This dissertation contributes to the current understanding of labor markets, focusing on the use of micro level data and computational modeling to study the interaction of unemployment with various aspects of the macroeconomy. I address the fact that frictions in the labor market carry over into other dimensions of firms' and workers' decisions, such as a firm's incentive to utilize its current labor force, workers' participation in the labor market, and the decision to acquire or discharge debt. In Chapter 1, I study involuntary part-time employment over the business cycle. I document that the population at work part-time for economic reasons ($PTE$) is countercyclical, volatile, and transitory. Workers in $PTE$ are nearly three times more likely than the unemployed to return to full-time work in a given month, and seven times more likely than full-time workers to become unemployed. Using household survey data, I demonstrate that cyclical fluctuations in $PTE$ come from changes in the transition rates between full-time and part-time employment rather than between part-time and unemployment. Moreover, these movements are primarily due to within-job changes in hours. Accordingly, I model part-time work focusing on a firm's decision to hire, fire, or partially utilize its labor force. Firms in the model are heterogeneous in size and productivity, and are subject to search frictions. The model produces firm-level utilization of part-time employment which is consistent with observed worker flows, and varies across the size and age distributions of firms. Over the business cycle, the model matches the observed relative volatility of unemployment and $PTE$. Part-time labor utilization by firms increases the volatility of vacancies and unemployment in the model relative to the case with only an extensive margin. Chapter 2 studies the interaction of a participation margin in a labor market search model. Introducing a participation margin of whether or not to actively search for a job requires the use of large idiosyncratic shocks to workers' participation incentives in order to match monthly labor flows in the data. If we measure the participation transitions of workers outside of employment where search decisions are observable and apply this same transition process to employed workers, any search model will overstate the transition of workers out of employment to nonparticipation. Allowing the participation transition of workers to depend on their employment state fixes these flows, but this transition process is unobservable for employed workers. Taking advantage of the longer panel of the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participants, I estimate the markov process for participation transitions of employed workers using their observed search behavior before and after an employment spell. The difference in the transition process measured for employed and nonemployed workers is consistent with an interpretation of attachment to the labor force. I build a directed search model with a labor force participation margin subject to employment-dependent shocks and show that it can match the labor market flows in US data. Chapter 3, which is jointly authored with Chander S. Kochar, investigates the effects of student loans on labor market outcomes. The student loan market is the second largest source of household debt in the United States, with $1.2 trillion in outstanding debt. Unlike other sources of unsecured credit, student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Using data on college graduates from the 1993/03 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study, we first identify that student loan debt has a significant negative effect on students' earnings after graduation. We show that the inability to discharge debt in bankruptcy is critical to produce this result within a simple search theoretic framework. We propose a richer model with student loan debt and a delinquency/default decision to study the effects of recent changes to student loan policies on the labor market and delinquency outcomes of college graduates.

There are increasing numbers of Australian nurses working in part-time employment. This is important in a background where contemporary nursing shortages are a considerable barrier to the provision of adequate nursing personnel to meet nursing service demands. An accurate understanding of the situation of part-time nursing is necessary to enable effective human resource management of this segment of the nursing workforce. However, a paucity of available knowledge related to Australian part-time nursing represented a serious gap in the information required for effective and efficient management. Therefore the aim of this study was to discover and describe phenomena and develop theory that explains the ‘realities’ of part-time nursing in regional Queensland. Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) version of the grounded theory approach and methods were used to conduct this study. A sample of 86 regional Queensland part-time nurses and 18 nurse managers and nurse educators provided data that permitted the discovery of a substantive theory of part-time nursing. This theory has contributed knowledge relevant to practitioners in the substantive area by discovering, describing and explaining the phenomenon of part-time nursing, the conditions that influence the phenomenon and the responses that are made to adapt and adjust to the associated challenges. The developed grounded theory represents a significant contribution to the meagre base of knowledge that previously existed by offering insight, enhancing understanding and providing a valuable guide to action.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-139).

This phenomenological study explores what it means to teach part-time in community colleges in the United States. The increasing use of part-time faculty in community colleges and the concomitant emergence of a two-tiered faculty are discussed. The study examines the nature of part-time work in the United States, thus providing insight into practices in higher education. A discussion of challenges women continue to face in the workplace in general, and academia in particular, provide a background for understanding issues raised by study participants. Through the voices of six women, the study moves behind current statistical data to reveal the experiences, disappointments, joys, and motivations of part-time faculty. The findings illuminate current practices, highlight the importance of the department chair in affecting part-time faculty members' experiences, and challenge us to consider working conditions and relationships in our own academic communities. / Graduation date: 2002

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 114-121).

The purpose of this study is to find the relationship among personality, job satisfaction, and turnover intention of part-time employees in coffee chains, and verifying the mediating effects of job satisfaction on the relationship between personality and turnover intention. It tested hypotheses through questionnaire. By the convenience sampling method, 131 returned questionnaires in total were regarded as valid (80.86% response rate). The findings have been summarized as the following: 1. Employees whose personality was more agreeable, more extraverted or less conscientious tended to have more turnover intention. 2. Employees with higher satisfaction at pay, promotions and supervision were prone to have lower turnover intention. 3. Employees with agreeableness personality had higher satisfaction at the work itself, coworkers and supervision. Employees with extraversion personality had lower satisfaction at promotions, coworkers and supervision. Employees with conscientiousness personality had higher satisfaction at pay and coworkers. 4. The satisfaction at supervision has partly mediating effects between agreeableness and turnover intention. The satisfaction at pay has partly mediating effects between conscientiousness and turnover intention. And the satisfaction at pay and supervision does act as a mediator between extraversion and turnover intention.

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on March 17, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Thesis advisor: Dr. Laura McCann. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Not available / text

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in Sociology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 343-359). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss &rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NQ99221

Thesis (M.H.A.)--University of Michigan, 1964.