Low-income women, including women who receive welfare, are some of the most misunderstood citizens in the U.S. Low-income women often live in extreme situations that are complicated by poverty and multiple issues related to human capital, social support, mental health, and substance use. These factors make low-income women unique in that they contribute not only to the women’s current situations, but to their potential for future self-sufficiency. The majority of previous studies have described these factors as barriers to self-sufficiency. This study explored these factors differently by examining the extent to which human capital is associated with mental health problems and substance use problems and whether those associations are moderated by social support among low-income women. By exploring human capital among low-income women, this study closes a gap in the literature. Previous literature has examined human capital as an outcome of life choices and circumstances. This study is unique in that human capital is conceptualized as a combination of strengths that are employed in unique ways and that help determine whether life outcomes among low-income women will be related. This study examined secondary data collected from 11,495 low-income women who participated in the University of Kentucky’s Targeted Assessment Program (TAP) between July 2005 and July 2011 and is informed by theoretical literature on human capital, social support, and relationships, as well as empirical literature on study factors related to problems experienced by low-income women (i.e., mental health problems, substance use problems, and social support). Study hypotheses were developed to examine the relationships between human capital and mental health and substance use among low-income women and whether social support moderates those relationships. Results indicate that while some human capital factors are indicative of fewer mental health and substance use problems, perceived social support was a significant indicator of each of the mental health and substance use factors. Perceived social support was not found to moderate relationships between predictor and outcome variables.

<p>The purpose of this study is to analyse the problem that the companies do not use the potential of their employees on innovations and intrapreneurial processes.</p><p>The source of innovation is usually the entrepreneur. These are individuals that come up with new ideas of what the market is likely to want or desire. These people have usually gathered this knowledge through interaction with consumers. Sometimes it is the imaginative impulsive desire on their part to offer something new or different, at other times it is an improvement on previous knowledge. However in a corporate or large organisation environment it is often the employees who come up with innovative ideas because of their close contacts with consumers of the product or service of the company. They are very close to the ground realities and can be a great source of finding out the consumer desires or preferences. Although they are employees, they have the entrepreneurial spirit to understand the need of urge to meet the expectations. This gives them the same satisfaction an entrepreneur would feel on the success and acceptance of his innovative idea.</p><p>Therefore being innovative is not the sole domain of the leaders, corporate or individual. The potential of the workers and employees remains unexploited in this direction.</p><p>This study will try to find out the importance of the mental force of the employee on the survival of the company in this competitive world, from the perspective of innovation and intrapreneurship.</p> / QC 20100708

<p>This doctoral thesis discusses the competence structures and the development of human capital in the graphic arts and media sector. The study has focused on exploring the new media landscape and in particular the structural changes that influence the sector, the print-versuselectronic- media debate and the future of print media. The influence of new technologies and management concepts on the graphic arts and media sector has also been investigated, as has the role and the importance of people in new societal and industrial settings as well as new ways of managing and developing people in changing media environments. </p><p>The primary research objective was to identify the competence requirements and characteristics for existing and potential employees in the graphic arts and media sector and, in particular, the areas of digital printing and cross-media publishing. The second objective was to elucidate the various actions and strategies established and applied for the professional development of people in the graphic arts and media sector, such as further training, recruitment policies and the evaluation and certification of competence. The third objective of the study was to suggest the formation of a strategy for the professional development of people in the graphic arts and media sector – namely the creation of a human capital development strategy. An important issue was to identify the various components (or substrategies) of the strategy and determine if it was possible to integrate them under a common platform. </p><p>The work has been based on literature studies, industry reports and observations, market analyses and forecasts, and empirical studies. Participatory research methods have also been used. In addition, case-study research has been performed at the company and sector levels. Human resource management and development concepts have been surveyed to determine whether they are efficient for the professional development of people in the entire spectrum of an industry sector. </p><p>The graphic arts and media sector – including print media – will remain active for the foreseeable future; however, the results presented here show that the sector has been significantly influenced by structural changes that have taken place over the last decade, affecting organizations, companies and people involved in the sector, and this process of change will continue. </p><p>The study shows that there is indeed a need for new competence in people employed in or to be recruited to the graphic arts and media sector. The initial identification and description of the competences for the new structure of the graphic arts and media industry is proposed. Various actions for the development of people in the sector, mainly regarding education, further and continuous learning, and recruitment, are also identified. However, these activities have been established mainly at the national level by various organizations (educational institutes, industrial partners and the governmental/European Union authorities). </p><p>Finally, the principal characteristics of a human capital development strategy are described, and components (or substrategies) that form a strategy that could be introduced for the graphic arts and media sector in Europe are proposed. </p><p><b>Keywords: </b>Graphic arts and media sector, digital printing, cross-media publishing, human capital, intellectual capital, human resource management and development, human capital development strategy.</p>

<p>This paper examines the effect of foreign direct investments, FDI, on economic growth in developing countries. This is done by the presentation of a theoretical framework, in which technological transfer and the learning of new technologies is considered to be the engine of growth along with a critical examination of a number of empirical studies on the subject. I will later on perform a discussion of the underlying conditions for FDI to work efficiently along with the implications for Sub-Saharan Africa regarding FDI inflows. The implications are studied within a framework that considers human capital as an important channel through which the potential benefits arising from FDI may be realized.</p>

