in encouraging students to take part in forms of assessment of job-readiness, either through existing standardized testing of job skills or actual work experience, were found to be particularly valuable. These outcomes suggest that mature industries and occupations with established forms of assessment are more likely to provide a smooth transition from degree attainment to employment. Implications for community college administrators and funders are discussed.

Paying specific attention to influences of life events and different timing of taking compulsory military service for Taiwanese people, this dissertation explores time-dependence of job mobility and class mobility throughout careers. The author criticizes that previous research of social mobility focusing on either differences between father’s and son’s classes or the relationship between one’s initial and current statuses do not realize the process of status attainment in which individual characteristics and life courses continuously interact with external structures in the labor market. The analyses in this dissertation demonstrate the dynamics of career mobility by specifying two career stages and investigating the differences in paces and mechanisms of job change and class mobility. All findings lead to the conclusion that the time dependence of career mobility is deeply embedded in the context of life course in a society. For Taiwanese men, the timing of taking CMS (i.e., before or after their first entry into the labor force), which is strongly correlated with their educational level, is crucial to the pace and type of career development. For Taiwanese women, their trajectories of mobility follow the typical scenario of career mobility in which job change happens often during the early career and then settles into relatively stable employment in the later stage. Compared to job mobility, status attainment is more stable and consistent throughout the life time. After specifying the directions of job mobility, results show that upward and downward mobility, which bring significant change in occupational prestige, do not show gender differences in their transition rates, and their patterns are consistent throughout careers. With respect to the transition between social classes, moving into ownership (including employers and self-employed) in later careers is a mainstream transition for all Taiwanese people in spite the fact that women have much lower transition rates than do men. Moreover, this dissertation also examines inter-sector and intra-sector mobility in segmented labor market in Taiwan. Taking selection bias into consideration, this research found that under the assumption of homogeneity, the treatment effects of initial attainment in the public sector have negative effects on job mobility throughout careers. However, when heterogeneity of treatment effects are taken into account, findings reveal that there is no significant heterogeneity in this treatment effect for Taiwanese men, but for Taiwan women, the more likely they are to attain a position in the public sector at the time of first entry into the labor market, based on their educational achievement and social background, the more they benefit via low transition rates of job mobility in their work lives. / text

Top researchers and outstanding scientists are an essential source of science-based innovation and regional development. The location pattern and international movements of the scientific elite, are, thus, of fundamental importance. However, despite a growing interest, there is only little empirical evidence about these core issues. Drawing on the results of a world-wide survey of 720 ―star scientists‖ (identified by the number of citations they generated in journals in the ISI databases in the period 1981-2002) this paper seeks to explore the role of islands of innovation in providing employment opportunities for stars. It is shown that US and European islands of innovation and their regional labor markets are at the forefront when it comes to produce (i.e. to educate) and to employ star scientists and to exchange them with other places. Furthermore, the paper provides evidence for the formation of a network among innovative regional labor markets based on international movements of the best and brightest scientific minds. (author´s abstract) / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

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