Returns to Qualification in Informal Employment: A Study of Urban Youth in Egypt

Informal employment is a reality for roughly two-thirds of economically active youth in urban Egypt, and it has been argued to be correlated with poverty, poor working conditions, and few opportunities for advancement. This essay analyzes whether informal employment rewards job qualification measures, using survey data from 2006 and a Blinder-Oaxaca wage decomposition. After creating a taxonomy of formal, para-formal, and informal modes of qualification, it is shown that formal public and formal private jobs tend to reward those with formal qualifications, while informal employment tends to reward informal qualification mechanisms. The notion that informal employment does not reward qualification is disputed. Furthermore, there are large wage premia based on formality of employment, region, and gender. The results can be explained by analyzing the formality decision and the qualification decisions of youth. This suggests an alterative explanation for “dualistic” outcomes in youth labor markets.informal employment, youth employment, human capital, developing country labor markets, wage regression

Returns to Qualification in Informal Employment: A Study of Urban Youth in Egypt

Informal employment is a reality for roughly two-thirds of economically active youth in urban Egypt, and it has been argued to be correlated with poverty, poor working conditions, and few opportunities for advancement. This essay analyzes whether informal employment rewards job qualification measures, using survey data from 2006 and a Blinder-Oaxaca wage decomposition. After creating a taxonomy of formal, para-formal, and informal modes of qualification, it is shown that formal public and formal private jobs tend to reward those with formal qualifications, while informal employment tends to reward informal qualification mechanisms. The notion that informal employment does not reward qualification is disputed. Furthermore, there are large wage premia based on formality of employment, region, and gender. The results can be explained by analyzing the formality decision and the qualification decisions of youth. This suggests an alterative explanation for “dualistic” outcomes in youth labor markets

Returns to Qualification in Informal Employment: A Study of Urban Youth in Egypt

Informal employment is a reality for roughly two-thirds of economically active youth in urban Egypt, and it has been argued to be correlated with poverty, poor working conditions, and few opportunities for advancement. This essay analyzes whether informal employment rewards job qualification measures, using survey data from 2006 and a Blinder-Oaxaca wage decomposition. After creating a taxonomy of formal, para-formal, and informal modes of qualification, it is shown that formal public and formal private jobs tend to reward those with formal qualifications, while informal employment tends to reward informal qualification mechanisms. The notion that informal employment does not reward qualification is disputed. Furthermore, there are large wage premia based on formality of employment, region, and gender. The results can be explained by analyzing the formality decision and the qualification decisions of youth. This suggests an alterative explanation for “dualistic” outcomes in youth labor markets

Fintech and big tech credit: drivers of the growth of digital lending

Fintech and big tech companies are making rapid inroads into credit markets. We hand construct a global database of fintech and big tech lending volumes for 79 countries over 2013-2018. Using a panel regression analysis, we find these new forms of digital lending are larger in countries with higher GDP per capita (albeit at a declining rate), where banking sector mark-ups are higher, and where banking regulation is less stringent. We also find that these alternative forms of credit are more developed where the ease of doing business is greater, investor protection disclosure and the efficiency of the judicial system are more advanced, and where bond and equity markets are more developed. Overall, fintech and big tech credit seem to complement other forms of credit, rather than substitute for them

Art-Making During a Global Pandemic: A Collaborative Autoethnography

Between March 11, 2020 and May of 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) counted over 100 million cases of COVID-19, resulting in three million deaths worldwide (WHO, 2021). In order to examine the effects of art-making on social and psychological well-being, seven graduate students from the Marital and Family Art Therapy Program at LMU conducted the following study utilizing a qualitative, arts-based research approach through collaborative autoethnography (CAE). The research question — What are the effects of personal art-making on well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic? — was posed by the seven graduate student authors. The data revealed that pandemic-time art-making impacted well-being through three primary avenues: by acting as a means to cope, to adapt, and to process. Each of our emerging themes highlighted the use of art-making as a tool, and each theme described this phenomenon in a unique and pointed way. First, our art-making impacted our well-being during the pandemic by serving as a tool to cope with the stressors of the pandemic by minimizing, banishing, or making them tolerable. Going one step further than coping, art-making also served as a tool for adapting. It acted as the mediating force between the pandemic’s external impacts and our ensuing internal experiences. Finally, art-making impacted well-being throughout the pandemic by serving as a tool to process corporeal experiences, emotional experiences, and other personal realities. In order to build upon our findings, we propose future research on the impacts of personal art-making on wellness through collaborative autoethnography by participant-researchers representing diverse cultures within their social and environmental contexts

Haematological and biochemical reference intervals for free-ranging brown bears (Ursus arctos) in Sweden

Background: Establishment of haematological and biochemical reference intervals is important to assess health of animals on individual and population level. Reference intervals for 13 haematological and 34 biochemical variables were established based on 88 apparently healthy free-ranging brown bears (39 males and 49 females) in Sweden. The animals were chemically immobilised by darting from a helicopter with a combination of medetomidine, tiletamine and zolazepam in April and May 2006-2012 in the county of Dalarna, Sweden. Venous blood samples were collected during anaesthesia for radio collaring and marking for ecological studies. For each of the variables, the reference interval was described based on the 95% confidence interval, and differences due to host characteristics sex and age were included if detected. To our knowledge, this is the first report of reference intervals for free-ranging brown bears in Sweden.Results: The following variables were not affected by host characteristics: red blood cell, white blood cell, monocyte and platelet count, alanine transaminase, amylase, bilirubin, free fatty acids, glucose, calcium, chloride, potassium, and cortisol. Age differences were seen for the majority of the haematological variables, whereas sex influenced only mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration, aspartate aminotransferase, lipase, lactate dehydrogenase, beta-globulin, bile acids, triglycerides and sodium.Conclusions: The biochemical and haematological reference intervals provided and the differences due to host factors age and gender can be useful for evaluation of health status in free-ranging European brown bears

Home Non Invasive Ventilation (NIV) treatment for COPD patients with a history of NIV-treated exacerbation:a randomized, controlled, multi-center study

BACKGROUND: In chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the prognosis for patients who have survived an episode of acute hypercapnic respiratory failure due to an exacerbation is poor. Despite being shown to improve survival and quality-of-life in stable patients with chronic hypercapnic respiratory failure, long-term noninvasive ventilation is controversial in unstable patients with frequent exacerbations, complicated by acute hypercapnic respiratory failure. In an uncontrolled group of patients with previous episodes of acute hypercapnic respiratory failure, treated with noninvasive ventilation, we have been able to reduce mortality and the number of repeat respiratory failure and readmissions by continuing the acute noninvasive ventilatory therapy as a long-term therapy. METHODS: Multi-center open label randomized controlled trial of 150 patients having survived an admission with noninvasive ventilatory treatment of acute hypercapnic respiratory failure due chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The included patients are randomized to usual care or to continuing the acute noninvasive ventilation as a long-term therapy, both with a one-year follow-up period. The primary endpoint is time to death or repeat acute hypercapnic respiratory failure; secondary endpoints are one-year mortality, number of readmissions and repeat acute hypercapnic respiratory failure, exacerbations, dyspnea, quality of life, sleep quality, lung function, and arterial gases. DISCUSSION: Though previous studies of long-term noninvasive ventilation have shown conflicting results, we believe the treatment can reduce mortality and readmissions when applied in patients with previous need of acute ventilatory support, regardless of persistent hypercapnia. TRIAL REGISTRATION: clinicaltrials.org: NCT01513655 16-Jan-2012