<p>Recent studies claims that Sweden has the lowest returns on education compared to other OECD countries. Other research made in the subject tend to focus on the gains from education, but forget to calculate the costs, both direct cost such as material, accommodation and food, but also opportunity costs from not working instead of investing in education.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to study if an investment in an education is an effective way of monetary utility maximizing in Sweden, in other words income. This thesis will investigate whether education will be a profitable investment, and if so how many years of employment it will take an individual to gain from that investment.</p><p>The Human Capital theory is the theoretical framework of this thesis and the result is in Swedish Crowns. This research quantifies that an education is an effective way to income maximizing and men’s payback time in monetary terms are more likely to be shorter than female’s.</p>

This thesis examines the role of human capital in the growth and convergence of the Iberian countries. Using a newly computed series for human capital at the NUTS III level for the Portuguese regions, the comparison between Portugal and Spain suggests a positive role for human capital proxied by the average years of schooling in both Iberian countries regional growth, which supports the hypothesis that higher levels of education improved the regions‟ ability to adopt new technology; although the levels of education indicate that secondary schooling is important for technology adoption in Portugal, but not in Spain, and its effect is higher than that of tertiary education. Using Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA), two convergence clubs are identified within the Iberia Peninsula (Core and Periphery), but convergence occurs mainly in the Periphery group and education plays a positive and significant role only in the Core club.

Master of Science / Department of Communications and Agricultural Education / Shannon G. Washburn / STEM fields represent between 5% and 20% of all employed in the United States (United States Department of Labor – Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015). Many employers of job positions in the STEM field have indicated an ongoing challenge of demand for such employees exceeding supply (Hira, 2010). Literature suggests a skills gap exists in some career fields and labor markets (Sentz, 2013). A topic that falls in many STEM fields in water resources. In Kansas, both supply and demand of water resources vary greatly across the state. A growing trend statewide, however, is a need to focus efforts on preserving the quality and quantity of Kansas’ water supply. Anecdotal evidence suggests the focus on water resources increases the demand for employees prepared for careers in related STEM fields (S. Metzger, personal communication, May 3, 2016). Drawing on both the Human Capital Theory and the Theory of Work Adjustment, descriptive survey research and qualitative interviews based in symbolic interactionism were used to gather data from employers of water-related job positions. The data indicated that a variety of employability and technical skills describe both employers’ ability requirements and employees’ ability sets. The results of the study suggest that, while employers have not recently experienced much challenge filling job vacancies, demand for employees could increase in the near future. Additionally, employers utilize a variety of professional development resources, and would utilize others if available. While levels of correspondence range among ability requirements and ability sets depending on the job position, efforts in education and recruitment could help address the supply of candidates for these positions.

Sweden is a country with an increasing foreign born population, where more and more people growing up with two parents born outside of Sweden. In this paper I examine the different labor market outcome for native Swedes and the six largest groups of second generation immigrants in the ages 30-39 years. The analysis is divided in two part where the first examining the level of gainful employment and the second the distribution in line of work. By using data from population register there was possible to perform detailed analysis. The gainfully employment rate are lower for the different groups of second generation immigrants. Unlike earlier studies regarding employment differences depending on parental origin, there are however not as distinct pattern of ethnic penalties. The result regarding line of work from the second part of the analysis show that some groups of second generation have a higher risk of being in less-qualified jobs after controlling for education, personal- and parental variables.

No description available.

In this thesis I explore three topics in labour economics, using micro data from South Africa and Tanzania. South Africa suffers from extremely high income inequality, in part as a result of comprehensive Apartheid-era racial discrimination. The first topic explores possible explanations for the extremely large earnings differences across different types of employment for black South Africans, using the KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study data. I analyse the relative importance of individual ability and institutions, including public sector wage setting and trade unions, in determining earnings. My results suggest that human capital explains much of the earnings differentials within the private sector, including union premiums, but cannot explain the large premiums for public sector workers. Self-employment is very common in urban Tanzania but, unlike South Africa, survey data show that there are large overlaps in the distribution of earnings in private wage employment and self-employment. This suggests that self-employment represents a viable alternative to wage employment in small, low productivity firms for the majority of urban Tanzanians. In chapter three I build an equilibrium search model of the urban Tanzanian labour market to explain the choice of wage and self-employment and the variation in earnings across and within these sectors. In the final topic I explore the effect of education on earnings in Tanzania. Estimating the returns to education has stimulated much recent work in applied econometrics as researchers advance their understanding of the effect of individual heterogeneity on the possibility of estimating the returns to education. In my attempt to purge estimates of the return to education of the influence of individual heterogeneity, I use an education reform in Tanzania as a natural experiment that provides exogenous variation in education. When using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) I find high and strongly convex, increasing returns to education. My best attempt at separating out the effect of individual heterogeneity suggests that returns are still high but that they may actually be concave.