The Role of Age and Gender in Educational Expansion: The South Asian Experience in the Global Context

I calculate education Gini coefficients and decompose the overall degree of educational inequality into age, sex, and within‐group components for 171 countries from 1970 to 2010. Doing so enables me to analyze the distributional outcomes of educational expansion. I use South Asia as a case study, as the education distribution in the region is among the most unequal in the world. Generally, educational inequality is decreasing over the observed sample period around the globe. Yet, as improvements are initiated by enhancing the educational opportunities of the young, the gap between cohorts widens in transition phases but vanishes thereafter. Gaps between the sexes are reduced substantially, but widen if either males or females are the first to enter higher education levels. Also, gaps within population subgroups follow a similar trajectory. Instead of a Kuznets‐curve relation, I thus find evidence for educational inequality to evolve in waves as education expands.     

Cities, Workers, and Wages: A Structural Analysis of the Urban Wage Premium

Workers earn higher wages in cities vs. rural areas. This gap could arise because cities make workers more productive, or it could be the result of a non-random selection of workers into cities based on their ability and their endogenous history of career choices. To untangle these issues, this paper estimates a dynamic programming model, which embeds the choice of residing in a city or rural area within a model of career choices over time. After controlling for all the sources of selection and endogeneity, the estimates indicate that a given worker does earn more in the city for white-collar work, but not for blue-collar work. In addition, city work experience is found to be worth more than rural work experience in the rural area for white-collar work, but not for blue-collar work. These results support the interpretation that cities make white-collar workers more productive and suggest that workers may consider moving to the city not only in terms of locational choice, but also as a form of human capital investment.     

Gender,Decent Work,and Global Production Sharing in Indonesian Manufacturing

Abstract:

Global commodity chains reflect and affect gendered labor markets. This article uses the Decent Work framework from the International Labour Organization to analyze employment outcomes for Indonesian workers in manufacturing. This research investigates trends in feminized manufacturing sectors in variously sized firms. Regression analyses is used to evaluate how firm characteristics related to global production sharing effect decent work outcomes for women and men, as well as female share of employment itself. The results suggest that exports and FDI affect men and women differently and that feminization and decent work outcomes depend on how the sector is positioned along the global value chain.     

Gender,Low-Paid Status,and Time Poverty in Urban China

ABSTRACT

Using synthetic data from the 2008 China Time Use Survey (CTUS) and the 2008 China Household Income Project (CHIP), this study estimates time-poverty rates and compares the profiles of time-poor men and women workers in urban China. In line with previous research, time poverty is defined as a lack of enough time for rest and leisure. Three time-poverty measures are adopted. By all three measures, women paid workers and low-paid workers account for a disproportionate share of the time poor. Regression analysis further shows that, other things being equal, workers who are women, low-paid, married, and who live with children or the elderly in counties with higher overtime rates and lower minimum wage standards are more likely to be time poor. Simulations indicate that enforcing working time regulations and raising minimum wage standards could be effective for reducing time poverty.     

Towards Sustainable and Democratic Urban Transport: Constructivism,Planning and Policy

This paper takes a constructivist technology studies approach to understand the changing shape of transport and mobility, tracing in particular the growing importance of discourses around sustainability and democratic involvement in transport and urban planning as well as in wider public debate. The concept of sociotechnical frames is used to capture the interaction between the technical, social and cultural dimensions of transport and mobility; sociotechnical change comes about when these different elements begin to pull apart from each other. In light of this framework, the paper examines shifts within the sociotechnology of transport and mobility since the late 1980s and draws on a case study of a controversial development dispute in the UK to examine how notions of sustainability and public involvement are constructed within local contexts. The case study highlights especially issues around the relative power to bring about change of different actors within a frame.     

