Entrepreneurship and Cultural Creativity

We investigate the relationship between cultural creativity and entrepreneurship in two respects: first, cultural and personal creativity as a characteristic of self-employed individuals; second, self-employment in professions that can be classified as belonging to the 'Creative Class' as compared to the non-creative class. The analysis is based on micro-data for individuals of the German Socio Economic Panel (SOEP). We find, indeed, some significant links between entrepreneurship and cultural creativity that deserve further investigation.Entrepreneurship, new business formation, cultural creativity, creative class

Classifying Australian PhD bibliographic thesis records by ANZSRC field of research codes

This report provides a brief report detailing the methods and approach used to classify the 2007-2009 theses by ANZSRC Fields of Research codes and any recommendations

Determinants of Female Migration – The Case of German NUTS 3 Regions

Our study examines the regional patterns and determinants of migration flows of young women. At the NUTS-3 regional level, i.e. the district level (Kreise), the German internal migration flows of the year 2005 are explored. From descriptive statistics it can be seen that peripheral regions in East Germany face the strongest migration deficit with respect to young women, whereas agglomerations in West Germany but also in the East benefit from an intense migration surplus within this group. An econometric analysis of determinants of regional migration flows gives evidence of the importance of labour market, family-related and educational migration motives. Generally speaking, young women tend to choose regions with good income and job opportunities, in addition they seem to be attracted by regions enabling an appropriate balance between family and career. Furthermore the existence of excellent educational facilities is a significant influence for young women’s migration. This educationally motivated type of migration generates a long lasting effect on the regional migration balance, especially when the educational opportunities in the destination region are associated with adequate career perspectives for high qualified female graduates. In view of considerable losses due to migration, the study shows various options for action. An important course of action is to incorporate policy measures improving regional employment and income opportunities. Secondly, extending vocational and academic offers addressed to women seems to be a suitable way to stimulate women’s immigration. Moreover, enhancing the social infrastructure, which contributes to a satisfactory work life balance, might attract young women or at least reduce the number of them leaving a region.spatial mobility, population economics

The Wage Arrears Crisis in Russia

In this paper, we propose an analytical framework suggesting that wage nonpayment in the Russian state sector and privatized factories, which resulted from acute cash flow problems in both, reflected an implicit contract among the government, managers and labor against worker layoff. We analyze the impact of wage nonpayment on workers grouped by demographic features, occupation and job location on the basis of a panel data set covering the years 1994 to 1996. Based on a multivariate specification that incorporates these features, we find that the frequency and amount of wage withholding increased sharply in 1996. While wages were denied less frequently and in lower amounts to low paid workers by age, occupation and location, this pattern(for which we find a correlation between the frequency of wage nonpayment and wage level at the regional level), needs to be confirmed with further statistical tests. While the practice of wage nonpayment tended to push families into poverty and increase their expectation of living in poverty in the immediate future, it also raised the likelihood of workers holding additional jobs and undertaking informal paid activity. At the same time, the frequency and magnitude of barter payments to workers in our sample were not sufficient to exercise a significant effect in mitigating the adverse effects of wage arrears

Uses of population census data for monitoring geographical imbalance in the health workforce: snapshots from three developing countries

BACKGROUND: Imbalance in the distribution of human resources for health (HRH), eventually leading to inequities in health services delivery and population health outcomes, is an issue of social and political concern in many countries. However, the empirical evidence to support decision-making is often fragmented, and many standard data sources that can potentially produce statistics relevant to the issue remain underused, especially in developing countries. This study investigated the uses of demographic census data for monitoring geographical imbalance in the health workforce for three developing countries, as a basis for formulation of evidence-based health policy options. METHODS: Population-based indicators of geographical variations among HRH were extracted from census microdata samples for Kenya, Mexico and Viet Nam. Health workforce statistics were matched against international standards of occupational classification to control for cross-national comparability. Summary measures of inequality were calculated to monitor the distribution of health workers across spatial units and by occupational group. RESULTS: Strong inequalities were found in the geographical distribution of the health workforce in all three countries, with the highest densities of HRH tending to be found in the capital areas. Cross-national differences were found in the magnitude of distributional inequality according to occupational group, with health professionals most susceptible to inequitable distribution in Kenya and Viet Nam but less so in Mexico compared to their associate professional counterparts. Some discrepancies were suggested between mappings of occupational information from the raw data with the international system, especially for nursing and midwifery specializations. CONCLUSIONS: The problem of geographical imbalance among HRH across countries in the developing world holds important implications at the local, national and international levels, in terms of constraints for the effective deployment, management and retention of HRH, and ultimately for the equitable delivery of health services. A number of advantages were revealed of using census data in health research, notably the potential for producing detailed statistics on health workforce characteristics at the sub-national level. However, lack of consistency in the compilation and processing of occupational information over time and across countries continues to hamper comparative analyses for HRH policy monitoring and evaluation

A new international measure of social stratification

In this paper we present a new international measure of social stratification, the ICAMS (International Cambridge Scale). Our aim is to bring new evidence to the hypothesis that the construct that underlies measures of social stratification as different as prestige scales, socioeconomic indexes, social distance and social status scales is actually unidimensional. We evaluate the new scale according to both criterion-related and construct validity. Our analysis shows that the ICAMS is a valid indicator of social stratification, being almost as valid as International Socio-Economic Index (ISEI) in what we termed the generic, the homogamy and the social mobility models, and being better than ISEI in the cultural consumption model. The second key result is that all continuous measures we consider (ICAMS, ISEI and Standard International Occupational Prestige Scale) are indicators of the same latent dimension, which is unidimensional. This latter result is compatible with morethan one explanation, hence calling for further research