The first chapter assesses the impact of the cohort size on labour market outcomes. Using exogenous variation and micro-level data for France, the UK and the US, we study the effect of supply shocks measured at different ages on unemployment rates and wages during a cohort's life cycle. The results from an IV estimation show that the largest magnitude of the effects is found when the cohort size is measured at age 25. The impact of both wages and unemployment rates are temporary, however, both decreasing with time. The second chapter analyses the effects of large inflows of foreign students on English undergraduates. Our results confirm previous findings that there is no overall effect, but we identify changes in the distribution of natives. We find that top performing English students are crowded in by foreign students. It is also mainly English-born males, natives who do not have English as their mother tongue and those of Asian ethnic origins that are crowded in by foreign students. In chapter three, we aim to understand the short-term effects of changes in the level of the tuition fees charged by English universities on students' geographic mobility. Our results suggest that the increase in tuition fees in 2006/07 charged by English universities led students to enrol into universities that are closer to home, with a larger effect experienced by men and White students. Moreover, we find that students are less likely to move to universities located in rich areas.

Magister Commercii - MCom / The South African economy is confronted with various socio-economic problems. In particular, the persistently high and rising unemployment rate (especially for the youth), which has always been one of them. Unemployment has been generally classified as structural because of the mismatch between skills that the jobseekers are willing to supply and skills that are actually demanded by employers for vacancies that are available. Youths are less likely to find employment and the employed youths are more likely to be retrenched during recessions due to their lack of experience.

It is paramount that an accurate assessment of the impact of a cancer diagnosis is available with which to plan future resource allocation and to highlight the area to direct future policy initiatives. In the second chapter I take a modelling approach to estimate the economic burden of bladder cancer due occupational exposure. Using a multi-stage Markov model, I estimate direct, indirect, and intangible lifetime costs of bladder cancer starting in the year 2011. The results of this analysis indicate that there is a substantial economic burden associated with occupational bladder cancer. Of the three components that make up the total economic costs, intangible costs represent the largest proportion, followed by indirect and direct costs. In the third chapter, I use a data set created via a linkage of several administrative data resources to estimate the relationship between cancer diagnosis and annual labour market earnings. Using the Mahalanobis' distance and propensity score matching combined with a difference-in-difference regression, I isolate the impact of cancer diagnosis on labour market earnings of cancer survivors by comparison to their peers without cancer. There are two conclusions that can be derived from the results. First, I found that cancer survivors recover a fraction of their labour market earnings over time as they are further removed from the time of the cancer diagnosis. Secondly, I found the heterogeneous effects of cancer where most cancer survivors showed a persistent loss of labour market earnings except breast, cervix, and skin cancer survivors in the less-active age group. In the fourth chapter I examine the impact of cancer on health using three commonly used health indicators: life expectancy, Health Utility Index, and health-adjusted life expectancy. Specifically, I decomposed the differences between individuals with and without cancer in above-mentioned indicators by age and cancer type—considering all cancer types, then specifically breast, colorectal and prostate cancers. The results of the study indicate the heterogeneous effects of cancer on health outcomes and provide a repository of health outcome information that other researchers and policymakers can use. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In 2017, there were approximately 206,200 new cancer diagnoses in Canada, and 1 in 2 Canadians are currently expected to develop cancer in their lifetime. The chances are that most Canadians may know someone—likely more than one person—who has been afflicted with cancer. As more Canadians are diagnosed with cancer and survive, researchers are increasingly trying to understand and describe the short- and longer-term impact of cancer on health and social role engagement (particularly paid work) of afflicted individual, with the intent of identifying ways to minimize adverse outcomes. The following chapters investigate the impact of a cancer diagnosis on annual labour market earnings, health, and the aggregation of these and other impacts on the societal economic burden. Chapter 1 sets the context for the entire thesis and draw out the overall objectives and motivations of the work. In Chapter 2 I conduct a comprehensive costing evaluation to estimate the economic burden of occupational cancer, taking a societal perspective, and provide a detailed breakdown of items that contribute to the economic burdens of cancer. In Chapter 3 I estimate the change in labour market earnings due to cancer diagnosis over a period of 5 years to uncover the heterogeneous effects of cancer type on labour market earnings. Finally, in Chapter 4 I estimate the impact of cancer on health using three different health indicators. In Chapter 5 I summarize the findings and contributions of each study.

