Estimating earnings returns to vocational qualifications using administrative data

In this paper we update the findings from Buscha and Urwin (2013), estimating separately the (i) earnings, (ii) employment probability and (iii) probability of being on active benefits, for those who achieve their highest learning aim whilst studying at an English Further Education Institution (FEI), relative to those who have the same highest learning aim, but do not achieve. Estimates are obtained using the 2002-2012 ILR-WPLS administrative dataset, and the findings provide a robust estimate of the value added from each qualification, when held as an individual’s highes

The Impact Of Skills And Training Interventions On The Unemployed: Phase II Report

This report is the latest in a series of studies that analyse the returns to FE learning using matched ILR-WPLS administrative data. A recent study in this series (Bibby et. al. 2014) uses the matched data to produce robust estimates of the labour market returns to achievement of learning aims whilst studying in English Further Education (FE), relative to those who have the same highest learning aim, but do not achieve. Whilst survey-based studies had suggested that some vocational qualifications (for instance, NVQ2) were associated with negligible, or even negative, earnings returns; Bibby et. al find that FE qualifications are associated with good labour market returns. The authors provide compelling evidence that the previous less favourable findings at Level 2 were a result of data limitations, rather than truly insignificant value added. This report investigates labour market returns for a specific subgroup within the wider populations that form the focus of study within this ongoing programme of research. We identify the returns to FE Learning for the unemployed in England. For this study it is essential to use an approach to estimation of value added that is appropriate for learning at Level 2 and below, as many of the interventions targeted at the unemployed are at this level

Education pathways to the labour market for 16-year-olds who struggle to achieve maths and English in General Certificate of Secondary Education

We examine the post age-16 educational pathways taken by the 44% of young people who do not gain “good” grades in English and Maths at age 16 years. We then assess the causal effects of attending General Further Education (GFE) colleges on education and labour market outcomes for this group. We use the Longitudinal Education Outcomes dataset, which comprises linked administrative education, employment and income records for the population of English school pupils aged 16 in 2011. To summarise complex post-16 education trajectories, we present Sankey charts stratified by indicators of disadvantage. We study the effects of attending GFE at age 17 on whether a pupil gains a Level 3 qualification by age 19, and their earnings and employment status at age 24. To estimate a causal impact, we use distance from home to the closest GFE college as an instrumental variable, controlling for a rich set of background characteristics. Our graphical results highlight the complexity of post-16 educational pathways and transitions, which are differentiated by disadvantage. Over 50% have GFE as their first post-16 destination. Results from instrumental variable analyses show a positive association between attending GFE and gaining a Level 3 qualification by age 19, among pupils who do not gain a “good” pass in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in either English and/or Maths. Restricting analyses to the bottom of the distribution – those who gain an E, F or G grade in both English and Maths - we do not detect an impact of GFE on qualifications at age 19. Among both subgroups, we do not detect any impact of attending GFE on earnings and employment at age 24 years. While the post-16 pathways taken by disadvantaged, lower-attaining pupils do increase qualification attainment for some, the value these have in the labour market appears limited. These results may indicate the importance of “soft-skills” and early employment experiences for this subgroup of lower-attainers

Climate change adaptation and cross-sectoral policy coherence in southern Africa

To be effective, climate change adaptation needs to be mainstreamed across multiple sectors and greater policy coherence is essential. Using the cases of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, this paper investigates the extent of coherence in national policies across the water and agriculture sectors and to climate change adaptation goals outlined in national development plans. A two-pronged qualitative approach is applied using Qualitative Document Analysis of relevant policies and plans, combined with expert interviews from non-government actors in each country. Findings show that sector policies have differing degrees of coherence on climate change adaptation, currently being strongest in Zambia and weakest in Tanzania. We also identify that sectoral policies remain more coherent in addressing immediate-term disaster management issues of floods and droughts rather than longer-term strategies for climate adaptation. Coherence between sector and climate policies and strategies is strongest when the latter has been more recently developed. However to date, this has largely been achieved by repackaging of existing sectoral policy statements into climate policies drafted by external consultants to meet international reporting needs and not by the establishment of new connections between national sectoral planning processes. For more effective mainstreaming of climate change adaptation, governments need to actively embrace longer-term cross-sectoral planning through cross-Ministerial structures, such as initiated through Zambia’s Interim Climate Change Secretariat, to foster greater policy coherence and integrated adaptation planning

From the Shell-shocked Soldier to the Nervous Child: Psychoanalysis in the Aftermath of the First World War

