The impact of the General Educational Development certificate (GED) on the earnings of high school dropouts who seek the credential were estimated. The estimates were derived by using several different types of estimation methods to analyze data linking Florida GED test information with quarterly earnings records collected by Florida's…

The following are expectations about employer-provided training: (1) the incentive to provide general training arises largely because of transaction costs in the labor market, despite adding value to a worker's productivity when working for a range of employers; (2)employers sponsor training in specific skills since they are likely to reap the…

The human capital and growth accounting approaches to measuring the benefits of education both have serious weaknesses. Like other goods and services, educational services have effects on the economic well-being of individuals and families. Because the economic well-being effects of education include private marketed and non-marketed impacts as…

Although youth between the ages of 16 and 19 account for only 6.7 percent of the nation's labor force, they constitute 17.9 percent of the officially unemployed. Unemployment among youth is rising. More than 46 percent of the nation's black youth and nearly 39 percent of Hispanic children currently live below the poverty level. Moreover, real…

The principal justification for the federal government's long-term and substantial support of vocational education programs is the need to provide opportunities for American workers, particularly those without marketable skills from lower income and minority families, to develop job-related skills. In recent decades, Congress has enacted several…

Black, Latina, and Asian women generally work in jobs that are less well-paying and lower on the occupational hierarchy than are the jobs held by their white counterparts. In addition, these women of color face higher unemployment rates than do white women. Whereas the entry of large numbers of white women into the work force is a fairly recent…

Presented from a geographical perspective, this book examines major themes of human geography by drawing from the literature on feminism. The book is arranged into four parts. Part 1 examines sex ratios throughout the world, geographical distribution of female rights and status, spatial patterns of the Equal Rights Amendment ratification, the…

The advances women have made in the past decade have created the myth that women have achieved equal opportunity in the job market. In reality, the opposite is true. The current economic status of women demonstrates the need for strict enforcement of equal opportunity laws. Department of Labor data indicate that the wage gap between men and women…

Social statistics may exaggerate the degree of hardship caused by labor market problems. Yet, in many ways social statistics underestimate the degree of hardship caused by extended unemployment, underemployment, and low wages. Therefore, new measures are needed to reassess long-term and cyclical labor market developments, the changing status of…

Work in the lives of most Third World nation women is not a matter of equity and/or self-actualization. Rather, the changing economic roles and responsibilities of women make working a matter of economic survival. Despite the limitations of existing definitional and measurement problems related to data collection, regional data do exist which…

The federal policy shift from skills training and toward work first strategies has come about, in part, from a misconception that "training does not work." A more comprehensive look at existing research reveals the documented effectiveness of skills training. A growing number of studies have shown skills training can increase earnings;…

A representative survey of over 30,000 people aged 16-64 years across the 15 member states of the European Union and Norway sought Europeans' preferences for increasing or reducing the number of hours worked per week. Key finding included the following: (1) 51% preferred to work fewer hours in exchange for lower earnings while 12% preferred to…

Increases in the divorce rate, decreases in women's childbearing, and increases in women's participation in the labor force represent three major trends that have had a great impact on women and on the family as a setting in which to work, raise children, and control resources. Although women's employment is clearly related in part to their…

The status of women in higher education administration and strategies for increasing their numbers are considered, based on research studies on women and job structures in higher education, and from information on organizations and programs. General observations based on the studies include the following: women are underrepresented in major…

After more than three decades of development and two decades of evaluation, career academies have been found to be effective in improving the performance of students in high school, particularly for students at greatest risk. Career academies have become the most durable and best-tested component of a high school reform strategy that includes…