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A historically unique experiment is about to enter its second decade - German unification. Early hopes for a rapid and smooth economic transformation soon turned out to be overly optimistic. Despite massive financial transfers, the political promise of a "blooming landscape" remains a vision. Actual developments have left deep scars on the labor market, and the effects will be felt for decades to come. Was this outcome to be expected, perhaps even inevitable? What went wrong, and what were the available options? Or is the current state of Eastern German labor market in fact better than is commonly assumed?
2008 was a watershed year for global finance. The banking system was eventually pulled back from the brink, but the world was saddled with the worst slump since the 1930s Depression, and millions were left unemployed. While numerous books have addressed the financial crisis, very little has been written about its social consequences. Journalist Tom Clark draws on the research of a transatlantic team led by Professors Anthony Heath and Robert D. Putnam to determine the great recession’s toll on individuals, families, and community bonds in the United States and the United Kingdom. The ubiquitous metaphor of the crisis has been an all-encompassing “financial storm,” but Clark argues that...
In many countries, concern about socio-economic inequalities in educational attainment has focused on inequalities in test scores and grades. The presumption has been that the best way to reduce inequalities in educational outcomes is to reduce inequalities in performance. But is this presumption correct? Determined to Succeed? is the first book to offer a comprehensive cross-national examination of the roles of performance and choice in generating inequalities in educational attainment. It combines in-depth studies by country specialists with chapters discussing more general empirical, methodological, and theoretical aspects of educational inequality. The aim is to investigate to what extent inequalities in educational attainment can be attributed to differences in academic performance between socio-economic groups, and to what extent they can be attributed to differences in the choices made by students from these groups. The contributors focus predominantly on inequalities related to parental class and parental education.
Exacerbated by the Great Recession, youth transitions to employment and adulthood have become increasingly protracted, precarious, and differentiated by gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Youth Labor in Transition examines young people's integration into employment, alongside the decisions and consequences of migrating to find work and later returning home. The authors identify key policy challenges for the future related to NEETS, overeducation, self-employment, and ethnic differences in outcomes. This illustrates the need to encompass a wider understanding of youth employment and job insecurity by including an analysis of economic production and how it relates to social reproduct...
In the globalized economy, labor migration has become of central importance. A key issue in the analysis of immigration is how the migrants fare in the economy in which they migrate, and how they assimilate towards the behavior of the natives. Using data from the United States, Canada, many European countries, Australia and New Zealand, the chapters study the developments of earnings, employment, unemployment, self-employment, occupational choices and educational attainment after migration. The book also investigates the role of language in labor market integration and examines the situation of illegal, legalized and unwilling migrants. Policy effects are also studied: Among those are the effects of selection criteria of labor market success and the effects immigrants have on the public sector budget of the receiving country. Hence, the book provides a broad picture of the performance of migrants.
Economic Theory, academic policy analysis and public policy design are becoming more interdependent. Hence, the demands for close interactions between the policy community and the research community have been rising significantly. This book assesses how recent economic thinking has advanced under these influences. Furthermore, it evaluates the important contribution economics can add to the design and evaluation of public policy, now more than ever before. The study is of interest to policy makers, policy analysts, researchers and students of economics at all levels. The authors, which include many of Germany's most eminent economists, draw on their wide experience in research and consultancy to present a coherent view of where European economic theory stands today and how it can play a role in the management of the economy of the new millennium.
In a number of European economies youth unemployment has increased again to unexpected and unwanted levels. It has become one of the pressing labor market problems that many countries are currently facing. This special issue involves a collection of current research and new findings. The contributions improve our understanding of the determinants and economic consequences of youth unemployment and implications for policies to combat it
Do gender quota laws – policies that mandate women's inclusion on parties' candidate slates – affect policy outcomes? Making Gender Salient tackles this crucial question by offering a new theory to understand when and how gender quota laws impact policy. Drawing on cross-national data from high-income democracies and a mixed-methods research design, the book argues that quotas lead to policy change for issues characterized by a gender gap in preferences, especially if these issues deviate from the usual left/right party policy divide. The book focuses on one such issue, work-family policies, and finds that quotas shift work-family policies in the direction of gender equality. Substantive chapters show that quotas make gender more salient by giving women louder voices within parties, providing access to powerful ministerial roles, and encouraging male party leaders to compete on previously marginalized issues. The book concludes that quotas are one important way of facilitating congruence between women's policy preferences and actual policy outcomes.
This book analyses theoretically and empirically why some single mothers are less disadvantaged than others. It argues that single parenthood is associated with different risks, depending on the stage in the life course at which it is experienced and on the institutional protection provided at the respective stage of the life course.