Assessing the impact of the 'Decoupling' reform of the common agricultural policy on Irish farmers' off-farm labour market participation decisions

This paper assesses the impact of the 'decoupling' reform of the Common Agricultural Policy on the labour allocation decisions of Irish farmers. The agricultural household decision-making model provides the conceptual and theoretical framework to examine the interaction between government subsidies and farmers' time allocation decisions. The relationship postulated is that 'decoupling' of agricultural support from production would probably result in a decline in the return to farm labour but it would also lead to an increase in household wealth. The effect of these factors on how farmers allocate their time is tested empirically using labour participation and labour supply models. The models developed are sufficiently general for application elsewhere. The main findings for the Irish situation are that the decoupling of direct payments is likely to increase the probability of farmers participating in the off-farm employment market and that the amount of time allocated to off-farm work will increase.

The rapid rise of supermarkets?

A series of articles, many of them published in this journal, have charted the rapid spread of supermarkets in developing and middle-income countries and forecast its continuation. In this article, the level of supermarket penetration (share of the retail food market) is modelled quantitatively on a cross-section of 42 countries for which data could be obtained, representing all stages of development. GDP per capita, income distribution, urbanisation, female labour force participation and openness to inward foreign investment are all significant explanators. Projections to 2015 suggest significant but not explosive further penetration; increased openness and GDP growth are the most significant factors.

Towards a feminization of agricultural labour in northwest Syria

Smallholdings in the rural areas of northwest Syria are a result of land fragmentation that is due to inheritance. Because of rapid population growth combined with land fragmentation, these smallholdings are increasing and cannot sustain the rural households whose sizes and needs are also increasing rapidly. This situation has led to increasing numbers of mates migrating to urban areas in Syria and to neighbouring countries looking for work opportunities. In addition, recent agricultural intensification trends seem to have led to the emergence of a waged labour force which, in the absence of male workers owing to significant rates of migration, is now predominantly female. Agricultural labour use depends upon household characteristics and resources (type of labour used, gender of labour waged/exchanged/familial). The article attempts to present a comprehensive analysis of household labour use in distinctive farming systems in one region of Syria that has undergone great change in recent decades, and examines the changes in the composition of the agricultural labour force. Secondary information, rapid rural appraisals and formal farm surveys were used to gather information on the households in a study area where different farming systems coexist. The results show that the decrease in landholding size, the resulting male migration, and land intensification have resulted in the expansion of female labour in agricultural production, which has been termed in this research a 'feminization of agricultural labour'. This suggests that agricultural research and extension services will have to work more with women farmers and farm workers, seek their wisdom and involve them in technology and tran, fer This is not easy in conservative societies but requires research and extension institutions to take this reality into consideration in their programmes.

Information communication technologies and distance education in Sri Lanka: a case study of two universities

Sri Lanka's participation rates in higher education are low and have risen only slightly in the last few decades; the number of places for higher education in the state university system only caters for around 3% of the university entrant age cohort. The literature reveals that the highly competitive global knowledge economy increasingly favours workers with high levels of education who are also lifelong learners. This lack of access to higher education for a sizable proportion of the labour force is identified as a severe impediment to Sri Lanka‟s competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. The literature also suggests that Information and Communication Technologies are increasingly relied upon in many contexts in order to deliver flexible learning, to cater especially for the needs of lifelong learners in today‟s higher educational landscape. The government of Sri Lanka invested heavily in ICTs for distance education during the period 2003-2009 in a bid to increase access to higher education; but there has been little research into the impact of this. To address this lack, this study investigated the impact of ICTs on distance education in Sri Lanka with respect to increasing access to higher education. In order to achieve this aim, the research focused on Sri Lanka‟s effort from three perspectives: policy perspective, implementation perspective and user perspective. A multiple case study research using an ethnographic approach was conducted to observe Orange Valley University‟s and Yellow Fields University‟s (pseudonymous) implementation of distance education programmes using questionnaires, qualitative interviewing and document analysis. In total, data for the analysis was collected from 129 questionnaires, 33 individual interviews and 2 group interviews. The research revealed that ICTs have indeed increased opportunities for higher education; but mainly for people of affluent families from the Western Province. Issues identified were categorized under the themes: quality assurance, location, language, digital literacies and access to resources. Recommendations were offered to tackle the identified issues in accordance with the study findings. The study also revealed the strong presence of a multifaceted digital divide in the country. In conclusion, this research has shown that iii although ICT-enabled distance education has the potential to increase access to higher education the present implementation of the system in Sri Lanka has been less than successful.

