India has become the second largest supplier of foreign-educated nurses in the U.S. The annual inflow of India-educated nurses has been increasing till 2008. The trend, however, reversed ever since the peak year. Three major events – the 2008 financial crisis, changes in the format of the NCLEX exam for registered nurses, and the adoption of WHO Code of Practice – are analyzed to understand the turning point in 2008 and the recent trend of nurse migration. Unemployment rate, health sector expenditure, exam pass rate and the behavior of recruitment agencies will be discussed to examine the impact of the three events on the push and pull factors driving international migration of nurses. The study found that the financial crisis and changes made to NCLEX exams reduced migration flow by weakening the pull factors while the impact of the adoption of WHO Code of Practice is not clear.

This field study examined relationships of income and life satisfaction among retirees, their perceptions of whether their decisions to retire were voluntary or involuntary, and their stated reasons for retiring: “push” (to exit unsustainable work situations) or “pull” (to pursue more attractive options). Based on prior research, hypotheses predicted that voluntary / involuntary choice would moderate the relationship of income and life satisfaction, and that the relationship would vary as a function of "push" vs. "pull" reasons for retiring. A screened, national sample of 1,043 U.S. retirees completed an online survey that assessed satisfaction with multiple life domains, reason for retiring, demographic characteristics, family income, and perceived financial control. Results showed that voluntary retirees had, on average, higher income, life satisfaction, and perceived financial control than those who saw their retirements as involuntary. Type of reason for retirement did moderate the relationship between income and life satisfaction, but in an unexpected way. Based on decades of research on the relationship of control and stress, the hypothesis predicted the correlation between income and life satisfaction would be weakest in voluntary "pull" retirees, and strongest in the involuntary group. Instead, the relationship was strongest among voluntary "push" retirees (r=+.35). These surprising results highlight the importance of further research on perceived control over retirement on common predictors of life satisfaction in retirement.

Medical tourism is a global emerging industry and is an important component of tourism., and operates on the basis of both individual and regional level. Medical tourism refers to a vacation that involves traveling across international borders to obtain a broad range of medical services. It usually includes leisure, fun, and relaxation activities, as well as wellness and health-care service. Patients who seek to reduce their health-care expenditures travel to medical centers in other countries to obtain dental, medical, and surgical services that are less expensive than those at home. Medical tourism can be defined as the provision of cost-effective medical care to patients in collaboration with the tourism industry. This process is usually facilitated by the private medical sector, whereas both the private and public sectors are involved in the tourism industry. By traveling abroad to have surgery or other medical treatment, medical tourists also take advantage of the opportunity to visit a popular travel destination, thus combining health care with a vacation. The aim of this thesis can be summarized as to provide a deep understanding of what factors are essential and require the phenomenon of Medical Tourism in terms of Swedish travel patterns. The research questions aims also to develop a competitive and sustainable business concept within the frames of the current market. The results of this paper aims to proof in addition to the knowledge gained from literature and precedent research, to use a case study methodology to provide a valuable insight for both academics and practitioners into the process of further research, pursue studies and practicing approaches within the context of Medical Tourism. Results indicate that , the factors that characterize the Swedish travel patterns within medical tourism is price, availability and service, quality and the ability of combining holidays with treatment. Medical tourism phenomena can be explained using for components of medical tourism system: medical tourists, medical tourist regenerating regions, medical tourist destinations regions and medical tourism industries. Each component is a basic component of the medical tourism system, and each is mutually connected and interdependent in their mechanisms. Medical tourists require the four areas of the services which are needed for successful medical tourism. Even if the components of service influence each other, in general medical tourism agency plays a major role in arranging the schedule of medical tourists for the for service components. Medical service may be the most important factor which the medical tourists consider when they choose a destination for medical tourism. Accommodation, food and beverage, tourism experiences, and government regulations and socio-cultural factors are also crucial factors affecting the choice of a medical tourism destination. Quality management and Product differentiation is to strategies that both interrelate with each other and benefits both medical tourism efficiencies and medical tourists. They are important strategies from both a sustainable and economic perspectives as Quality management maximizes the internal force of every level in medical tourism clinics in order to satisfy their patients, meanwhile Product differentiation aims to develop sustainable marketing approaches to attract potential medical tourists and create competitive offers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate municipal development activities of rural oriented areas of the west coast of Sweden. The chosen municipalities for this study are Tanum, Munkedal, Sotenäs and Orust where the aim is to give an understanding to the different municipalities work towards achieving local development and opposing depopulation. The nature of this study is primarily qualitative with a lightly deductive orientation since the presented concept of push and pulls factors of migration and the concept of governance with top down and bottom up approaches is used to understand and analyze the empirics. The empirics of this study give answer to the population situation of the municipalities, the prioritized factors for local development and methods adopted to oppose depopulation. The primary conclusion is that the problem of depopulation is handled by promoting local development through economical means in most municipalities.

