Relative Concerns of Rural-to-Urban Migrants in China

How the income of "relevant others" affects well-being has received renewed interest in the recent literature using subjective data. Migrants constitutes a par- ticularly interesting group to study this question: as they changed environment, they are likely to be concerned by several potential reference groups including the people "left behind", other migrants and "natives". We focus here on the huge population of rural-to-urban migrants in China. We exploit a novel dataset that comprises samples of migrants and urban people living in the same cities, as well as rural households mostly surveyed in the provinces where migrants are coming from. After establishing these links, we find that the well-being of migrants is largely af- fected by relative concerns: results point to negative relative concerns toward other migrants and workers of home regions - this status effect is particularly strong for migrants who wish to settle permanently in cities. We find in contrast a positive relative income effect vis-à-vis the urban reference group, interpreted as a signal effect - larger urban incomes indicate higher income prospects for the migrants. A richer pattern is obtained when sorting migrants according to the duration of stay, expectations to return to home countries and characteristics related to family cir- cumstances, work conditions and community ties.china, relative concerns, well-being

Relative Concerns of Rural-to-Urban Migrants in China

How the income of "relevant others" a¤ects well-being has received renewed interest in the recent literature using subjective data. Migrants constitutes a particularly interesting group to study this question: as they changed environment, they are likely to be concerned by several potential reference groups including the people "left behind", other migrants and "natives". We focus here on the huge population of rural-to-urban migrants in China. We exploit a novel dataset that comprises samples of migrants and urban people living in the same cities, as well as rural households mostly surveyed in the provinces where migrants are coming from. After establishing these links, we ?nd that the well-being of migrants is largely affected by relative concerns: results point to negative relative concerns toward other migrants and workers of home regions ?this status e¤ect is particularly strong for migrants who wish to settle permanently in cities. We ?nd in contrast a positive relative income e¤ect vis-à-vis the urban reference group, interpreted as a signal e¤ect: larger urban incomes indicate higher income prospects for the migrants. A richer pattern is obtained when sorting migrants according to the duration of stay, expectations to return to home countries and characteristics related to family circumstances, work conditions and community ties.China; relative concerns; well-being

Relative Concerns of Rural-to-Urban Migrants in China

How the income of "relevant others" affects well-being has received renewed interest in the recent literature using subjective data. Migrants constitutes a par- ticularly interesting group to study this question: as they changed environment, they are likely to be concerned by several potential reference groups including the people "left behind", other migrants and "natives". We focus here on the huge population of rural-to-urban migrants in China. We exploit a novel dataset that comprises samples of migrants and urban people living in the same cities, as well as rural households mostly surveyed in the provinces where migrants are coming from. After establishing these links, we fi…nd that the well-being of migrants is largely af- fected by relative concerns: results point to negative relative concerns toward other migrants and workers of home regions - this status effect is particularly strong for migrants who wish to settle permanently in cities. We fi…nd in contrast a positive relative income effect vis-à-vis the urban reference group, interpreted as a signal effect: larger urban incomes indicate higher income prospects for the migrants. A richer pattern is obtained when sorting migrants according to the duration of stay, expectations to return to home countries and characteristics related to family cir- cumstances, work conditions and community ties.China, relative concerns, well-being.

The impact of immigration on the well-being of natives

This paper examines the effect of immigration directly on the overall utility of natives. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to explore such nexus. Combining information from the German Socio-Economic Panel dataset with detailed local labour market characteristics for the period 1997 to 2007, we investigate how changes in the spatial concentration of immigrants affect the subjective well-being of the German-born population. Our results suggest the existence of a robust, positive effect of immigration on natives' well-being. The presence of confounding local labour market characteristics has a negligible impact on the estimates. Furthermore, we find substantial evidence that the effect of immigration on well-being is a function of the assimilation of immigrants in the region. The effect of immigration is higher in regions with an intermediate level of economic assimilation and is essentially zero in areas where immigrants are either least or fully economically integrated. We conduct robustness checks to address the potential endogeneity between subjective well-being and immigration. Our tests indicate that natives are not crowded out by immigrants, and that the sorting of immigrants to regions with higher SWB is weak. This suggests that our main findings are not driven or strongly influenced by reverse causality or selectivity

The effects of task type on the patterns of communication behaviors among global software student teams

A key factor in the success of global software development learning teams is the communication that occurs among the group. Various task characteristics, however, may affect the both the quality and quantity of the group communication. This study investigates the effects of task type on the communication behaviors of student teams engaged in a software development project. Two groups of teams completed assignments that varied in degree of task type and product. Content analysis was used to identify distinct patterns of interactions and examine how these patterns were associated with task type. Results indicate that differences in task context and product do not have large effects on the communication behaviors of global software teams. These findings will provide a basis for creating instruction that can help maximize successful communication among global software learning teams

Dynamics of collaborative work in global software development environment.

This study aims to explore the dynamics of collaborative work in global software development projects. The study explored the nature of collaboration, the patterns of collaborative behaviors in different tasks in computer science, and the impact of the tasks to the collaboration among students. Four different collaborative software development tasks were assigned to the globally distributes teams. The study used data from 230 students from five universities, namely Atilim University (Turkey), Middle East Technical University (Turkey), Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá (Panama), University of North Texas (US), and Middlesex University (UK). The findings involve the recommendations for building effective collaborative working environments and guidelines for building collaborative virtual communities

Exploring collaboration patterns among global software development teams.

This study examines communication behaviors in global software student teams. The authors of the paper characterize the types of communication behaviors that occur when student teams are engaged in a software development project. The authors present findings from a one-semester study that examined factors contributing to successful distributed programming interactions among students enrolled at the University of Atilim (Turkey), Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá, University of North Texas, and Middlesex University (UK). Using content and cluster analyses techniques, we identified distinct patterns of collaboration and examined how these patterns were associated with task, culture, GPA, and performance of collaborative teams. Our results suggest that communication patterns among global software learners may be related to task type, culture and GPA. It is hoped that these findings will lead to the development of new strategies for improving communication among global software teams

Using data analytics for collaboration patterns in distributed software team simulations: the role of dashboards in visualizing global software development patterns

This paper discusses how previous work on global software development learning teams is extended with the introduction of data analytics. The work is based on several years of studying student teams working in distributed software team simulations. The scope of this paper is twofold. First it demonstrates how data analytics can be used for the analysis of collaboration between members of distributed software teams. Second it describes the development of a dashboard to be used for the visualization of various types of information in relation to Global Software Development (GSD). Due to the nature of this work, and the need for continuous pilot studies, simulations of distributed software teams have been created with the participation of learners from a number of institutions. This paper discusses two pilot studies with the participation of six institutions from two different countries

Creating smarter teaching and training environments: innovative set-up for collaborative hybrid learning

This paper brings together previous work from a number of research projects and teaching initiatives in an effort to introduce good practice in setting up supportive environments for collaborative learning. The paper discusses prior use of social media in learning support, the role of dashboards for learning analytics in Global Software Development training, the use of optical head-mounted displays for feedback and the use of NodeXl visualization in managing distributed teams. The scope of the paper is to provide a structured approach in organizing the creation of smarter teaching and training environments and explore ways to coordinate learning scenarios with the use of various techniques. The paper also discusses challenges from integrating multiple innovative features in educational contexts. Finally the paper attempts to investigate the use of smart laboratories in establishing additional learning support and gather primary data from blended and hybrid learning pilot studies