The impact of multiskilling on UK construction manpower

The overall significance of the construction and building services sector internationally cannot be overemphasised. In the UK, the industry currently accounts for 10% gross domestic product (GDP) and employs 2 million people, which is more than 1 in 14 of the total workforce. However, regardless of its output (approximately £65 billion annually) there has been a steady decline in the number of trade entrants into the construction and building services sector. Consequently, the available ‘pool of labour’ is inadequately resourced; productivity is low; the existing labour force is overstressed; there is an increase in site deaths; and a long-term labour shortage is envisaged. Today, the evidence seems to suggest that multiskilling is a tentative redress for ameliorating the skills crisis in the construction and building sectors. A 43-year time-series of data on 23 manpower attributes was evaluated as part of this investigation. The developed linear regression models show that the concept of multiskilling obeys the ‘law of diminishing returns'. That is, a weak relation was found between construction output and a three or more combination of manpower attributes. An optimisation model is prescribed for traditional trades.

Ideological dominance in recreation provision: towards a theory of Local Authority response to Compulsory Competitive Tendering in Britain

This paper considers how the delivery of public leisure services in Britain has been affected by the imposition of Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) on the management of facilities. In particular, it focuses on the changing relationship between the central and local levels of government, theorising a tripartite local response to CCT, incorporating local statism, post-Fordist rejection of CCT and post- Fordist compliance with the aims of the central administration. The paper then discusses the actual implementation of CCT, relating the theorised responses to those witnessed in practice. This results in the delineation of a continuum of stances, ranging from pragmatic forms of local statism, such as the protection of the former direct labour force, to centrist attempts to combine the ethics of socialism with the mechanics of the market, to an outright rejection of state organisation and control. The paper concludes that although legitimate attempts have been made to protect local services, the outcome of the CCT process has undoubtedly been the regeneration of public leisure provision away from its service roots towards a market model of provision.

Nepotism and turnover intentions amongst knowledge workers in Saudi Arabia

This chapter discusses how international assignment was used as tool to expand knowledge within the organisation using the example of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, we focus in particularly on the case of repatriation and problems with subsequent staff turnover, among repatriates in Saudi Arabia’s private sector. Before doing so, the chapter provides a background to the Saudi labour market and the impact of Saudization policies that aimed to reduce relying on foreign labour. Following this, the chapter discusses the Saudi government attempt create a national knowledgeable labour force through international assignment. Finally, using the example of an organisation in Saudi Arabia, this chapter illustrates the possible role of Wasta - a prevalent form of nepotism that permeates organizational life in Saudi Arabia - in repatriates managers turnover intention. Our focus is on unravelling the impact of Wasta on HRM practices with a particular focus on the management of the repatriation process of Saudi employees upon their completion of international assignments.

British working-class household composition, labour supply, and commercial leisure participation during the 1930s

The early twentieth century constituted the heyday of the ‘breadwinner–homemaker’ household, characterized by a high degree of intra-household functional specialization between paid and domestic work according to age, gender, and marital status. This article examines the links between formal workforce participation and access to resources for individualized discretionary spending in British working-class households during the late 1930s, via an analysis of household leisure expenditures. Leisure spending is particularly salient to intra-household resource allocation, as it constitutes one of the most highly prioritized areas of individualized expenditure, especially for young, single people. Using a database compiled from surviving returns to the Ministry of Labour's national 1937/8 working-class expenditure survey, we examine leisure participation rates for over 600 households, using a detailed set of commercial leisure activities together with other relevant variables. We find that the employment status of family members other than the male breadwinner was a key factor influencing their access to commercial leisure. Our analysis thus supports the view that the breadwinner–homemaker household was characterized by strong power imbalances that concentrated resources—especially for individualized expenditures—in the hands of those family members who engaged in paid labour.

Suck the living labour

The project, commissioned by Ort, Birmingham, explores geriatric vampirism. Austerity measures have indebted the young and the old through the privatisation of education and health. These age groups have been thrown into a relationship of mutual dependency and conflicting interests. As well as a new film, the exhibition featured six videos that have been outsourced using the services of sellers on the website Fiverr, ‘a place for people to share things they're willing to do for $5’. Interrogating the means of production and the meaning of work under post-Fordism, the Suck the Living Labour extends Marx’s metaphor, comparing Capital to a vampiric force that thirsts for infinite surplus.

Gender and the business cycle: an analysis of labour markets in the US and UK

Starting from an improved understanding of the relationship between gender labour market stocks and the business cycle, we analyse the contributing role of flows in the US and UK. Focusing on the post 2008 recession period, the subsequent greater rise in male unemployment can mostly be explained by a less cyclical response of flows between employment and unemployment for women, especially the entry into unemployment. Across gender and country, the inactivity rate is generally not sensitive to the state of the economy. However, a flows based analysis reveals a greater importance of the participation margin over the cycle. Changes in the rates of flow between unemployment and inactivity can each account for around 0.8-1.1 percentage points of the rise in US male and female unemployment rates during the latest downturn. For the UK, although the participation flow to unemployment similarly contributed to the increase of the female unemployment rate, this was not the case for men. The countercyclical flow rate from inactivity to employment was also more significant for women, especially in the US, where it accounted for approximately all of the fall in employment, compared with only 40% for men.