This field study examined relationships of income and life satisfaction among retirees, their perceptions of whether their decisions to retire were voluntary or involuntary, and their stated reasons for retiring: “push” (to exit unsustainable work situations) or “pull” (to pursue more attractive options). Based on prior research, hypotheses predicted that voluntary / involuntary choice would moderate the relationship of income and life satisfaction, and that the relationship would vary as a function of "push" vs. "pull" reasons for retiring. A screened, national sample of 1,043 U.S. retirees completed an online survey that assessed satisfaction with multiple life domains, reason for retiring, demographic characteristics, family income, and perceived financial control. Results showed that voluntary retirees had, on average, higher income, life satisfaction, and perceived financial control than those who saw their retirements as involuntary. Type of reason for retirement did moderate the relationship between income and life satisfaction, but in an unexpected way. Based on decades of research on the relationship of control and stress, the hypothesis predicted the correlation between income and life satisfaction would be weakest in voluntary "pull" retirees, and strongest in the involuntary group. Instead, the relationship was strongest among voluntary "push" retirees (r=+.35). These surprising results highlight the importance of further research on perceived control over retirement on common predictors of life satisfaction in retirement.

South Africa is in the throes of a skills crisis. This situation is seriously hampering the country's economic progress and global participation. This study focuses on the analysis of skills migration in South Africa, and specifically aims to provide a conceptual framework for better cognition of the skills situation in South Africa. The study is presented in a series of four articles with a final chapter that incorporates these articles in a cognitive unit and, therefore, provide a cognitive map to better understand skills migration in South Africa. Article one of the study provides an in–depth discussion on the serious shortage of skilled workers and its impact on the progress of the country. This crisis is largely due to the failure of the national education and training system to supply the economy with much needed skills required to support economic growth and job creation. The findings of this study indicated that there are various factors that are contributing to the skills shortages in the country. Some of the factors include: poor education standards, emigration, crime and HIV. It must be noted that these factors cannot be addressed overnight. Hence, this study emphasised the role that skilled foreign workers can play in alleviating the skills shortages in the country. The contribution of foreign workers could be viewed as a short to medium solution to the skills crisis. Finally, this study has confirmed the findings of similar studies undertaken by the Centre for Development and Enterprise that opening the doors to high–skilled immigration can only serve as a means of supplementing the skills pool and hence contributing to the economic growth of the country. In relation to the above, that is, a means to address the skills shortages, article two supported the view that a more expansive and robust policy approach to skills immigration can be part of the larger solution of addressing the skills shortages of the country. This would allow for economic progress and make South Africa globally competitive. Hence, the primary purpose of this article was to determine the effectiveness of South Africa's immigration policy to support skills immigration. Attempts to recruit foreign skills to work in South African firms is proving to be a challenge as there are a number of issues in South Africa's immigration policy that makes it restrictive for organisations when recruiting skilled foreign workers. The following are some of the consequences of this restrictive policy: due to major infrastructural growth and development during the 2010 period, there is tremendous strain on the construction industry as a result of shortage of engineers, quantity surveyors, technicians and architects. Problems in retaining skilled mining staff combined with insufficient new graduates and an aging workforce is affecting the South African industry. A dearth of engineering skills at Eskom has also contributed to the power crisis. Thus it could be concluded that South Africa's skills immigration policy is problematic and not helpful in addressing the skills shortages of the country. In addition and in relation to factors that are contributing to skills shortages in the country, article three of the study focused specifically on factors that either push or pull people into a country. Push factors are generally regarded as negative factors as they push people out of the country. These factors include affirmative action, which contributes to emigration of skilled individuals, crime, HIV, economic instability, poor health care and dissatisfaction with the political situation of the country. Pull or positive factors on the other hand draw skilled South Africans to a country. These factors include: attractive salary packages, early retirement within the education sector, an opportunity to gain international work experience, an improved lifestyle and variety of career choices. Certain immigrants are pulled to South Africa as they see it as offering them economic opportunities that are not available in their home country. However, these immigrants range largely from unskilled to a limited number of highly skilled workers. This is inadequate to address the skill shortages. Hence, this situation also points towards recruitment of skilled foreign workers as a short to medium term solution. The final article of the study confirms that skills shortage is a global phenomenon. As a result there is fierce competition amongst countries to attract skilled labour so as to alleviate these shortages and improve their competitive footing in the global economy. One major way that these countries strive to achieve their goal, is through promoting targeted skills immigration programmes to attract skilled workers. In order to alleviate these skills shortages and be part of the global economy, South Africa has to take lessons from these countries. Therefore, the main purpose of this article in the study was to indicate the advantages of having a competitive skills immigration policy. It also highlighted practices that make certain countries skills immigration programmes successful. In doing so, these suitable practices could be offered to policy makers so that they can make informed decisions on improving the skills immigration policy of the country. Finally, there is a general consensus that South Africa's policy on skills immigration is in need of radical review due to the fact that it is highly restrictive, bureaucratic, user–unfriendly and costly to administer. Moreover, it serves as an impediment for business and industry to recruit skilled foreign labour into the country as a result of excessive, and often, unnecessary regulations and procedures. As a consequence, South Africa tends to attract a higher proportion of unskilled and semi–skilled foreign workers when, in actual fact, it should be attracting highly skilled immigrants. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Business Administration))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

