Women and Self-employment in Post-socialist Rural China: Side Job, Individual Career or Family Venture

2015 ◽  
Vol 221 ◽  
pp. 229-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Song
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Younger Women ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Good Mother ◽  
Wage Employment ◽  
Rural Industries ◽  
Capital Intensive ◽  
Depth Interviews

AbstractThe rise of private sector business in urban China has led to more women engaging in low-end self-employment. This study, however, reveals a more complicated story in the countryside. Drawing on in-depth interviews conducted in a Chinese village, this study finds that the women took the lead in developing sideline self-employment and were then attracted to rural wage employment in the 1980s. With the privatization of rural industries and the rise of capital-intensive self-employment in the 1990s, some women were forced into low-end self-employment, but others were attracted to high-end self-employment, forging individual careers and family ventures. In more recent times, younger women have been more inclined to work on-and-off, balancing self-employment pursuits with the desire to be a good mother. This pattern marks a shift from the continuous multitasking practised by the older generation.

Gender Differences in Earnings Rewards to Personality Traits in Wage-employment and Self-employment Labour Markets

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-228
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Mohammed ◽  
Priscilla Twumasi Baffour ◽  
Wassiuw Abdul Rahaman
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Human Capital ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Big Five ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Big Five Personality Traits ◽  
Big Five Personality ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Wage Employment ◽  
Wage Equations

In an extensive review of wage determination papers, it is concluded that the standard demographic and human capital factors explain little of earning differentials. Consequently, there is a growing interest among economists to include non-cognitive skills measured by personality traits in recent empirical literature to explain variations in earnings. In a bid to contribute empirical evidence to this strand of literature, this study examines the associations between the Big-Five personality traits (i.e., agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, extraversion and neuroticism) and earnings, using the World Bank’s Skills towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) data on Ghana. The study employed regression techniques to estimate a series of semi-logarithmic wage equations that include demographic and human capital factors and the Big-Five personality traits to determine how important these factors are in explaining wage and self-employment earnings. Furthermore, the estimations of the wage equations are done separately for males and females to highlight any gender differences in the way personality traits contribute to earnings. Findings are largely consistent with the literature but uniquely demonstrate that in a power-distant culture like Ghana, where, traditionally, girl-child education has been relegated to the background, agreeable females, and not males, are rewarded in the formal wage employment labour market. However, in the informal self-employment labour market, conscientious males, and not females, are positively rewarded with higher earnings. These unique findings contribute to our understanding of the gender differences in the relative importance of non-cognitive skills in the formal and informal labour markets. JEL Codes: J31, J24

Two facets of returnees’ entrepreneurship in Romania: Juxtaposing business owners and self-employed return migrants within a multi-method research framework

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-194
Author(s):  
Alin Croitoru
Keyword(s):  
Return Migration ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
European Migration

This paper contributes to the growing literature on the diversity of return migration by analysing the different types of small-scale entrepreneurship among returnees. Data from an original survey conducted among Romanian returnees and in-depth interviews with returnees in entrepreneurship are combined to reveal distinct profiles of returnee entrepreneurs and to illustrate their specific ways of thinking about entrepreneurship and migration. Currently, Romania is one of the most fertile settings to research intra-European return migration due to its important flows of temporary international migrants. The paper highlights that there are major differences between business owners and self-employed returnees in terms of entrepreneurship. Returnees who are business owners are those who benefited significantly more from migration than non-entrepreneur returnees—in terms of economic savings, human capital accumulation, and enhancement of their stocks of social capital; while returnees in self-employment reveal no significant differences for these migration outcomes compared to non-entrepreneur returnees. The distinction between the two groups of entrepreneurs has certain implications for origin states’ policies oriented towards stimulating return migration through programmes oriented towards returnees’ entrepreneurship. Keywords: Return Migration; Intra-European Migration; Entrepreneurship; Self-Employment; Multi-Method Social Research. „„„„ Articolul contribuie la literatura dedicată diversității migrației de revenire prin analiza unor tipuri diferite de antreprenoriat în rândul migranților reîntorși în țara de origine. Pentru a documenta profilurile specifice ale migranților care sunt antreprenori după revenire, sunt combinate date culese printr-un sondaj cu migranți reveniți în România și interviuri de profunzime cu migranți care au statutul de antreprenori după revenirea din străinătate. În prezent, România reprezintă unul dintre contextele excelente pentru cercetarea migrației de revenire datorită fluxurilor importante de migranți temporari internaționali. Lucrarea subliniază o serie de diferențe majore între migranții reveniți care au deschis mici afaceri și cei care lucrează pe cont propriu (de exemplu, sub formă de persoană fizică autorizată). Pe de o parte, migranții reveniți care dețin mici afaceri sunt cei care au beneficiat semnificativ mai mult din experiența de migrație comparativ cu reveniții non-antreprenori, în termeni de bani economisiți din migrație, acumulare de capital uman în străinătate și reconfigurarea capitalului social. Pe de altă parte, compararea profilurilor celor care lucrează pe cont propriu cu non-antreprenorii nu arată diferențe semnificative între cele două categorii în termeni de resurse acumulate prin experiența de migrație. Distincția dintre cele două tipuri de antreprenori poate avea implicații pentru politicile statelor de origine orientate către stimularea migrației de revenire prin programe centrate spre antreprenoriatul migranților reveniți. Cuvinte-cheie: migrație de revenire; migrație intra-europeană; antreprenoriat; angajare pe cont propriu; cercetare multi-metodă.

