Expected Changes in the Workforce and Implications for Labor Markets

[Excerpt] While many have written about possible effects of the baby boom on the U.S. economy, few have recognized that this demographic transition provides analysts with a unique and valuable opportunity to investigate how the labor market works. Specifically, as baby boomers move up the age distribution, they impart a one-time shock to the supply of potential workers in each age bracket. Because this change is exogenous, many of the tools labor economists typically apply can be utilized to predict how the aging of the baby boom will alter key labor market outcomes. Theoretical and empirical models which (either implicitly or explicitly) hold constant structural parameters in order to work through the effects of an exogenous shock are well-suited to address this issue

Expected Changes in the Workforce and Implications for Labor Markets

This paper examines the likely effects of the aging of the baby boom on labor force attachment, unemployment, and wages. Labor market trends between now and 2020 are the focus of analysis, when the majority of the baby boom generation will confront its retirement decision. We begin by reviewing past labor force trends and discussing important limitations of existing projection methods. Key elements needed to project the consequences of the demographic shock facing the labor market are identified. The task of developing a fully specified economic model to examine the effect of the aging of the baby boom on the labor market is as yet incomplete. On the basis of the best available evidence, we suggest the following conclusions can be drawn: The trend towards earlier retirement will slow and perhaps reverse in the next few decades. Unemployment should fall among older workers and the aggregate full-employment unemployment rate should also decline as the baby boom ages. The aging of the baby boom will not depress wages substantially, either for older workers or for other demographic groups.

Aging, Job Satisfaction, and Job Performance

The national trend to earlier retirement is surprising in light of conventional wisdom holding that older workers are healthy, satisfied and productive employees -- sometimes even more so than their younger counterparts. This paper examines whether conventional wisdom is wrong by reviewing existing studies and noting some of their most important shortcomings. New empirical evidence is provided on the links between aging, job satisfaction, and job performance using data from a nationally representative survey of workers

The Gospel according to no one and rewriting the South : Eudora Welty and the self-conscious Southern novel

PhD ThesisBoth my novel and the critical work explore Southern places, how they are defined and how Southern people imbue them with meaning—sometimes multiple and paradoxical meanings—and, in turn, how those places define them. In my novel, The Gospel According to No One, narratives tied to place are pitted against each other: New South versus Old South, fundamentalism versus liberalism, nihilism versus the mythic worldview, and the Agrarian Proprietary Ideal versus what some scholars see as the homogenizing forces of Late Capitalism. The struggles between these discourses threaten to undo order within the city. Those who survive forge new identities from the fragments of postmodernism, inventing new narratives about both themselves and the places they inhabit. My work on Eudora Welty also examines multiple Southern discourses. I argue that Welty’s self-conscious focus on reproductions of the South in Delta Wedding and The Optimist’s Daughter challenges the idea of a monolithic South, which also challenges any definitive categorization of Welty and her relationship to the imagined (the only ‘real’) South. In the bridging section of the work, I explain why I chose Welty as a subject of study, explore connections between postmodernism and Southern literature, suggest a definition of the South that is reflective of Place, and examine my creative work in light of the theoretical issues I have encountered

The Role of Psychological Flexibility in Eating Disorders in a Residential Treatment Sample

Eating disorders have a dramatic effect on the lives of people who struggle with them, including cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems, and death. Individuals with these diagnoses are also often struggling with comorbid diagnoses such as depression, anxiety, and substance abuse/dependence. Building on a conceptualization of eating disorders as a means to dysfunctionally regulate negative affect and escape unwanted thoughts, psychological flexibility, the ability of a person to contact unwanted thoughts or feelings and behave without escape or avoidance, is investigated as a tool for treatment. Additionally, because quantitative analysis of the construct of psychological flexibility has often employed the use of college samples, this study employed a sample of participants drawn from a residential treatment facility dedicated to the treatment of eating disorders. Through regression and modeling, psychological flexibility demonstrates its utility in the treatment of eating disorders through its relationship with body dissatisfaction and quality of life

But Grace is Not Infinite : Tolkien\u27s Explorations of Nature and Grace in His Catholic Context

Adds to our understanding of Tolkien’s created theology and the place of Faerie in his sub-creation by examining contemporary real world theological debates which might have influenced his thinking, including discussions of the supernatural like Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical Humani Generis

Tribiology of Engineered Surfaces in Aggressive Environments

To improve the performance of sliding systems, surface modifications and coatings are often applied to opposing surfaces. This thesis focuses on characterizing two tribo-systems (DLC-DLC and steel micropatterns-flat) under their predicted application environments. The first section is focused on friction testing of micropatterned surfaces for orthopaedic device design, the second section elucidates how the sliding of diamond-like-carbon (DLC) coatings changes with temperature and humidity. The experimental design and major results of these sections are as follows. (1) The use of micropatterning to create uniform surface morphologies has been cited as yielding improvements in the coefficient of friction during high velocity sliding contact. Studies have not been preformed to determine if these micropatterns could also be useful in biomedical applications, such as total joint replacement surfaces, where the lower sliding velocities are used. In this study, the effect of pattern geometry, feature size and lubricant on contact friction and surface damage was investigated using 316L steel in sliding contact with a stainless steel and polyethylene pins. Using a novel proprietary forming process that creates millions of microstructures in parallel, a variety of micropatterned surfaces were fabricated to study the influence of shape (oval, circular, square), geometry (depressions, pillars) and feature size (10, 50 and 100 mm) on both contact friction and surface damage. The coefficients of friction were measured for each surface/lubricant/pin system using a CETR scratch testing system. Results showed that round depressions with diameters of 10 μm had a significantly lower steady state coefficient of friction than the non-patterned substrates or substrates with greater diameter depression patterns. (2) The use of diamond-like carbon (DLC) has been cited as a friction and wear reducing coating during sliding contact and is widely used in the hard disk drive (HDD) industry. Studies have not shown the simultaneous effects of the temperature and humidity or temperature and load on DLC coatings. This project will show the effects on the friction and wear of non- hydrogenated DLC coatings in high temperature environments (23 to 250 °C), various humid environments (10 – 95 %RH), dependence on load (2.66 to 10 N), and the combined effects each environmental condition. The DLC coatings being used in this study are ta-C (tetrahedral amorphous-carbon) and a-C (amorphous-carbon), which were deposited onto a substrate of Al2O3-TiC (Seagate) and 440C stainless steel counterface pin. The friction for this tribosystem was monitored by a built in-house POD system, which can control the humidity levels and can reach temperatures up to 300°C. It has been shown that the a-C is less sensitive to the humidity levels, but is more sensitive to the surrounding temperature than ta-C DLC coatings

Written by the Finger of God : C.S. Lewis and Historical Judgement

Lewis’s distrust of scientific laws for history, rather than undercutting his practice of literary history, existed alongside a basic, cautionary trust in representing the past. His methods of history writing included offering an overall plot, developing characters and corporate quasi-characters, and making analogies with the present to increase readerly sympathy (or antipathy) with long-gone cultures. Despite his strong rhetorical tendency to generalize, Lewis did not place absolute faith in his historical narratives. They were made to be argued with, supplemented, and even over-turned. The article pays particular attention to three documents from Lewis’s career as a literary historian: 1) his 1945 essay, “Addison”; 2) his two-day address in 1956 to the Cambridge Zoological Laboratory, “Imagination and Thought in the Middle Ages”; and 3) the opening introduction to his monumental English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama. Likewise, it examines his overall attitude toward historiography, which requires a theological structure to position his suspended middle of historical and ethical judgments