South Africa is in the throes of a skills crisis. This situation is seriously hampering the country's economic progress and global participation. This study focuses on the analysis of skills migration in South Africa, and specifically aims to provide a conceptual framework for better cognition of the skills situation in South Africa. The study is presented in a series of four articles with a final chapter that incorporates these articles in a cognitive unit and, therefore, provide a cognitive map to better understand skills migration in South Africa. Article one of the study provides an in–depth discussion on the serious shortage of skilled workers and its impact on the progress of the country. This crisis is largely due to the failure of the national education and training system to supply the economy with much needed skills required to support economic growth and job creation. The findings of this study indicated that there are various factors that are contributing to the skills shortages in the country. Some of the factors include: poor education standards, emigration, crime and HIV. It must be noted that these factors cannot be addressed overnight. Hence, this study emphasised the role that skilled foreign workers can play in alleviating the skills shortages in the country. The contribution of foreign workers could be viewed as a short to medium solution to the skills crisis. Finally, this study has confirmed the findings of similar studies undertaken by the Centre for Development and Enterprise that opening the doors to high–skilled immigration can only serve as a means of supplementing the skills pool and hence contributing to the economic growth of the country. In relation to the above, that is, a means to address the skills shortages, article two supported the view that a more expansive and robust policy approach to skills immigration can be part of the larger solution of addressing the skills shortages of the country. This would allow for economic progress and make South Africa globally competitive. Hence, the primary purpose of this article was to determine the effectiveness of South Africa's immigration policy to support skills immigration. Attempts to recruit foreign skills to work in South African firms is proving to be a challenge as there are a number of issues in South Africa's immigration policy that makes it restrictive for organisations when recruiting skilled foreign workers. The following are some of the consequences of this restrictive policy: due to major infrastructural growth and development during the 2010 period, there is tremendous strain on the construction industry as a result of shortage of engineers, quantity surveyors, technicians and architects. Problems in retaining skilled mining staff combined with insufficient new graduates and an aging workforce is affecting the South African industry. A dearth of engineering skills at Eskom has also contributed to the power crisis. Thus it could be concluded that South Africa's skills immigration policy is problematic and not helpful in addressing the skills shortages of the country. In addition and in relation to factors that are contributing to skills shortages in the country, article three of the study focused specifically on factors that either push or pull people into a country. Push factors are generally regarded as negative factors as they push people out of the country. These factors include affirmative action, which contributes to emigration of skilled individuals, crime, HIV, economic instability, poor health care and dissatisfaction with the political situation of the country. Pull or positive factors on the other hand draw skilled South Africans to a country. These factors include: attractive salary packages, early retirement within the education sector, an opportunity to gain international work experience, an improved lifestyle and variety of career choices. Certain immigrants are pulled to South Africa as they see it as offering them economic opportunities that are not available in their home country. However, these immigrants range largely from unskilled to a limited number of highly skilled workers. This is inadequate to address the skill shortages. Hence, this situation also points towards recruitment of skilled foreign workers as a short to medium term solution. The final article of the study confirms that skills shortage is a global phenomenon. As a result there is fierce competition amongst countries to attract skilled labour so as to alleviate these shortages and improve their competitive footing in the global economy. One major way that these countries strive to achieve their goal, is through promoting targeted skills immigration programmes to attract skilled workers. In order to alleviate these skills shortages and be part of the global economy, South Africa has to take lessons from these countries. Therefore, the main purpose of this article in the study was to indicate the advantages of having a competitive skills immigration policy. It also highlighted practices that make certain countries skills immigration programmes successful. In doing so, these suitable practices could be offered to policy makers so that they can make informed decisions on improving the skills immigration policy of the country. Finally, there is a general consensus that South Africa's policy on skills immigration is in need of radical review due to the fact that it is highly restrictive, bureaucratic, user–unfriendly and costly to administer. Moreover, it serves as an impediment for business and industry to recruit skilled foreign labour into the country as a result of excessive, and often, unnecessary regulations and procedures. As a consequence, South Africa tends to attract a higher proportion of unskilled and semi–skilled foreign workers when, in actual fact, it should be attracting highly skilled immigrants. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Business Administration))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Background: Women partaking in businesses as entrepreneurs is a field getting increased attention in Palestine. Women’s underutilized economic potential along with entrepreneurial activity as a key driver behind economic progress, make the field of women entrepreneurship in Palestine a matter of importance. The agricultural sector is one of the larger for Palestinian women employment, which is why it might attract aspiring entrepreneurs. With investments from Palestinian authorities as well as NGOs, directed towards developing Palestinian women entrepreneurship, one could argue that the opportunities for women to become entrepreneurs exist. But what is the opinion of the women entrepreneurs themselves regarding existing possibilities and obstacles?Purpose of the study: To examine the process for women entrepreneurs of establishing and running micro companies in the agricultural sector on the West Bank in order to highlight the possibilities and obstacles that they experience.Methodological framework: The study had a qualitative approach in which we conducted semi-structured interviewes with eleven women entrepreneurs, active in agriculture.Conclusion: Our findings suggest that women enter entrepreneurship out of necessity as well as reasons more connected to self fulfilment and grasping at possibly profitable business opportunities. Previous experience in agriculture affected both the willingness to start a business and proved helpful for the entrepreneurial success. Notable challenges were found in marketing, legal matters and the physically tiring work. Most of our respondents did not concentrate on developing the support activities connected to their businesses, directing more of their attention towards primary activities. Our respondents also made use of networks, spanning from private connections to professional contacts.