Human capital accumulation and its effect on labour market outcomes have been in the focus of economic research for decades. Traditionally the economic literature suggests that there might exist several forms of human capital, where human capital represents the knowledge, skills and health embodied in individuals. Skills and knowledge are largely acquired through education and experience but may also reflect, in part, innate abilities. In addition, some aspects of motivation and behaviour, as well as attributes such as the physical, emotional and mental health of individuals are also considered as human capital. These activities are referred to as human capital because people cannot be separated from their knowledge, skills and health, in the way they are separated from their physical and capital assets. Human capital accumulation is an important determinant of individuals' earning capacity and employment prospects, therefore plays an important role in determining the level and distribution of income in society. Moreover, the costs of these investments include direct outlays on market goods and the opportunity cost of the time that must be withdrawn from competing uses. Apart from direct investments in human capital people could also invest in constructing a network of relationships for example to find a job. Until now all these aspects have been studied separately, in this thesis I try to reconcile them.

Essay 1: This paper studies tipping behaviour in the residential mobility of the native population inSweden between 1990 and 2007. Using regression discontinuity methods, we find that thegrowth in native population in a neighbourhood discontinuously drops once aneighbourhood’s immigrant share exceeds the identified tipping point. In the 1990s the dropcan be attributed both to increased out-migration of natives (native flight) and to thedecreased in-migration of natives (native avoidance) while native flight appears to be drivingthe segregation pattern between the years 2000 and 2007. Further, we find native migrationfrom neighbourhoods that have tipped is selective, in the sense that natives with a high levelof educational attainment are the most likely to move from such neighbourhood. We concludethat the native residential mobility has contributed to increased ethnic segregation but it alsoappears to have increased socio-economic segregation in Sweden between 1990 and 2007. Essay 2: This paper focuses on second-generation immigrants and analyses the short- and long-termeffects of immigrant and ethnic group concentration in childhood neighbourhood on earnings,unemployment, reliance on income support and educational attainment. The results show thata high immigrant concentration in a childhood neighbourhood is negatively associated witheconomic outcomes of both second-generation immigrants and natives. Ethnic groupconcentration seems to work in the opposite direction, improving economic outcomes forsecond-generation immigrants. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of includingtime dynamics in any analysis of the effect of childhood neighbourhood ethnic compositionon economic outcomes.

