Time use during the parental leave and the return to employment

This study investigates whether or not time use during a parental leave has an independent explanatory power in the subsequent decision to return to employment. In studies of the exit from maternity leave it has been found that it is the mother’s education, age and type of employment contract that most strongly determines whether she returns to employment or not. However, whether the structure of time use – the amount of leisure activities, the intensity of childcare or the preference for housework – has an independent effect, has not been studied before. This study looks whether this is the case by using information on the work histories of those mothers that participated in the Finnish Time Use Study 1999/2000. Although based on a limited sample, only 148 mothers, our results show that the mother’s time with her children does not and the amount of active leisure and social activities, do postpone the return to employment. However, the effect was modest at the most. Instead this study confirms the results obtained from earlier studies having concentrated on the mothers’ socio-economic background. It seems that these factors (age, education and income level) are the driving force behind the mother’s decision to return or not to return to paid employment

What makes an entrepreneurship independent? Evidence from time use survey

It is a well-documented empirical regularity that it is more satisfying to be self-employed than to work as an employee for an organization. A large part of this difference in job satisfaction is in the literature attributed to the strong perception of independence by the self-employed. In this paper we study people's time use as a source of entrepreneurial independence. By making use of disaggregated sequential microdata on people's time use, we are able to document that the perceived independence hardly derives from more flexible time use: The selfemployed work longer effective hours as well as more in the evenings and weekends than the organizationally employed. Albeit being able to time one's work may be a signal of flexibility in time use, the self-employed have less pure leisure and are less frequently absent from work in general and because of sickness on weekdays in particular. Moreover, we document that the self-employed who have small children are more likely to work after 5 p.m., when the communal day-care centers close. On the basis of these findings it is not surpirising that the selfemployed perceive that they are more often than the organizationally employed under time pressure and in hurry

Exploring the Co-operative Form’s Potential in Crowdfunding : A Non-monetary Perspective

Technology-driven change has generated new, even revolutionary business models, characterized by high levels of user participation. In the finance field, business models based on crowdfunding have seen significant growth and entered use as an alternative means of extending access and gaining financing for various types of projects. Nonetheless, current crowdfunding practices have been subject to criticism for issues such as information asymmetry, lack of trust and transaction costs, spurring discussion of how to develop and improve these practices. One way of speaking to the criticism has been a suggestion that platforms could be owned by the ones who use them. While the associated way of thinking, referred to as platform co-operativism, has seen some inroads in practice, its novel and practical nature means that a clear knowledge gap remains with regard to its potential for dealing with challenges of platform economy. Consequently, the aim of this study is to examine the relevance and potential of the co-operative company form for crowdfunding arrangements. Our conceptual study utilizes existing research on co-operatives and considers features of crowdfunding from three different perspectives: asymmetry of information and of trust, interaction frequency and homogeneity of interests. As a result, we provide three taxonomies for outlining future research on co-operative platforms.Technology-driven change has generated new, even revolutionary business models, characterized by high levels of user participation. In the finance field, business models based on crowdfunding have seen significant growth and entered use as an alternative means of extending access and gaining financing for various types of projects. Nonetheless, current crowdfunding practices have been subject to criticism for issues such as information asymmetry, lack of trust and transaction costs, spurring discussion of how to develop and improve these practices. One way of speaking to the criticism has been a suggestion that platforms could be owned by the ones who use them. While the associated way of thinking, referred to as platform co-operativism, has seen some inroads in practice, its novel and practical nature means that a clear knowledge gap remains with regard to its potential for dealing with challenges of platform economy. Consequently, the aim of this study is to examine the relevance and potential of the co-operative company form for crowdfunding arrangements. Our conceptual study utilizes existing research on co-operatives and considers features of crowdfunding from three different perspectives: asymmetry of information and of trust, interaction frequency and homogeneity of interests. As a result, we provide three taxonomies for outlining future research on co-operative platforms.Peer reviewe

Financial literacy and its determinants and consequences : New survey evidence from Finland

We examine financial literacy in Finland and its connection with various financial outcomes using novel survey data collected in 2023. While the overall Finnish financial literacy level is about average among the OECD countries, there is significant heterogeneity within the population. Women have lower financial literacy than men. The young and the old have lower financial literacy than respondents in their prime working age, and entrepreneurs have higher financial literacy than other groups. Financial literacy is also correlated with higher educational levels. We further study the relationship between financial literacy and a number of economic outcome variables. We find financial literacy to be negatively related to coping with a major expense, facing an income shock, and with perceived over-indebtedness. However, we do not find a statistically significant relationship between financial literacy and retirement planning in Finland.© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Financial literacy and retirement planning in Finland

