"Getting Paid"

Author: Mercer L. Sullivan

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-05-31

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1501717693

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The working class in New York City was remade in the mid-nineteenth century. In the 1820s a substantial majority of city artisans were native-born; by the 1850s three-quarters of the city's laboring men and women were immigrants. How did the influx of this large group of young adults affect the city's working class? What determined the texture of working-class life during the antebellum period? Richard Stott addresses these questions as he explores the social and economic dimensions of working-class culture. Working-class culture, Stott maintains, is grounded in the material environment, and when work, population, consumption, and the uses of urban space change as rapidly as they did in the mid-nineteenth century, culture will be transformed. Using workers' first-person accounts—letters, diaries, and reminiscences—as evidence, and focusing on such diverse topics as neighborhoods, diet, saloons, and dialect, he traces the rise of a new, youth-oriented working-class culture. By illuminating the everyday experiences of city workers, he shows that the culture emerging in the 1850s was a culture clearly different from that of native-born artisans of an earlier period and from that of the middle class as well.

Social Capital
Social Capital

Author: Nan Lin

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2008-03-06

Total Pages: 496

ISBN-13: 0191528544

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

For two decades, a significant number of scholars have subscribed to a common definition of social capital (resources embedded in social networks), employed a standard measurement (the position generator methodology), and conducted original research. Their sustained efforts have demonstrated the power of the concept of social capital in diverse arenas of research and varied cultural and societal settings. Their work has contributed to the substantiation, development, and expansion of social capital as a key scientific concept and theory. This book presents an introduction to some of the most recent work in the area. The volume editors have brought together scholars in North America, Europe, and East Asia to offer original and accessible reports of their own research studies. Covering both methodological and substantive issues, they demonstrate the continued importance of social capital as a guiding concept and theory in social sciences today.

Jobs For Development
Jobs For Development

Author: Gordon Betcherman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-10-06

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 0191070947

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book is a sequel to the World Bank's World Development Report 2013: Jobs. The central message of that report was that job creation is at the heart of development. Jobs raise living standards and lift people out of poverty, they contribute to gains in aggregate productivity, and they may even foster social cohesion. In doing so, jobs may have spillovers beyond the private returns they offer to those who hold them. Poverty reduction is arguably a public good, making everybody better off; higher productivity spreads across co-workers, clusters, and cities; and social cohesion improves the outcomes of collective decision-making. But which jobs make the greatest contribution to development and what policies can facilitate the creation of more of these jobs? There is no universal answer - it depends on the country's level of development, demography, natural endowments, and institutions. This volume explores the diversity of jobs challenges and solutions through case studies of seven developing countries. These countries, drawn from four continents, represent seven different contexts - a small island nation (St. Lucia), a resource-rich country (Papua New Guinea), agrarian (Mozambique), urbanizing (Bangladesh), and formalizing (Mexico) economies, as well as young (Tunisia) and aging (Ukraine) populations. Using methods drawn from several branches of economics and the social sciences more broadly and analyzing a wide range of data, the authors show the different ways in which jobs have contributed to social and economic development in the countries they have studied and how they can contribute in the future. The policy priorities vary accordingly. They often extend well beyond traditional labor market instruments to include policy areas not typically considered in national growth strategies.