This thesis investigates issues related to gender inequalities and scarring effects in school to work transitions. The first chapter analyses the gender earnings gap among Italian college graduates at the beginning of their careers. Thanks to the richness of the dataset used I am able to control for a large set of variables related to individuals' educational and family background, as well as personality traits. The main finding is that the content of the college degree course is the most signicant variable in explaining the earnings gender differentials of young workers. In particular I show that female sorting in college majors characterised by a low maths content explains between 13 and 16% of the earnings gender gap. Motivated by this result, in Chapter 2 I investigate the determinants of gender gaps in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduation rates, with an emphasis on family, cultural and school influences. I show that half of the gap is attributed to the gender difference in maths and science content of the high school curriculum. The results indicate that in Italy the issue of the gender gap in STEM graduation has its roots in a gendered choice that originates many years before. The final chapter analyses the extent to which the mismatch of demand and supply of skills that young workers face when they enter the labour market upon completing education affects their careers. Regression results show that there is a long lasting negative effect of these initial conditions on labour market outcomes. The evidence is suggestive of a `trickle down unemployment' phenomenon, namely that high-skill workers try to escape strong competition from their high-skill peers by taking jobs for which a lower level of education is required, moving down the occupational ladder.

Violence against women (VAW) in India reflects encouraged patriarchal notions, societal despotism, and cultural subjugations. The Indian government is continuously striving to bring legal reforms that can deter perpetrators from inflicting violence on women. However, these changes are occurring only on the surface when in fact the issues are deep-seated. Therefore, this thesis addresses two main research questions: 1) What factors contribute to the increase in cases of VAW in India and how the legal system addresses these factors, and 2) What policies and schemes are employed to empower women and provide support services to women victims of violence, and what are the effects of these policies/schemes. To explore each of these questions, the thesis was divided into two parts. In part 1, a legal case analysis strategy was adopted to qualitatively analyze 26 High Court cases from Uttar Pradesh, India. Seven major themes emerged from the thematic analysis of these cases that highlight the reasons for the perpetration of violence, victim-blaming, barriers to report the crime, and legal systemic barriers. In part 2, a policy analysis framework was applied to review and analyze six major schemes and policies focused on VAW. All the schemes and policies were assessed, compared, and prioritized against different criteria which were constructed based on the research findings from part 1. Major results of this study suggest that the schemes and policies focused on VAW are structurally flawed and lack proper monitoring. In conclusion, efforts must be made to deter the act of perpetrating violence on women by implementing suitable community and family interventions, recognizing and eliminating factors that lead to revictimization, providing detailed guidelines to enhance services through local schemes and policies, and acknowledging patterns of patriarchal and cultural norms surrounding VAW.

In many countries, including Turkey, agriculture is a major component of the rural population income, and in these rural areas women are the cornerstones of the agricultural production. Resources, especially water, land, livestock, crops, and knowledge about agricultural production are crucial for preserving the livelihoods of most of the world's rural families. Access to, control over, and management of these resources determines which farming activities are pursued, what goods may be produced, and whether the lives of rural households are enhanced or diminished. Yet, gender influences who has access to these resources and what level of access they have. Although women work in the fields, the homes, outside the farm, and at the markets, their male counterparts often maintain control of the decision making over the household and its economy. Thus, women, more than men, bear the burdens - physical, psychological, social, moral, economic, and legal- of these gender inequalities. Previous studies focused on the women farmers' unpaid work in agriculture and household duties, their access to technical information, credit, extension services, critical inputs such as fertilizers and water, and marketing around the world including Turkey. However, there are not many studies addressing the Turkish women farmers' gender inequality positions from a feminist standpoint lens. Drawing on the feminist standpoint theory, the purpose of this study was to explore the gender inequality experiences of women farmers on small farm practices in Turkey. Utilizing qualitative methods through the lens of feminist inquiry as a methodological approach, this study explored several aspects addressed by research questions associated with social positions: gender division labor; women's work in agriculture and household; decision making dynamics of rural families; accessing resources and knowledge; agrarian change; and effect of gender on small farm practices from Turkish women farmers' standpoints. Feminist standpoint data were collected through 23 individual in-depth interviews, and five focus group sessions with women farmers in their villages, located in southern region of Konya province, in Turkey. Data were analyzed thoroughly following the constant comparative method by using the computer software, Atlas.ti. Initial codes used in data analysis were based on concepts and themes drawn from both the literature and theoretical framework. The results demonstrated that there are gendered roles and responsibilities on small farm practices; women participants carry out both farm and household tasks, and in this sense bearing a heavier workload burden than men. Moreover, women's work in agricultural production, subsistence production, providing care for family members, or work in the extended family house, is invisible. The results also highlighted that these rural women's formal education level is low and they lack access to extension education services. Further, they lacked decision making power, compared to their husbands, on household resources and income on these small farm practices. Additionally, this study pointed out that there is an ongoing depeasantization in these rural villages and the migrating rural women hold unemployable positions in the cities due to their limited skills and poor education background. This study concludes with recommendations for individuals, community organizations, Turkish government agricultural policy makers, and extension education systems to better assist these women in their work. / Ph. D.

Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / For generations, participation has been a mainstay of academic writing and teaching. By the 1970's, the policy statements of the major international donors and implementing agencies all emphasize the importance of participation (Dudley, 1993). It is time to stop simply reiterating the cry for community participation and prolonged argument about definitions of participation - related concepts. That was yesterday's battle. Certainly, despite all the rhetoric, participation often does not happen.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

The topic of this thesis is a gender inequality in Kenya. The main goal is to identify a Kenya's position within the East African Community in term sof gender inequality. The position is identified through descriptive comparison of gender indexes and other indicators, and furthermore through their achieved results within the Millennium Development Goals, particularly those focused on gender issues. Another comparison is held among the members states of East African Community on the basis of government's approach towards such issues. Second goal of the thesis is to analyse the gender inequality in Kenya. Specifically the main causes and factors which influence the inequality in Kenya. I tis important as the causes and factors of such inequality have negative effect on the relation between socio-economic growth and decreasing gender inequality. In other words, the thesis analyses the gender inequality on two level - "externalʼʼ (international comparison) and "internalʼʼ (discussion of the conditionality of gender inequality in Kenya). Key words: Kenya, East African Community, gender, gender inequalities, empowerment

Thesis (M.A. (Human Resource Management))-- University of Limpopo, 2009. / While the current trend among a number of organisations is to integrate performance appraisal with performance management systems or even ‘replace’ it with performance management systems, it is still extremely highly utilized process. The probable reason for this is that the major use of performance appraisal is as a management tool whereby the quality of personnel decisions can be enhanced when an effective system is in place. Ideally the use of a formal process, focused on objective, job orientated criteria, will empower management to make meaningful decisions which will not only be to the benefit of individual workers but will contribute to the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the organisation. Some other objectives apart from fact that it is used as management tool are to determine the administrative and development as well as that of the organization. There are therefore, two fundamental parties involved in appraisal, being the appraisee and the appraiser and it is inevitable that the approach to, or the perception of the subject should be different in some, or many ways. Aspects such as ethics, fairness, motivation, accuracy, validity, rating errors, effectiveness and feedback, should therefore be examined in more detail in order to determine where specific problem areas may lie between males and females. Serious perceptual differences concerning the process will surely create obstacles and eventually lead to an inefficient system. The aim of the study was to determine the extent to which differing perception play a role in the acceptance or rejection of the system with regard to males and females in terms of the aspects mentioned above. The diagnostic instrument used in this study was adapted from those of Mount (1983) (named the Leadership Analysis Questionnaire) and Le Roux (1989) to IV include aspects which are more in line with features of the performance appraisal system unique to the participating organisation. The results indicated statistically significant differences in perception between males and females in terms of fairness, motivation, and feedback. It is recommended that future research should be directed at the underlying reasons for perceptual differences between supervisors and subordinates, regarding the factors mention above, with the aim of improving communication and relationships.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Using cross-sectional data from EU-SILC for the Czech Republic this thesis shows existence of gender gap in workplace authority at the Czech labor market. Controlling for human capital, job attributes and household characteristics reduced the gender gap in workplace authority but not at full range. It implies the existence of discrimination at the Czech labor market. This thesis also shows that gender differences in earnings returns to authority also exist, and men have these returns significantly higher compared to women.

This thesis explores how gender inequality in the photographic staff of the main Colombian media outlets, has established a hegemonic view of representation and examines the way recent social outbursts in the country, have been the ideal setting for the rise of citizen journalism, visual activism, and new visual citizenships. It seeks to present how diverse individuals, including female photojournalists are producing alternative visual narratives and igniting a paradigm shift on traditional photojournalism. By embracing new digital visualities and depictions of the other, these individuals are confronting traditional media organizations, questioning their visual narratives, inclusion, and representation policies.   Positioned from a Phenomenological and Feminist Media Theory standpoint, this project aims to observe this phenomenon from the bottom up, building from the experiences of the subject’s study. This project will consider emotions, affections lived experiences of three Colombian female photojournalists in active exercise of their profession, who will take part of this study, and those experiences will be basic inputs of interpretation. I contend that not sufficient research has been done on this topic, and expose an evident research gap, existing in Latin-American and Colombian Media Studies, since it’s connected to new technologies, recent social change and in general, a phenomenon still developing. Drawing from a Phenomenological Psychology field methodology, data will be obtained through semi-structured interviews and examined with coding and interpretation tools provided by this discipline. This study concludes how the female body becomes a political and visual signifier exercising an embodied practice in photojournalism, but also by emotions connected to what they are seeing through their lenses, which in turn, produces affective visualities and narratives many times, opposed to the claims of objectivity, rationality and newsworthiness traditional journalism stands for.