Overskilling and Overeducation In Malaysia

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Ethnic enclaves and employment in England and Wales

This paper examines the effects of ethnic enclaves on the employment probability of ethnic minorities living in England and Wales. Controlling for the endogeneity of residential location we find that living in a high own ethnic concentration area has no systematic effect across all ethnic groups. However, once we disaggregate we find that for some ethnic groups (Indians) enclaves seem to have a positive and significant impact on their employment probability while for other groups (Caribbeans and African-Asians), enclaves have a negative and significant impact. These results are non-trivial and are in accordance with a set of theoretical views in this literature that argue that ethnic spatial concentration can have positive as well as negative effects. The perceived disadvantages of ethnic enclaves are not omnipresent. What seem to be driving this are the differences in the quality of ethnic enclaves where Indian enclaves by being more dynamic in terms of self-employment create more jobs for others within the enclave

Oppositional Identities and Employment for Ethnic Minorities. Evidence from England.

Where a community or group is socially excluded from a dominant group, some individuals of that group may identify with the dominant culture and others may reject that culture. The aim of this paper is to investigate this issue by empirically analyzing the potential trade-off for ethnic minorities between sticking to their own roots and labour market success. We find that the social environment of individuals and attachments to culture of origin has a strong association with identity choice. Our results also suggest that those non-whites who have preferences that accord with being "oppositional" do experience an employment penalty.Ethnic minorities, identity, social networks, white's norm

Oppositional Identities and Employment for Ethnic Minorities: Evidence from England

Where a community or group is socially excluded from a dominant group, some individuals of that group may identify with the dominant culture and others may reject that culture. The aim of this paper is to investigate this issue by empirically analyzing the potential trade-off for ethnic minorities between sticking to their own roots and labour market success. We find that the social environment of individuals and attachments to culture of origin has a strong association with identity choice. Our results also suggest that those non-whites who have preferences that accord with being "oppositional" do experience an employment penalty.social networks, identity, ethnic minorities, white’s norm

Job contact networks and the ethnic minorities

This paper examines the job finding methods of different ethnic groups in the UK. The theoretical framework shows that less assimilated ethnic unemployed workers are more likely to use their friends and family as their main method of search but they have less chance of finding a job using this method compared to whites and more assimilated ethnic unemployed workers that use formal job search methods (adverts, employment agencies etc.). Using data from the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), we test these hypotheses. Our empirical findings are consistent with the theory since they suggest that, though networks are a popular method of finding a job for the ethnic minorities, they are not necessarily the most effective either in terms of gaining employment or in terms of the level of job achieved. However, there are important differences across ethnic groups with the Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups and those born outside the UK (the least assimilated), losing out disproportionately from using personal networks

Are married women spatially constrained? A test of gender differentials in labour market outcomes

Numerous studies have shown that females fare less well than males in terms of relative earnings and occupational attainment, but few acknowledge the role played by differential gender migration patterns. This paper examines the relationship between marital status, spatial migration and various aspects of female labour market outcomes. It builds on the existing literature by analysing the issue for the first time using British data and focuses particularly on the possibility of constrained migration resulting in overeducation. Our research utilises the only British dataset - the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative (SCELI) dataset - that allows the measurement of overeducation alongside other dimensions of labour market outcomes.

Oppositional Identities and the Labor Market

We develop a model in which non-white individuals are defined with respect to their social environment (family, friends, neighbors) and their attachments to their culture of origin (religion, language), and in which jobs are mainly found through social networks. We find that, depending on how strong peer pressures are, non-whites choose to adopt "oppositional" identities since some individuals may identify with the dominant culture and others may reject that culture, even if it implies adverse labor market outcomes.Ethnic Minorities; Identity; Social Networks; White's Norm; Multiple Equilibria

Region Based Data Mining on Agriculture Data

Spatial Data Mining is the process of discovering interesting and previously unknown, but potentially useful patterns from large spatial databases. Most relationships in spatial datasets are regional and there is a great need for regional regression methods that derive regional reflects different spatial characteristics of different regions. A central challenge in spatial data mining is the efficiency of spatial data mining algorithms, due to the often huge amount of spatial data and the complexity of spatial data types and spatial accessing methods. This paper proposes a regional regression technique for regions that are defined by a categorical attribute, in particular soil type. The result is a series of hierarchically grouped regions according to their similarity

Job Contact Networks and the Ethnic Minorities

Using data from the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey, this paper examines the job finding methods of different ethnic groups in the UK. Our empirical findings suggest that, though personal networks are a popular method of finding a job for the ethnic minorities, the foreign born and those who identify themselves as non-British, they are not necessarily the most effective either in terms of gaining employment or in terms of the level of job achieved. However, there are some important differences across ethnic groups with some groups losing out disproportionately from using personal networks.Job search; networks; social capital; ethnic disadvantage

Data Acquisition System for Muon Lifetime Experiment

I designed, developed and deployed a data acquisition (DAQ) system to meet the needsof the ??Lan nuclear physics experiment. The main goal of the experiment is to measurethe positive muon lifetime to a precision of 1 part per million. This represents more thanan order of magnitude increase in precision beyond the current world average. The DAQdesign is motivated by very high data rate this experiment will produce. This experimentis being performed with the proton accelerator at Paul Scherrer Institut in Villigen,Switzerland. I have setup a mock experimental setup at the University of Kentucky. Thedesign and development of the DAQ software was conducted using this mock setup andwas deployed at Paul Scherrer Institut in the fall 2005