Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Economics, December 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, military personnel participating in combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have been plagued by traditional barriers to successful labor market attachment such as health and mental health concerns, employer stigma, and difficulty translating military training and experience to the civilian market, but also by a lagging economy. Veteran status since Vietnam has historically been linked to negative employment outcomes over the life course. Currently, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports an unemployment rate of 9.5% for male Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, and a 12.1% rate for their female counterparts. Veterans aged 20-24 have a 20.1% unemployment rate, nearly five points higher than that of their civilian peers. To compound the problem, an overly passive labor market policy prevents access to education and training that civilian employers value most. As Veterans continue to separate from the armed forces the United States, employers and policymakers can choose to capitalize on their skills, experience, and willingness to serve, or risk alienating another generation of young service members. This paper addresses five key categories that serve as barriers to successful labor market attachment and summarizes both governmental and private-sector programs designed to assist military personnel in their transition to civilian work. Finally, it provides policy options for remedying the post-9/11 Veterans labor market transition problem through improving service coordination and delivery, deliberately developing human capital through military service, and increasing employer responsibility for skill development and labor market attachment. / text

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy

This dissertation analyzes the complex relationships between language, immigration, and labor and housing market outcomes. First, I model the urban labor market as segmented by language barriers. The prediction of this segmentation theory is confirmed by Canadian Census data, which allow me to identify a worker's labor market segment by her work language. Second, I explore whether the housing market reflects people's willingness to pay for higher quality social-ethnic interactions. By combining housing transaction data and Census information, I am able to test such a relationship with positive results. Finally, I ask what properties housing price series have if some people have better knowledge of the future immigration/migration flows to a city. Under this setup, the price series become serially correlated and the price volatility varies over time. The model also explains the long-standing price-volume relationship in housing transaction data.

The European Union has been working to promote equality between women and men for a long time. Despite this, Sweden still have a gender segregated labor market where men generally has the leading positions. According to European law the member states shall promote gender equality and to take all appropriate measures. Statutory gender quotas for company boards is one such measure that some of the European member states have implemented in national law. The Swedish law has no provisions governing gender quotas and therefore the purpose of this study is to explain how gender quotas for company boards relate to current law, both of European law and national legislation. After examining the legal situation I am also referring to examine however an extent eventual legislation is possible, with the principle of non-discrimination in consideration. The main goal of Swedish gender equality policy is that women and men should have the same power to shape society and their own lives. There should be just as much power and similar power resources between women and men. The government argued that a change must be made regarding the structural power relations between men and women, where women as a group are still subordinate to men. It is found that women more generally occupies subordinate positions in society. This is something that has its origin from the past. The question is whether the statutory quotas are the correct action to take to fulfill this target objective.

The aim of the paper is to contrast and test the NAIRU theory and the Keynesian theory of unemployment econometrically. For the former, wage push variables are key in explaining the rise of European unemployment, for the latter accumulation is. The theories are tested using time series data for Germany, France, Italy, the UK and the USA, using the seemingly unrelated regression method (SUR). Unemployment benefits, union density and the tax wedge were used as wage push variables, and the growth of business capital stock as the accumulation variable. The NAIRU specification performed poorly, with only the tax wedge having a positive effect on unemployment as predicted. The Keynesian approach was more successful, with accumulation being statistically significant in all countries. Moreover, the tax wedge and accumulation are fairly robust to changes in the specification and can be pooled across countries. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

This thesis investigates the quality of atypical employment to reveal whether support for the generation of temporary and part-time jobs is an effective policy for labour market renewal or whether it leads to labour market segmentation. This issue is investigated through analyses of the quality of atypical employment, with the following components of atypical work investigated: working-conditions, wages, poverty risk, exposure to unemployment and/or labour market drop out, as well as the extent to which atypical employment leads to the standard employment contract, termed its 'bridging function'. Strong and consistent variation in the quality of atypical work (relative to standard contract employment) combined with evidence of a weak bridging function is taken as an indicator of labour market marginalisation for these workers. Evidence of labour market marginalisation would suggest that non-standard contracts foster market segmentation. A key component of the analyses asserts that institutional context will structure atypical worker outcome with comparative analysis run on three countries to test this hypothesis. The countries chosen for the analysis varied in their combination of institutions thought to structure labour market outcome. The institutions thought to structure labour market outcome were classified into two groups, or axes, thought to structure labour markets in a different manner. The first group of institutions were thought to influence the relative openness or flexibility of markets, while the second was thought to influence the integration of labour market outsiders. Denmark is presented as a flexibly integrative labour market, the French market is presented as rigidly integrative and the United Kingdom is labelled flexibly non-integrative. The empirical analyses revealed strong and consistent variation in the quality of atypical work (relative to standard contract employment) and while the evidence suggests that temporary employment does provide a bridging function, the same was not true of part- time employment. This led us to conclude that policies which have sought to flexibilise the labour market through the generation of temporary and/or part-time employment are likely to contribute to market segmentation. Nonetheless we established important differences between countries which provided insights into the labour market conditions which were the most supportive of atypical worker inclusion.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2007. / "May, 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-66). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.