Career Changers in Teaching Jobs: A Case Study Based on the Swiss Vocational Education System

This study investigates the determinants and motives of professionals who change career to vocational teaching. The framework for this study is the Swiss vocational education system, which requires that teachers of vocational subjects must have a prior career in that specific field. Thus, to work in teaching, every vocational teacher has to change his or her initial career. This paper focuses on the relevance of monetary motives for changing a career to teaching. Using a unique data set of trainee teachers, we show that professionals who change their careers to teaching earned on average more in their first career than comparable workers in the same occupation. Our findings additionally demonstrate that the average career changer still expects to earn significantly more as a teacher than in the former career. However, the study shows substantial heterogeneity and a zero wage elasticity of the teacher supply, suggesting that non-monetary motives are more relevant for career change than monetary factors.career change, occupational change, rate of return to education, wage differentials, teacher wages, vocational education and training

Bridging traditional and new commons: the case of fruit breeding

The recent system of fruit breeding and fruit cultivation faces a range of sustainability challenges, specifically an intense usage of plant protection measures, an increased privatization of former common goods, and an overall loss of resilience in the face of environmental change. We argue that a commons-based organization of fruit breeding could potentially meet these challenges. By (1) drawing on theoretical conceptions of Traditional Commons, Knowledge Commons and Global Commons, and (2) conducting an in-depth case study of a commons-based organic fruit breeding project in Germany, we develop a comprehensive picture of commons-based fruit breeding. Our analysis shows that ‘fruit breeding commons’ are a form of ‘hybrid commons’ and involve two interacting layers of commons organization: The inner layer encompasses the norms, rules and institutions governing the variety breeding process itself within a clearly defined decentralized breeding community. The outer layer encompasses the usage and protection rules regarding the resulting fruit varieties and knowledge about its characteristics referring to a more open community

Monitor - Mobiles und entgrenztes Arbeiten: Aktuelle Ergebnisse einer Betriebs- und Beschäftigtenbefragung

[Einleitung] Die Weiterentwicklung mobiler Endgeräte und die Ausbreitung des Breitband-Internets haben die Digitalisierung der Arbeitswelt in den letzten Jahren schnell vorangetrieben. Flexible Arbeitsformen gewinnen zunehmend an Bedeutung und rücken immer stärker in den Fokus der gesellschaftlichen Debatte. Zwei Dimensionen der Flexibilität – die zeitliche und die räumliche - führen zu einem Phänomen, das häufig als „Entgrenzung der Arbeit“ bezeichnet wird. Die bisherige Forschung zeigt: Flexible Arbeitsformen können einerseits die Vereinbarkeit von Beruf und Familie erleichtern und die Leistungsfähigkeit der Beschäftigten erhöhen. Andererseits bergen sie aber auch die Gefahr von höherem Arbeitsvolumen und höherer Arbeitsintensität ohne ausreichende ungestörte Erholungsphasen. Auf Dauer kann das negative Folgen für die psychische und physische Gesundheit der Beschäftigten haben. Für die Arbeitsqualität der Beschäftigten und damit auch den wirtschaftlichen Erfolg der Betriebe ist eine Arbeitsorganisation unverzichtbar, die das Spannungsfeld zwischen Work-Life-Balance und Beanspruchung verringert. Bisher ist wenig bekannt über die tatsächlich gelebte Entgrenzung der Arbeit, deren Voraussetzungen, Chancen und Risiken. Dieser Monitor fasst die Ergebnisse einer repräsentativen Betriebs- und Beschäftigtenbefragung zusammen, dem Linked Personnel Panel (LPP). Zunächst wird die Verbreitung des Phänomens Entgrenzung aus Betriebs- und Beschäftigtensicht für die zeitliche und räumliche Dimension untersucht. Anschließend werden Vor- und Nachteile, Chancen und Risiken dieser Form der Flexibilisierung betrachtet. Das Wissen soll dabei helfen, Ansätze für eine gesundheitsgerechte und zukunftsfähige Gestaltung flexibler Arbeitsformen zu entwickeln

Career changers in teaching jobs: A case study based on the Swiss vocational education system

This study investigates the determinants and motives of professionals who change career to vocational teaching. The framework for this study is the Swiss vocational education system, which requires that teachers of vocational subjects must have a prior career in that specific field. Thus, to work in teaching, every vocational teacher has to change his or her initial career. This paper focuses on the relevance of monetary motives for changing a career to teaching. Using a unique data set of trainee teachers, we show that professionals who change their careers to teaching earned on average more in their first career than comparable workers in the same occupation. Our findings additionally demonstrate that the average career changer still expects to earn significantly more as a teacher than in the former career. However, the study shows substantial heterogeneity and a zero wage elasticity of the teacher supply, suggesting that non-monetary motives are more relevant for career change than monetary factors