产业长波、城市生命周期与城市转型

城市的发展不是线性的,繁荣与衰退的周期波动会带来城市发展的振荡,如何防止衰退、保持繁荣是城市发展面临的主要课题之一。文章认为,城市发展的生命周期与产业长周期有关。目前发达国家已经进入第五长周期,而我国正处于第三长周期、即工业化中期阶段。要想顺利完成工业化,实现赶超,我国城市就要进行发展转型,转型的核心是实现产业与社会转型的统一。     

论经营城市的科学内涵与基本思想

经营城市是近年来我国推进城市化过程中出现的一种新的理念，具有深刻的科学内涵。近年来，一些城市在经营城市方面进行了大胆的探索和实践，摸索出一些好思路和好经验，值得推广和借鉴。     

Gender wage differentials and discrimination in the New South Africa

Research into discrimination within South Africa (SA) has focused on racial issues, with gender issues being largely ignored. This study aims to estimate gender wage differentials and through decomposition analysis understand the different problems faced by white, black, coloured and Indian/Asian in 1995. It is found that white and Asian females suffer greater gender discrimination than their black and coloured counterparts, which could be a signal to future problems black and coloured females may encounter. The largest gender wage differential is faced by white females, whilst the lowest is encountered by coloured and black females. A possible explanation for this finding is the low (subsistence) wages that the black and coloured population groups command relative to other population groups.     

Polanyi and Post-neoliberalism in the Global South: Dilemmas of Re-embedding the Economy

Although Karl Polanyi Studied a different epoch and focused on Europe, his ideas have inspired an outpouring of studies on contemporary problems and prospects in the neoliberal era. The bulk of these studies pertain to industrial countries or global economic issues. However, the human, environmental and financial impact of market deregulation is arguably more devastating in the ‘developing’ countries than in the core. A question thus arises: do Polanyi's reflections on progressive alternatives to liberalism clarify contemporary debates on development alternatives in the Global South? I contend that democratic socialism – Polanyi's preferred remedy to the ‘demolition’ of society and nature occasioned by market civilisation – is problematical in light of what we have learned from the twentieth century, but his framework for evaluating alternatives – featuring the re-embedding of economy in society – remains as powerful as ever, I support this argument with an exploration of socialism and social democracy – as well as community – based alternatives arising from ‘reciprocity’. Each possibility raises distinctive dilemmas, as an analysis of cases reveals.     

Indirect Taxation and Gender Equity: Evidence from South Africa

Abstract

This study adds to the growing literature on the distributional effects of indirect or consumption taxes in developing countries by exploring whether these taxes have differential gender outcomes. Using data from Statistics South Africa's 2000 Income and Expenditure Survey, the study investigates differences in tax incidence between “female-type” and “male-type” households, classified according to their demographic and economic attributes. The results suggest that zero-rating a well-targeted selection of basic foodstuffs and fuel for household use is important in protecting female-type households, especially those in the lowest quintiles and with children, from bearing an otherwise disproportionate share of the tax burden. In contrast, high taxes on alcohol, tobacco, and fuel for private transport result in a larger incidence on male-type households. The study also suggests ways in which the indirect tax structure could be refined to further reduce the large gender (and income) inequities that exist in South Africa.     

全球公共债务危机:发生、发展与未来

全球公共债务危机从短期看是迅速扩大的公共开支,从长期看是政府的赤字财政政策,从根源看则是资本主义经济的运行方式。公共债务危机不仅进一步加重经济复苏的难度,而且对世界政治也将产生深远影响。对我国来说,不仅要应对全球公共债务危机的冲击和影响,更要分析债务危机形成的原因,防范公共债务危机的发生,以保证中国公共债务的可持续运用和中国经济的可持续发展。     

Supermodularity and Global Supply Chains without the South

We investigate why the South is hardly involved in the global supply chain for the Boeing 787. We demonstrate that if the production process is supermodular, the South is excluded from global supply chains.     

In Search of the Global East: Thinking between North and South

ABSTRACT

Carving up the world into Global North and Global South has become an established way of thinking about global difference since the end of the Cold War. This binary, however, erases what this paper calls the Global East – those countries and societies that occupy an interstitial position between North and South. This paper problematises the geopolitics of knowledge that has resulted in the exclusion of the Global East, not just from the Global North and South, but from notions of globality in general. It argues that we need to adopt a strategic essentialism to recover the Global East for scholarship. To that end, it traces the global relations of IKEA’s bevelled drinking glass to demonstrate the urgency of rethinking the Global East at the heart of global connections, rather than separate from them. Thinking of such a Global East as a liminal space complicates the notions of North and South towards more inclusive but also more uncertain theorising.