scholarly journals Development and Local Contextualization of Mobile Health Messages for Enhancing Disease Management Among Community-Dwelling Stroke Patients in Rural China: Multimethod Study

10.2196/15758 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. e15758
Author(s):  
Enying Gong ◽  
Wanbing Gu ◽  
Erdan Luo ◽  
Liwei Tan ◽  
Julian Donovan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Secondary Prevention ◽  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Text Messages ◽  
Community Dwelling ◽  
Self Management ◽  
Stroke Patients ◽  
Dispatching Algorithm ◽  
Depth Interviews

Background Rural China has experienced an increasing health burden because of stroke. Stroke patients in rural communities have relatively poor awareness of and adherence to evidence-based secondary prevention and self-management of stroke. Mobile technology represents an innovative way to influence patient behaviors and improve their self-management. Objective This study is part of the System-Integrated Technology-Enabled Model of Care (the SINEMA trial) to improve the health of stroke patients in resource-poor settings in China. This study aimed to develop and pilot-test a mobile phone message–based package, as a component of the SINEMA intervention. Methods The SINEMA trial was conducted in Nanhe County, Hebei Province, China. A total of 4 villages were selected for pretrial contextual research and pilot study. The 5 stages for developing the mobile phone messages were as follows: (1) conducting literature review on existing message banks and analyzing the characteristics of these banks; (2) interviewing stroke patients and caregivers to identify their needs; (3) drafting message contents and designing dispatching algorithms for a 3-month pilot testing; (4) collecting feedback from pilot participants through questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews on facilitators and barriers related to their acceptance and understanding of messages; and (5) finalizing the message-based intervention based on participants’ feedback for the SINEMA trial. Results On the basis of 5 existing message banks screened out of 120 papers and patients’ needs identified from 32 in-depth interviews among stroke patients and caregivers, we developed a message bank containing 224 messages for a pilot study among 54 community-dwelling stroke patients from 4 villages. Of 54 participants, 51 (response rate: 94.4%) completed the feedback survey after receiving daily messages for 3 months. Participants’ mean age was 68 years (SD 9.2), and about half had never been to school. We observed a higher proportion of participants who were in favor of voice messages (23/42, 54%) than text messages (14/40, 35%). Among participants who received voice messages (n=43) and text messages (n=40), 41 and 30, respectively, self-reported a full or partial understanding of the contents, and 39 (39/43, 91%) and 32 (32/40, 80%), respectively, rated the messages as helpful. Analyses of the 32 interviews further revealed that voice messages containing simple and single-theme content, in plain language, with a repeated structure, a slow playback speed, and recorded in local dialect, were preferred by rural stroke patients. In addition, the dispatching algorithm and tools may also influence the acceptance of message-based interventions. Conclusions By applying multiple methodologies and conducting a pilot study, we designed and fine-tuned a voice message–based intervention package for promoting secondary prevention among community-dwelling stroke patients in rural China. Design of the content and dispatching algorithm should engage both experts and end users and adequately consider the needs and preferences of recipients.

