Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Dr.Gregory Thompson, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences, Dept. of Urban & Regional Planning. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 19, 2005) Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 104 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation studies the impact of institutional interventions on labor markets in the United States, Norway and India. The labor markets studied are diverse, and include the criminal sector in the United States, the healthcare sector in Norway and the market for workfare employment in rural India. Chapter 1 studies whether juvenile offenders are deterred by the threat of criminal sanctions. Existing research, which studies adolescent crime as a series of on-the-spot decisions, finds that deterrence estimates are negligible at best. This paper first presents a model that allows the return from crime to increase with previous criminal involvement. The predictions of the model are tested using policy variation in the United States over the period 2006-15. The results show that when criminal capital accumulates, juveniles may respond in anticipation of increases in criminal sanctions. Accounting for these anticipatory responses can overturn the conclusion that harsh sanctions do not deter juvenile crime. Chapter 2 studies the impact of a graduate's first job on her career trajectory, and how job-seeking graduates’ respond to the persistence of these "first job effects". For identification, we exploit a natural experiment in Norway, where doctors' first jobs were allocated through a random serial dictatorship mechanism until 2013. We use administrative data on individual outcomes to confirm empirically that the residency allocation mechanism effectively randomized choice sets of hospitals across medical graduates. We then use the resulting variation in individual doctors’ choice sets to show that first jobs affect doctors' earnings, place of residence, and specialization in the long run. Chapter 3 evaluates the effects of encouraging the selection of local politicians in India via community-based consensus, as opposed to a secret ballot election. I find that financial incentives aimed at encouraging consensus-based elections and discouraging political competition crowd in younger, more educated political representatives. However, these incentives also lead to worse governance as measured by a fall in local expenditure and regressive targeting of workfare employment. These results can be explained by the fact that community-based processes are prone to capture by the local elite, and need not improve the quality of elected politicians or governance.

Individuals and families in poverty face an abundance of barriers to self-sufficiency with the lack of higher education being the most prominent of them. The California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program has been the primary intervention to aid poverty following the welfare reform of 1996. Through their work first approach the CalWORKs program intends to set recipients on the path to self-sufficiency. Although education is the biggest weapon against poverty, CalWORKs recipients face a plethora of barriers while pursuing a college degree, as CalWORKs regulations are rigid and unsupportive toward higher education. Due to the minimal research focusing particularly on CALWORKs recipients, there was a need to further examine the barriers these recipients face while pursuing higher education. This qualitative study explored the barriers hindering CalWORKs recipient’s progression toward college completion. This study administered 11 face to face interviews with active and former CalWORKs recipients in Riverside County, California. The data gathered were transcribed and analyzed to identify recurrent themes regarding barriers toward college completion among CalWORKs recipients. The major themes identified by the study were: lack of knowledge, conflicting roles, lack of self-confidence, and unrealistic requirements by the CalWORKs program. The implications of these findings for CalWORKs stakeholders were discussed.

This qualitative study explores the experiences of women who are welfare recipients attending a community college under the auspices of a new program, Washington State's WorkFirst/Work Study program. The study, conducted over two academic quarters, includes in-depth interviews with WorkFirst/Work Study students, observations in a weekly seminar, and interviews with community college staff who work in the program. The overarching research question is: "What are the challenges and the transition issues confronted by women who are living in poverty and participating in a community college program?" The research elicits responses about the women's expectations and fears about education, their aspirations for themselves and their children, what they hope to gain from the college experience and what barriers may interfere. The study identifies five contextual issues in the women's lives: family background and history, relationships, physical and psychological health, housing, and finances. And the study explores the participants' experience with and attitudes toward four thematic areas: parenting, welfare, work and school. A major goal was to give voice to these women. Underlying assumptions are that community college administrators and faculty want to improve access, success and satisfaction with the college for poor women; that learning about how poor women experience the community college gives college personnel valuable information; that Washington community colleges have an interest in working with WorkFirst; and that better understanding of WorkFirst/Work Study participants' experiences is valuable to the colleges and benefits low-income students. The women interviewed are highly motivated and believe that an education is key to a better life for them and their children. Some of the barriers they face are embedded in the restrictions and requirements of the WorkFirst program. Nevertheless, these women say they are better off on welfare, working and going to school than they were when they were among the working poor. The study questions the value of some vocational education and suggests that more low-income women could be recruited to community college earlier in their lives. / Graduation date: 2001

Thesis (M. P. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

No description available.

The research undertaken in this thesis examines social assistance (welfare) receipt in Canada during the 1981-95 period to determine the forces responsible for the dramatic growth in welfare use observed during the 1990s. The influence of changes in welfare benefits, labour market conditions, and the availability of unemployment insurance on welfare use during this period is examined using two distinct, but complementary approaches. The first approach investigates this issue from an aggregate standpoint, using Survey of Consumer Finances micro data to construct welfare usage rates for employable singles without children (male and female) and lone mothers. Separate analyses are performed for each of these sub-groups using aggregate province level data. The second approach attacks the issue from a microeconomic standpoint, employing duration analysis to examine the path leading individuals from employment to welfare receipt. Using the 1988-90 longitudinal file of the Labour Market Activity Survey, semi-parametric duration models are estimated to determine how the job loss, reemployment and welfare take-up processes are affected by incentives in welfare benefits, labour market conditions, availability of unemployment insurance as well as demographic variables. The estimates from the duration analysis are applied to administrative data on inflows of persons into the pool of non-employed to simulate and decompose rates of welfare incidence over the 1984-95 period. Results from these two approaches present a relatively consistent picture of welfare use in Canada during the 1990s. Both approaches find strong evidence of important labour market effects. Thus, the economic downturn of the early 1990s played a significant role in the growth of welfare use during this period, particularly in Ontario and Quebec. The evidence concerning the importance of interactions with the unemployment insurance system and changes in benefit generosity is mixed. Both UI effects and benefit effects are found to be important determinants of welfare use but only among specific types of families. The simulation results indicate these factors can account for only a minor amount of the variation in predicted welfare incidence in the 1990s.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Anthropology, 2006 / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Nov. 20, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. 426-444). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-175).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-161).