This paper presents the results from the first study of financial literacy in Finland and explores the relationship between financial literacy and retirement planning in Finland. Finland is an interesting case because countervailing effects may exist: a high level of education might increase financial literacy, while the high provision of social security may decrease it and weaken its relationship with pension planning. The results indicate that the level of financial literacy in Finland is comparatively high, although it is unequally distributed among the population. With respect to pension planning, we find that there is little evidence of a relationship between the three core financial literacy questions and retirement planning; however, a statistically significant and positive relationship exists between retirement planning and an extended measure of financial literacy, consisting mostly of more demanding questions. When we split the sample by gender, we find evidence of a positive relationship between financial literacy and retirement planning among women but not among men. The results indicate that scaling down publicly guaranteed pension benefits may pose a challenge to the less financially literate segment of the population.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Suomalaiset pärjäävät taloudellisessa tietämyksessä ja käyttäytymisessä hyvin suhteessa muihin maihin

Tässä artikkelissa esitellään tuloksia suomalaisten taloudellisesta lukutaidosta. Tätä on tutkittu survey -menetelmällä käyttäen ensimmäistä kertaa kansainvälisesti vertailukelpoisia kysymyksiä. Suomalaisten taloudellinen lukutaito osoittautuu olevan verrattain korkealla tasolla. Tämä koskee sekä taloudellista tietämystä että taloudellista käyttäytymistä. Muissa maissa havaitut empiiriset säännönmukaisuudet koulutustason, sukupuolen ja tulotason suhteesta taloudelliseen lukutaitoon pätevät myös suomalaisessa aineistossa. Uutena laajennuksena tutkimuksessa esitetään vakuutuslukutaito. Myös se vaikuttaa olevan korkealla tasolla Suomessa.©2016 Kansantaloudellinen yhdistys.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

TEM:n oman analyysitoiminnan ulkoinen arviointi

Työministeri Tuula Haatainen nimitti 21.4.2022 dosentti Olli-Pekka Ruuskasen ja kauppatieteen tohtori Meri Obstbaumin selvityshenkilöiksi arvioimaan työ- ja elinkeinoministeriön (TEM) omaa analyysitoimintaa. Tässä selvityshenkilöiden raportissa kuvataan tehtäväalueen rajausta ja oman analyysitoiminnan kytkentöjä valtionhallinnon tutkimustoimintaan. Raportissa tarkasteltava oma analyysitoiminta keskittyy talouden ja työmarkkinoiden alueelle. Selvityshenkilöt tarkastelevat oman analyysityön resursseja ja organisoitumista, vaikutusarviointia, kansainvälistä yhteistyötä sekä analyysityön tuotoksia ja julkaisuja. Edelleen tarkastellaan käytettyjä tietoaineistoja ja sisäistä datainfrastruktuuria. Raportissa haetaan vastauksia siihen, kuinka analyysitoiminta vastaa sille asetettuja odotuksia, kuinka tuloksia on voitu hyödyntää politiikkavalmistelussa ja päätöksenteossa, miten tutkimuksellista laatua voidaan arvioida, vastaavatko resurssit sille asetettuja tavoitteita, miten tuloksista on onnistuttu kommunikoimaan ja onko analyysityössä substantiaalisia tai osaamiseen perustuvia aukkokohtia. Selvityshenkilöt hakevat vastauksia näihin kysymyksiin toteuttamalla laajasti haastatteluja sekä perehtymällä eri aineistoihin ja julkaisuihin. Lopussa esitetään johtopäätökset ja toimenpidesuositukset

The Effect of Fabrication Method on Passive UHF RFID Tag Performance

In passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), transponders or tags are used to label objects to be identified. In this study passive tag antennas were produced using etching, screen-printing, and gravure printing methods. The threshold and backscattered signal strengths of the tags were measured to determine the effect of different manufacturing methods on the tags' performance. Conductivity, skin depth, thickness, and the quality of the conducting layer have a major effect on tag performance. Each manufacturing method sets its own boundary conditions on the processibility of the high quality conduction layer and such conditions need to be considered in tag design. Tag design also affects the manufacturing parameters used in the different techniques. The results of the study show that each of the studied fabrication methods can be used to manufacture reliable RFID tags

Refining the Economic Dimension of Carroll's CSR Pyramid by Taking Organization Form into Account

In 1991, Archie Carroll presented the CSR pyramid, which has since become a widely recognised conceptualisation of corporate social responsibility. Responding to recent suggestions that understanding of the pyramid should be evaluated with regard to particular organisational contexts, the paper proceeds from awareness that not all corporations are owned by shareholders. Analysing qualitative data from consumer co-operatives, the authors conceptualise the economic responsibilities of these and consider them in light of prior definition of corporate economic responsibilities, to abstract a more general definition of corporate economic responsibility. The article is, to authors knowledge, the first one to address the implications of organizational form in economic responsibilities of a company.Peer reviewe