Self-employment and earning inequality

2007 ◽  
pp. 106
Author(s):  
Jean-Marc Falter
Keyword(s):  
Work Experience ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Employment Sector ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Wage Employment ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Income Dispersion ◽  
Two Sectors ◽  
Earning Inequality

The present study attempts to explain the difference in observed earning inequality between self-employment and wage-employment in Switzerland in 1992, 1995 and 2000. We use several measures of inequality in order both to determine the factors affecting income dispersion in the two groups and to identify the variables that drive the earning inequality differential. Thus, we make use of discrete decomposition techniques and of a regression-based method. The latter allows us to introduce a selection term in our decompositions which is of crucial importance in the case of self-employment. Our results indicate that education- and age-related variables, like work experience and tenure, are the most important factors explaining the inequality level in both groups. The importance of these factors seems, however, to be larger in the wage-employment sector. The reason may lie in the process of selection into selfemployment rather than in the differences in the returns to characteristics between the two sectors.

The ‘grey area’ of employment relations in the Polish videogame industry

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna M Ozimek
Keyword(s):  
Civil Law ◽  
Employment Relations ◽  
Economic Risk ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Grey Area ◽  
Regulatory Systems ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Videogame Industry ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Code Provisions

This article discusses fraudulent contracting of work in the Polish videogame industry by addressing its relation to workers’ understanding of their insecure employment and the economic risk associated with it. Fraudulent contracting of work is understood as misuse of civil law contracts/self-employment to disguise different types of employment relations. The article draws upon in-depth interviews with Polish videogame workers and key sector organisations to examine their understanding of the prevalence of employment relations not covered by the labour code in the videogame industry. The interviewees presented polarised opinions about engagement with civil law contracts ranging from celebratory approaches to their flexibility to discussing their use by companies in order to circumvent the labour code provisions. This article argues that the understanding of work precarisation needs to be further investigated in relation to national regulatory systems and workers’ understanding of their own employment arrangements.

scholarly journals Rising Mortality Rate of Cervical Cancer in Younger Women in Urban China

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 593-593
Author(s):  
Tong Chen ◽  
Min Wei ◽  
Yu Liu ◽  
Hong Wang ◽  
Wei Zhou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cervical Cancer ◽  
Mortality Rate ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Younger Women

Returns to military service in off-farm wage employment: Evidence from rural China

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 101361
Author(s):  
Benyufang Hou ◽  
Hong Liu ◽  
Sophie Xuefei Wang
Keyword(s):  
Military Service ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Wage Employment

Shaping Identity: Older Adults’ Perceived Community Volunteering Experiences in Shanghai

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 1259-1275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Chen ◽  
Minzhi Ye ◽  
Yilin Wu
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Role Identity ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Sampling Strategies ◽  
Sociocultural Context ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Identity Continuity ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Practice Development

This study explores elderly volunteers’ identity during their experiences volunteering in the community in Shanghai. Purposive and snowball sampling strategies were used to recruit elderly volunteers to participate in semi-structured, in-depth interviews ( N = 40). Participants developed new identities during volunteering. Through volunteering, they also continued to sustain their professional identities and Chinese Communist Party identities. Volunteering had both positive and negative implications for participants’ identities. Our findings suggest that volunteering strengthened participants’ role identity and social identity to better adapt to life after retirement. Volunteering also helped participants achieve identity continuity. This study offers nuanced sociocultural context to current elderly volunteering research and informs tailored policy and practice development in urban China.

scholarly journals Enhancing English Proficiency and Communication Skills Among Malaysian Graduates through Training and Coaching

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Seetha Nesaratnam ◽  
Wan Hisham Wan Salleh ◽  
Yi Von Foo ◽  
Wan Mahmud Wan Syazwan Wan Hisham
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Communication Skills ◽  
Graduate Training ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Leadership Positions ◽  
Communication Competency ◽  
Enhance Efficiency ◽  
Efficiency And Productivity ◽  
Depth Interviews

Employability of graduates has become a matter of grave concern in Malaysia where the high unemployment rate of graduates is said to be a result of poor English communication skills. English communication plays an important role in an organisation and is said to enhance efficiency and productivity. English communication is therefore, a critical skill for graduates seeking employment, regardless of position or industry. The importance of English communication skills for graduates in the Malaysian private sector and recommendations for improvement initiatives were the focal points of this study. Data was collected from in-depth interviews with 10 employers in the private sector who are in leadership positions, who recruit and manage graduates. The interview transcripts were analysed using ATLAS.ti a Computer Assisted Qualitative Data AnalysiS (CAQDAS) and the findings of the study strongly indicate that employers in the private sector place high value on English communication competency. The results also revealed that mastery of this skill enhances employability of graduates and also creates opportunities for career advancement. The findings further point towards the importance of deeper collaboration between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and industry, graduate training and coaching.

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