Japanese NEET and Freeter: A representation of the relationship between social changes and youth\u27s employment pattern

My paper attempts to analyze the existence of NEET (No Employment, Education or Training – ニート) and Freeter (Freelancing part-time worker - フリーター), two common groups of young unemployed people and irregular workers in Japan. Throughout the study, the relationship between Japanese social changes, modernization process and Japanese NEETs and Freeters is thoroughly examined. The first social change related to the establishment of these two groups is the transformation of employment system. The combination of a seniority-based system and performance-based system as well as their contrasts has increased the competitiveness in the job seeking war while eliminating some of the employees’ former benefits. Consequently, they prevent a lot of Japanese people from joining the full-time workforce. In order to explain the difference between the percentage of female NEET/Freeter and male NEET/Freeter, I also consider the changes in gender roles in Japanese society. The contradiction between traditional gender expectations and the rise of Japanese women’s independence could be a possible reason leading to the increasing number of NEET and Freeter. Another element that continues expanding these groups is the development of the Internet and social media in Japan. Besides discouraging Japanese youth from joining mainstream workforce by eliminating their confidence, the Internet and social media also make mainstream jobs less appealing to the youth as they offer these people various chances to earn money effortlessly. With the support from the Internet, these NEETs and Freeters can easily contact each other and form their own sub-culture groups, and further separate themselves from the mainstream workforce. Pressure from family members along with the youth’s over-dependence on family seems to have a major influence on Japanese youth’s employment pattern as well. Receiving financial supply from their parents dissuades many young people from working as they can live by using money provided by their parents. Meanwhile, many young Japanese people turn into NEETs and Freeters as they are forced to join the full-time workforce by their parents despite their unwillingness or lack of preparation; eventually, they quit their jobs because of either the work pressure or their inability to integrate into the full-time employment world. Lastly, the difference between two generations’ ideology, and Japanese youth’s reliance on governmental financial support have urged some Japanese youth to become NEETs or Freeters. A portion of Japanese youth who oppose capitalism, through which laborers have to depend on their companies for social services, quit their jobs and become NEETs. They probably value independence from the employers more than a stable source of income or the ability to support family. Meanwhile, Japan’s social support allows young Japanese to become Freeters as the income from this financial support and part-time jobs alone is sufficient enough to lead a decent life. Different from the older generations who work to contribute to the nation’s economy and to secure the financial resource for their families, many young people quit their full-time jobs and rely on the money provided by the government as they prioritize their needs over their responsibility to support country or family. Besides analyzing the causes, my study offers an overview on the negative consequences that NEET and Freeter can create by further exacerbating the existing social problems, such as the economic crisis, aging population, low fertility rate, worsening living conditions. Additionally, the Japanese government’s attempt to decrease the number of NEET and Freeter, as well as the reason leading to the government’s solution’s ineffectiveness is included

Looking Good or Learning Good? An Education Production Function with Ancillary Services as an Input

Universities have been putting more emphasis on developing ancillary services in an effort to make them look better and become more attractive to both prospective students as well as financial donors. However, in making the decision as to what level of ancillary services they should administer, universities face the problem of whether they are compromising their academic quality

In My Own Little Box

University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/133989/1/FINALTHESISPAPER.pd

The emerging business of science in Vietnam

Manh-Tung Ho, Khanh-Linh Hoang, Minh-Hoang Nguyen, Manh-Toan Ho (2019). Chapter 8. The emerging business of science in Vietnam. In Quan-Hoang Vuong, Trung Tran (Eds.), The Vietnamese Social Sciences at a Fork in the Road (pp. 163–177). Warsaw, Poland: De Gruyter. DOI:10.2478/9783110686081-013. Online ISBN: 9783110686081 © 2019 Sciendo / De Gruyte

Directed hypergraph neural network

To deal with irregular data structure, graph convolution neural networks have been developed by a lot of data scientists. However, data scientists just have concentrated primarily on developing deep neural network method for un-directed graph. In this paper, we will present the novel neural network method for directed hypergraph. In the other words, we will develop not only the novel directed hypergraph neural network method but also the novel directed hypergraph based semi-supervised learning method. These methods are employed to solve the node classification task. The two datasets that are used in the experiments are the cora and the citeseer datasets. Among the classic directed graph based semi-supervised learning method, the novel directed hypergraph based semi-supervised learning method, the novel directed hypergraph neural network method that are utilized to solve this node classification task, we recognize that the novel directed hypergraph neural network achieves the highest accuracies

Scrambling for higher metrics in the Journal Impact Factor bubble period: a real-world problem in science management and its implications

Universities and funders in many countries have been using Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as an indicator for research and grant assessment despite its controversial nature as a statistical representation of scientific quality. This study investigates how the changes of JIF over the years can affect its role in research evaluation and science management by using JIF data from annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to illustrate the changes. The descriptive statistics find out an increase in the median JIF for the top 50 journals in the JCR, from 29.300 in 2017 to 33.162 in 2019. Moreover, on average, elite journal families have up to 27 journals in the top 50. In the group of journals with a JIF of lower than 1, the proportion has shrunk by 14.53% in the 2015–2019 period. The findings suggest a potential ‘JIF bubble period’ that science policymaker, university, public fund managers, and other stakeholders should pay more attention to JIF as a criterion for quality assessment to ensure more efficient science management

Linh Hoang Honors Portfolio

Lihn Hoang\u27s honors portfolio captured in May 2019