Globalisation and the technology gap: Regional and time evidence

This chapter examines the relationship between globalisation and technological progress. It computes an annual and country specific measure of technological gap, the technology ratio (TGR), using a recently proposed method known as metafrontiers. The TGR is measured as the distance from a group frontier to the global (or meta) frontier. The TGRs provide a measure to compare technological capability across countries. The ranking obtained from the metafrontiers method is first compared to other methods based on the direct measure of patents, science articles, schooling etc. The TGRs are then related to levels of trade openness and inbound and outbound foreign direct investment within regions and overtime in an effort to identify the relationship between technological gap and outward orientation.

Closing the gender gap in Bangladesh: Inequality in education, employment and earnings

Assesses the status of women in Bangladesh by analysing the dynamics of female participation in labour force and education as well as gender earnings differentials at the macro level. The study finds evidence of growing commercialisation of women’s work in Bangladesh. Although the bulk of the female labour force is engaged in self-employment activities in the rural area or in low-skilled textile and readymade garment industries in the urban area, women’s participation in high-skill and entrepreneurial jobs as well as various decision-making bodies is also on the rise. While the gender wage differentials have been considerably reduced in many industries, in general women tend to be paid less than men. There have been remarkable improvements in women’s educational attainments compared to men. Further, female access to education is found to be highly correlated with overall female labour force participation, and relative to male participation. The overall results are suggestive of an improvement in the status of women in Bangladesh.

The validity of an Australian modification of the AUDIT questionnaire

The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) has been used widely and is reported to be superior to conventional questionnaires in detection of current hazardous and harmful alcohol use. We assessed the validity of an Australian modification of the AUDIT (the AusAUDIT), which has been employed widely in Australian and New Zealand early intervention programmes. We used a cross-sectional study of 370 subjects from the follow-up phase of a randomized controlled trial of early intervention to reduce hazardous alcohol consumption. Scores on the AusAUDIT were compared against 12-month ICD-10 diagnoses of harmful alcohol use and dependence, as determined by the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, and against self-report of alcohol consumption exceeding Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NH&MRC) recommended limits. AusAUDIT had good internal consistency and discriminated significantly between persons meeting criteria for ICD-10 alcohol use disorders, and drinkers who did not. At currently recommended cut-off scores, AusAUDIT detected more than 85% of people meeting criteria for ICD-10 alcohol use disorders, or drinking over NH&MRC recommended limits, but its specificity was limited (29% in men, and 58% in women for drinking over NH&MRC limits). No subset of questions performed as well as the full AusAUDIT in detection of drinking problems, but the alcohol consumption items provided a reasonable screen for drinking over NH&MRC limits. We conclude that AusAUDIT is effective in detecting problematic drinking, but positive cases should be confirmed by clinical assessment. The findings illustrate the need for validation of questionnaire modifications, and the difficulty in increasing test sensitivity without reducing specificity.

Changing pay systems, occupational concentration and the gender pay gap: Evidence from Australia and the UK

While aggregate level pay equity comparisons between Australia and the UK confirm expectations based on their different wage distributions and regulatory systems, observation of trends and occupational level analysis reveal additional complexity. Our analysis suggests the need for a multi-faceted approach to closing the average gender pay gap.