This article investigates the development of child analysis in Britain between the wars, as the anxious child succeeded the shell-shocked soldier as a focus of psychoanalytic enquiry. Historians of psychoanalysis tend to regard the Second World War as a key moment in the discovery of the ‘war within’ the child, but it was in the aftermath of the First War that the warring psyche of the child was observed and elaborated. The personal experience of war and its aftermath, and the attention given to regression in the treatment of war neuroses, encouraged Melanie Klein, Anna Freud and others to turn their attention to children. At the same time, however, the impact of the First World War as a traumatic event, with inter-generational consequences, remained largely unaccounted for within psychoanalysis as Klein and others focused on the child's riven internal world

Communication in the Gig Economy: Buying and Selling in Online Freelance Marketplaces

The proliferating gig economy relies on online freelance marketplaces, which support relatively anonymous interactions by text-based messages. Informational asymmetries thus arise that can lead to exchange uncertainties between buyers and freelancers. Conventional marketing thought recommends reducing such uncertainty. However, uncertainty reduction and uncertainty management theories indicate that buyers and freelancers might benefit more from balancing, rather than reducing, uncertainty, such as by strategically adhering to or deviating from common principles. With dyadic analyses of calls for bids and bids from a leading online freelance marketplace, this study reveals that buyers attract more bids from freelancers when they provide moderate degrees of task information and concreteness, avoid sharing personal information, and limit the affective intensity of their communication. Freelancers’ bid success and price premiums increase when they mimic the degree of task information and affective intensity exhibited by buyers. However, mimicking a lack of personal information and concreteness reduces freelancers’ success, so freelancers should always be more concrete and offer more personal information than buyers do. These contingent perspectives offer insights into buyer–seller communication in two-sided online marketplaces; they clarify that despite, or sometimes due to, communication uncertainty, both sides can achieve success in the online gig economy

A transcriptomic snapshot of early molecular communication between Pasteuria penetrans and Meloidogyne incognita

© The Author(s). 2018Background: Southern root-knot nematode Meloidogyne incognita (Kofoid and White, 1919), Chitwood, 1949 is a key pest of agricultural crops. Pasteuria penetrans is a hyperparasitic bacterium capable of suppressing the nematode reproduction, and represents a typical coevolved pathogen-hyperparasite system. Attachment of Pasteuria endospores to the cuticle of second-stage nematode juveniles is the first and pivotal step in the bacterial infection. RNA-Seq was used to understand the early transcriptional response of the root-knot nematode at 8 h post Pasteuria endospore attachment. Results: A total of 52,485 transcripts were assembled from the high quality (HQ) reads, out of which 582 transcripts were found differentially expressed in the Pasteuria endospore encumbered J2 s, of which 229 were up-regulated and 353 were down-regulated. Pasteuria infection caused a suppression of the protein synthesis machinery of the nematode. Several of the differentially expressed transcripts were putatively involved in nematode innate immunity, signaling, stress responses, endospore attachment process and post-attachment behavioral modification of the juveniles. The expression profiles of fifteen selected transcripts were validated to be true by the qRT PCR. RNAi based silencing of transcripts coding for fructose bisphosphate aldolase and glucosyl transferase caused a reduction in endospore attachment as compared to the controls, whereas, silencing of aspartic protease and ubiquitin coding transcripts resulted in higher incidence of endospore attachment on the nematode cuticle. Conclusions: Here we provide evidence of an early transcriptional response by the nematode upon infection by Pasteuria prior to root invasion. We found that adhesion of Pasteuria endospores to the cuticle induced a down-regulated protein response in the nematode. In addition, we show that fructose bisphosphate aldolase, glucosyl transferase, aspartic protease and ubiquitin coding transcripts are involved in modulating the endospore attachment on the nematode cuticle. Our results add new and significant information to the existing knowledge on early molecular interaction between M. incognita and P. penetrans.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

A “Soft” Approach to Analysing Mobile Financial Services Sociotechnical Systems

Advances in mobile computing have presented a huge opportunity to provide Mobile Financial Services (MFS) to half of the world’s population who currently do not have access to financial services. However, cybersecurity concerns in the mobile computing ecosystem have slowed down the adoption of MFS. The adoption of MFS is further hampered by the lack of a clear understanding of the interaction between the complex infrastructures and human factors that exist in the ecosystem for Mobile Financial Services Socio-Technical Systems (MFSSTS). This paper presents the work in progress of investigating the problem of MFSSTS. It discusses the preliminary results and understanding obtained from using Human Factor approaches to build and analyse the model for MFSSTS