Obtaining Record Linkage Consent: Results from a Wording Experiment in Germany

Many sample surveys ask respondents for consent to link their survey information with administrative sources. There is significant variation in how linkage requests are administered and little experimental evidence to suggest which approaches are useful for achieving high consent rates. A common approach is to emphasize the positive benefits of linkage to respondents. However, some evidence suggests that emphasizing the negative consequences of not consenting to linkage is a more effective strategy. To further examine this issue, we conducted a gain-loss framing experiment in which we emphasized the benefit (gain) of linking or the negative consequence (loss) of not linking one’s data as it related to the usefulness of their survey responses. In addition, we explored a sunk-prospective costs rationale by varying the emphasis on response usefulness for responses that the respondent had already provided prior to the linkage request (sunk costs) and responses that would be provided after the linkage request (prospective costs). We found a significant interaction between gain-loss framing and the sunk-prospective costs rationale: respondents in the gain-framing condition consented to linkage at a higher rate than those in the loss-framing condition when response usefulness was emphasized for responses to subsequent survey items. Conversely, the opposite pattern was observed when response usefulness was emphasized for responses that had already been provided: loss-framing resulted in a higher consent rate than the gain-framing, but this result did not reach statistical significance

Credit Supply, Firms, and Earnings Inequality

We study the distributional effects of a monetary policy-induced firm-level credit supply shock on individual wages and employment. To this end, we construct a novel dataset that links worker employment histories to firms' bank credit relationships in Germany. We document that firms in relationships with banks that were more exposed to negative monetary policy rates in 2014 see a relative reduction in credit supply. A negative credit supply shock in turn is associated with lower firm-level average wages and employment. These effects are concentrated among distinct worker groups within firms, with initially lower-paid workers more likely to be fired and initially higher-paid workers more likely to receive wage cuts. At the same time, wages decline by more at initially higher-paying firms. Consequently, wage inequality within and between firms decreases. Our results suggest that monetary policy has important distributional effects in the labor market

Homeoffice aus betrieblicher Perspektive: gekommen um zu bleiben

Dieser Bericht stellt die Entwicklung des betrieblichen Homeoffice-Angebots seit 2014 dar und leistet damit einen Beitrag zur Debatte um die Entwicklung von Homeoffice in Deutschland. Die Datengrundlage für die Analysen bildet das Linked Personnel Panel 2014 bis 2023. Der bis 2020 langsame Anstieg des Homeoffice-Angebot erlebte nach Beginn der Pandemie eine deutliche Ausweitung, dieser ging zudem mit einer deutlichen Formalisierung der Regelungen aufs Betriebsebene einher. Die meisten Hindernisse und Vorbehalte gegen eine Homeoffice-Einführung sind im Zuge der Pandemie nahezu bedeutungslos geworden. Nichtdestotrotz besteht in 25 Prozent der privatwirtwirtschaftlichen Betriebe ab 50 Beschäftigten weiterhin nicht die Möglichkeit zum mobilen Arbeiten von zu Hause aus, in den allermeisten Fällen aufgrund einer mangelnden Eignung der Tätigkeiten in der Belegschaft

Data Analysis Techniques for Fan Performance in Highly-Distorted Flows from Boundary Layer Ingesting Inlets

The design of a unique distortion-tolerant fan for a high-bypass ratio boundary-layer ingesting propulsion system has been completed and a rig constructed and tested in the NASA Glenn 8x6 wind tunnel. Processing the data from the experiment presented some interesting challenges because of the complexity of the experimental setup and the flow through the test rig. The experiment was run in three phases, each of which employed a unique complement of inlet throat and fan face instrumentation to avoid the blockage that would have resulted from simultaneously installing all of the rakes. The measurement from the individual test points were subsequently combined to compute the overall stage performance. A CFD model of the experiment was used to gain understanding of the flow field and to test some of the techniques proposed for interpolating and extrapolating the measurements into regions where measurements were not made. This capability became extremely useful when it was discovered that there was an unexpected total temperature distortion in the tunnel. The CFD model was modified by inserting a total temperature profile at the upstream boundary that mimicked the measured distortion where measurements were available and that CFD solution was used to investigate methods to infer the complete total temperature field at the fan face

Measuring the use of human resources practices and employee attitudes : the linked personnel panel

This paper introduces a new data source available for HRM researchers and personnel economists, the Linked Personnel Panel (LPP). The LPP is a longitudinal and representative employer-employee data set covering establishments in Germany and designed for quantitative empirical HR research. The LPP offers a unique structure. First, the data set combines employer and employee surveys that can be matched to each other. Second, it can also be linked to a number of additional administrative data sets. Third, the LPP covers a wide range of firms and workers from different backgrounds. Finally, because of its longitudinal dimension, the LPP should facilitate the study of causal effects of HR practices. The LPP employee survey uses a number of established scales to measure job characteristics and job perceptions, personal characteristics, employee attitudes towards the organisation and employee behaviour. This paper gives an overview of both the employer and employee survey and outlines the definitions, origins and statistical properties of the scales used in the individual questionnaire

Befragung von Betrieben und Beschäftigten: Mehr Zufriedenheit und Engagement in Betrieben mit guter Personalpolitik

Betriebe in Deutschland sind angesichts der Konkurrenz um Fachkräfte zunehmend herausgefordert, ihren Beschäftigten ein hohes Maß an guten Arbeitsbedingungen zu bieten. Die wahrgenommene Arbeitsqualität ist ein Zeichen von Arbeitgeberattraktivität und hängt stark mit guter Personalführung zusammen. In dem Kurzbericht wird unter anderem die Verbreitung von Arbeitsbelastungen wie starker Termindruck, Informationsflut, unangenehme Umgebungsbedingungen und körperliche Anstrengungen am Arbeitsplatz untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Betriebe, die Personalpolitik klug einsetzen, engagiertere und zufriedenere Beschäftigte haben