In the latest time, the US has had an easy Monetary Policy. Because of the increasing link among the countries through interconnections on international trade, financial, and labor markets, such policy has not only had effects in the US economy, but also in the rest of the world. So many countries, especially emerging and developing countries, have suggested that such a policy has been causing an excessive flow of funds out of the US which are disrupting the exchange rate and competitiveness of those countries. An innovation of the analysis is that capital flows are divided in "Firm related" (direct investment and equity flows) and "Debt" (debt instruments and private loans obtained from foreign financial institutions). Another innovation is related to the measure of the external factors considering the US alone and a compound of Advanced Countries (AC) that includes: the US, European Union, United Kingdom, and Japan. The performed analysis indicates that the US Monetary Policy has been having a role on the determination of the capital flows to the Latin America Countries (LAC). However, these external "push factors" have been less important than the "pull factors" from Latin America. In the model, the "push factors" reflected to have had influence on the total capital flows, especially through the global liquidity proxies measured by the growth of the monetary stock in the AC. Holding all other things constant, one percent increase in the monetary stock in the US will generate capital flows to the LAC for an amount between 0.47 to 1.71 percentages of GDP. This effect is bigger when using the proxy constructed with the US alone than when using the compound of AC. The long term interest rate registered significance only on the "Firm related" type of capital flows and only when using the compound of AC. The performed analysis also indicates that there is preeminence of the "pull" (domestic) over the "push" (external) factors. This means that the LAC have been pursuing actions such as political stability, sound and consistent economic policies, and more market oriented policies that are attracting capital flows by themselves.

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