This thesis studies the impacts of school entry policy and information revelation on student outcomes using a sample of students from the province of British Columbia (BC), Canada. The questions examined by the first two essays arise from a policy used by many industrialized countries, whereby students born within a 1-year time span all begin school at the same time. This policy creates large differences in age among students in the same class, which are thought to affect their academic performance along a number of dimensions. In the first essay, I contribute to the literature by establishing the persistence in test score differentials among students in the same class who differ in age. I show that in grade 4 older students outperform younger students by a large margin in numeracy, reading and writing, an effect that persists to a lesser magnitude until grade 10. The persistence is strongest for the writing skill, and it is also much stronger for girls than for boys. The strength of the test score differential in grade 10 suggests that the effects of age could have more lasting effects on cognitive and labour market outcomes. In the second essay, I take a closer look at how age affects outcomes, by disentangling the entry age effect from the test age effect. Nearly all studies in this literature interpret age-related differences in student outcomes as the result of entry age, but because students who enter later are also older at every stage in compulsory schooling, the entry age effect has not been separated from the test age effect. Using a set of students entering school at the time of BC's dual entry experiment, I show that test age is largely responsible for age-related differences in the probability of repeating grade 3, and entry age is largely responsible for age-related differences in grade 10 numeracy and reading scores. I show further that having an extra year of schooling reduces the likelihood that a student repeats grade 3, but has a negligible impact on grade 10 test scores. Both the entry age and test age effects are stronger for boys than they are for girls. The final essay examines whether school choices change when parents are exposed to a new source of information on school quality. I model the effect of new information on choices using a simple expected utility framework and show that parents will use the new information to make different choices if they do not perceive it to be too noisy and if they have poor prior information on school quality. Furthermore, they make increasing use of the new information as more observations become available, since it becomes a more accurate predictor of true quality. Using the sudden release of BC's new standardized testing regime, I then study whether there is empirical support for the model. I show that the likelihood of switching out of a school increases when a school performs worse on the test, and that enrollment into kindergarten responds positively to increases in test scores. The response becomes stronger when more test score observations are available. Finally, I show variance in the response among parents living in less-educated neighbourhoods and among those who do not speak English at home, suggesting that prior information does play a role in the information use. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Much of the public policy discourse about immigration in the UK has drawn on the experiences of post-war immigrants from the former British colonies. The volume and composition of immigration flows has changed significantly in recent years with substantial increases in the number of immigrants, particularly from countries without links to the UK, and as a result of the large scale immigration from the EU Accession countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Immigration remains a contested issue with public and political debates focusing on the nature and impact of immigration and its perceived negative effects on employment, public services and social cohesion. In spite of the growing number of studies examining the experiences of new immigrants in local neighbourhoods and labour markets there is a lack of comprehensive evidence about how these experiences differ across immigrant groups and the role of place in shaping the experiences and outcomes of new immigration. This research draws on a variety of data from the census, national surveys, administrative sources and qualitative interviews to explore the settlement patterns, labour market outcomes and neighbourhood experiences of new immigrants. The findings show that new immigrants are more likely to locate in ethnically diverse and socially deprived neighbourhoods upon arrival although there is variation in the factors determining immigrant settlement by world area of origin in line with differences in migration motives and entitlements in the UK. The findings from the qualitative interviews highlight the range of motivations and constraints that shape immigrant settlement patterns and how these change over time with secondary migration and family formation. Analysis of the labour market position of immigrants defined by country of origin and ethnicity shows the persistence of ethnic penalties in the labour market. Immigrants from ethnic minority groups both from established and new immigrant groups are found to be more disadvantaged in the labour market than white immigrants and the White British. The neighbourhood context, specifically neighbourhood deprivation and ethnic diversity, is associated with poorer employment outcomes, with the relationship between area deprivation and employment shown to depend on ethnicity. The qualitative evidence highlights the role of social networks and a range of other factors in facilitating and hindering the socio-economic integration of new immigrants. The findings, particularly in relation to immigrant social networks, access to welfare, settlement intentions and housing aspirations, challenge common perceptions about new immigrants living in deprived areas in the UK. The research evidence contributes to a better understanding of the settlement patterns and experiences of new immigration and has implications for national and local policies.

For a number of years, Canadian immigration selection policy has deliberately emphasized the human capital characteristics of applicants in determining admissibility for permanent residence. Largely due to these measures, Chinese immigrants today are overwhelmingly well-educated and skilled. This thesis examines the role of geography in shaping Chinese newcomers’ post-arrival employment status, with an emphasis on working in the high-tech sector. Given that Ottawa is a leading node of high-tech employment in Canada, this project initially investigates the probability that Chinese newcomers will work in the high-tech sector in Ottawa-Gatineau relative to other cities. The project subsequently examines the degree to which employment in the high-tech sector in Ottawa-Gatineau is related to ethnic, social and demographic characteristics of local spaces where people live and work. All aspects of the study adopt a gender lens with respect to interpreting employment status. The study finds that Chinese immigrants in Ottawa-Gatineau are more likely to work in this sector than their counterparts in Vancouver and Toronto. They are also more likely to work in high-tech relative to individuals in other immigrant groups or the Canadian-born population. With respect to co-ethnic residential and work spatial configurations, as well as social and demographic characteristics of residential neighbourhoods, the study finds that these factors exert quite different influences on the likelihood that Chinese women and men will work in Ottawa-Gatineau’s high-tech sector. The results are quite distinctly different for women and men, and underline the importance of a gendered analysis of relationships between geographic location/place and employment status.