The purpose of the paper is to develop the theory that structural or procedural changes in institutions precede changes in education in a society. It examines the development of pre-modern institutions in Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries and the influences this had on growth in literacy rates within these states. Literacy rates in…

Today, the main event in the social and labor sphere of Russia is, of course, the introduction of the National Qualifications System (abbreviated NSC), which comes to replace the old system of qualification characteristics. In general, the NSC in Russia is represented by four interrelated elements: professional standards, independent assessment of…

This dissertation addresses several contemporary health challenges affecting the US population, drawing on methods and perspectives from health services research, social demography, and medical sociology. Paper 1 examines the pathways from educational attainment to difficulty with activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of…

The January employment numbers, released today by the U.S. Department of Labor, present mixed evidence about the state of the labor market. While the unemployment rate dropped to 9 percent, payrolls were just better than flat, increasing by only 36,000 jobs last month. Much attention is given to the official unemployment rate, which is certainly…

The Multistate Longitudinal Data Exchange (MLDE) facilitates data sharing between states from K-12 education, higher education, and labor agencies. Its goal is to provide practitioners, policymakers, and researchers with a comprehensive data source to understand educational and career trajectories, including how these trajectories can cross state…

This paper addresses the convergence of inequality across social and economic dimensions in the United States. Chief among these are wealth accumulation, labor, and education. Specifically, I discuss the transference of wealth to the top of the income hierarchy, the automation and polarization of labor, and threats to public education.…

The paper is theoretically based on the concept of "postindustrial" (information) society (Bell, 1973) where the importance of education is emphasized and caused by changes in the structure of employment rate, growing intellectual labor exigence as well as higher unemployment rate of individuals of the lowest educational category.…

The authors use data from the Health and Retirement Study's Earnings Benefit File, which links Health and Retirement Study to Social Security Administration records, to estimate the impact of childhood health on earnings curves between the ages of 25 and 50 years. They also investigate the extent to which diminished educational attainment, earlier…

A public college in Mexico City randomly assigns applicants into a group that can immediately enroll and a group that can only do so after one year. The author shows that the standard model of educational decisions predicts no (or minimal) effect of deferral on educational attainment. He surveyed the applicants to this college for the 2007/2008…

While several types of mental illness, including substance abuse disorders, have been linked with poor labor market outcomes, no current research has been able to examine the effects of childhood ADHD. As ADHD has become one of the most prevalent childhood mental conditions, it is useful to understand the full set of consequences of the illness.…

There are now nearly four million children born in the United States who have undocumented immigrant parents. In the current debates around immigration reform, policymakers often view immigrants as an economic or labor market problem to be solved, but the issue has a very real human dimension. Immigrant parents without legal status are raising…

Northeastern University economists Paul E. Harrington and Andrew M. Sum argue that a recent report, "Help Wanted", "radically overstates the size of the college labor market." This overcount, they claim, has nothing to do with the recession. "Even in times of near full employment," Harrington and Sum argue that…

This dissertation examines two related questions. First, it estimates the effect of growth in the demand for skilled and unskilled labor on rural household incomes and the rural wage structure. Second, it examines the effect of growth in household incomes and in labor market returns to education on household educational investment. The…

This article is concerned with the relationship between education, aspiration, and social mobility in Chhattisgarh, central India. I am interested in how the ideology of education as an intrinsic "social good" squares with the everyday experiences of marginalized "adivasi" (tribal) girls. My aim is to understand why education…

Responding to the link between postsecondary education and economic productivity, government policymakers and private-sector and nonprofit groups are implementing a number of initiatives aimed at increasing educational attainment among the American public. By and large, these actions have taken place at the state level, which at first glance makes…