关于失业现象的理论再分析

失业是市场经济中劳动力供求失衡的必然结果。失业是劳动力在供给与需求上总量的结构失衡。在社会主义市场经济中，失业不仅有其存在的必然性，而且有其积极作用。失业是促进企业内部管理不断改善的有效手段，同时也可以为劳动素质的全面提高提供动力。     

武汉市失业人口与失业率特征

利用第五次人口普查中武汉市中心城区5‰的长表随机抽样数据,对2000年武汉市的失业人口和失业率进行分析,武汉市失业人口与失业率的主要特征为:失业男性总数大于女性,但失业率小于女性;失业率高峰年龄为15～24岁年龄组;国有企业集中地区和经济发展水平较低地区失业率较高;失业人口的生活主要依靠家庭其他成员。     

解析大学生就业问题

近年来,高校毕业生就业问题日益凸显。大学生就业难真是扩招导致的吗?要回答这个问题,本文运用劳动经济学的失业和职业搜寻理论对该现象进行解释,并通过对大学生就业市场的分析和国际经验比较,认为我国目前的大学生就业难问题有其制度性、社会性和历史性的因素,大学生“过剩”也只是一种假饱和现象,并提出了相应的对策建议。     

How Long Is a Spell of Unemployment? Illusions and Biases in the Use of CPS Data

Most data used to study the durations of unemployment spells come from the Current Population Survey (CPS), which is a point-in-time survey and gives an incomplete picture of the underlying duration distribution. We introduce a new sample of completed unemployment spells obtained from panel data and apply CPS sampling and reporting techniques to replicate the type of data used by other researchers. Predicted duration distributions derived from this CPS-like data are then compared to the actual distribution. We conclude that the best inferences that can be made about unemployment durations by using CPS-like data are seriously biased.     

Deciphering Deservedness: Canadian Employment Insurance Reforms in Historical Perspective

In 2012, the Government of Canada introduced reforms to Employment Insurance (EI), Canada's primary income security programme for the unemployed. The changes entailed new requirements for particular types of claimants to apply for and accept jobs of increasingly less pay, and codified the efforts claimants must demonstrate in job searches to maintain benefits. These measures leave many claimants little choice but to accept precarious employment as a means of financial survival. The central claim of the article is that recent EI reforms are not adequately understood as an instance of neo‐liberal activation. Instead, they must be situated in a long history of attempts to categorize the unemployed as deserving or undeserving of income security on the basis of their work history and perceptions of their willingness to work. Through a survey of different periods of unemployment policy in Canada, we demonstrate continuity in authorities' efforts to differentiate the unemployed into categories of worthy and unworthy. Within this history, however, the 2012 reforms are unprecedented in the extent to which they reorient the EI programme to service low wage labour markets. By way of conclusion, we suggest that the current EI programme exacerbates insecurities for the growing segment of workers in precarious employment.     

Exploring the economic and social determinants of psychological well-being and perceived social support in England

Summary.  A fundamental focus of Government concern is to enhance well-being. Recently, policy makers in the UK and elsewhere have recognized the importance of the community and society to the well-being of the nation as a whole. We explore the extent to which economic and social factors influence the psychological well-being of individuals and their perceptions of the social support that they receive, using Health Survey for England data. We employ a random-effects ordered probit modelling approach and find that unobserved intrahousehold characteristics help to explain the variation in our dependent variables, particularly for co-resident females. Our results indicate that individuals with acute and chronic physical illness, who are female, unemployed or inactive in the labour market and who live in poor households or areas of multiple deprivation report lower levels of psychological well-being. Reduced perceptions of social support are associated with being male, single or post marriage, from an ethnic minority, having low educational attainment and living in a poor household, but are not statistically related to area deprivation measures. These findings may help to inform the contemporary policy debate surrounding the promotion of individual well-being and community, through the alleviation of social exclusion.     

Resources for coping with economic distress: The situation of unemployed Southeast Asian refugees

This paper focuses on identifying resources and demographic variables that might influence the amount of economic distress experienced by unemployed Southeast Asian refugees. Voydanoff conceptualized economic distress as containing objective (employment instability and economic deprivation) and subjective (employment uncertainty and economic strain) dimensions. As measured in this study, unemployed refugees are not experiencing extensive economic distress except in the area of employment uncertainty. Older subjects evidence higher economic distress except on the dimension of economic strain. Economic distress is relatively low among refugees who have access to financial sources and who have family to provide social support, but human capital variables (English fluency, educational level, and Canadian job training) are not significantly related to the level of economic distress. These findings emphasize the importance of family reunification programs.Data for this study were collected for the longitudinal research project, Settlement of Indochinese Refugees in Canada: Psychological, Social, Employment and Consumer Aspects, supported by grants from Canada Health and Welfare NHRDP, Secretary of State's Multiculturalism Directorate, United Way and Woodward Foundation of Vancouver. Principal investigators for the project are Morton Beiser, M.D., Psychiatry; Phyllis J. Johnson, Ph.D., Family and Nutritional Sciences; and Richard Nann, Ph.D., Social Work; all at the University of British Columbia.We thank our research assistants Pauline Au, Susan Johnston, Esther Kwong, and Bich Pham for their contributions to the research. Klaus Schroeder provided statistical assistance.Phyllis J. Johnson received her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. Her research interests include women and work, financial practices of different ethnic groups, and employment/unemployment. She may be contacted at the University of British Columbia, School of Family and Nutritional Sciences, 2205 East Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T1W5.     

A conceptual framework for the study of work and mental health

The key features which influence mental health both in jobs and unemployment are brought together within a single perspective. Three principal axes of affective well-being are identified as warranting investigation, and it is suggested that nine environmental features are of primary importance. The impact of these features on mental health is viewed as analogous to the influence of vitamins on physical health, with an explicit non-linearity in the relationship. This 'vitamin model' is extended to permit examination of individual differences (for example, in terms of baseline values and specific matching characteristics), and empirical evidence is summarized. It is concluded from previous research that job features do not interact synergistically in relation to employee well-being, although this possibility may not yet have been adequately tested. The framework is suggested to be adequately comprehensive, but, as is the case with other models, it requires development in respect of the specific mechanisms operating between environmental features and mental health.     

The Workfare Illusion: Re-examining the Concept and the British Case

This article contends that workfare programmes pursued by various OECD countries since the mid‐1990s do not amount to a fundamental change in policy. The limited potential of workfare is due to the fact that it fails to transcend the constraints of earlier forms of ‘active’ responses to unemployment. Furthermore, it suffers from specific policy‐making disadvantages not shared by these responses. The article opens with a survey of relevant academic debates on the subject. It then places workfare in a broader context by identifying its functional reach, as compared to other active policy responses to unemployment such as active labour market policy (ALMP). The third section analyses workfare policies in the United Kingdom, as developed since 1997, by re‐examining the British New Deal employment programme. That review demonstrates that workfare policies either depend on their ‘fit’ with the existing policy‐making heritage, or that they remain merely symbolic. The article concludes by suggesting that the potential of workfare to effect change in responses to unemployment continues to be of limited significance. In other words, capitalist employment and welfare systems continue to be characterized by incremental adaptation rather than by fundamental regime change as suggested by the critics of workfare.     

Feeling motivated yet? Long‐term unemployed people's perspectives on the implementation of workfare in Australia

A key thrust of labour market policy in Australia and many other western countries is that long‐term unemployed people lack the personal motivation to engage proactively and successfully in the search for paid employment. In this paper we argue that the implementation of what are experienced as paternal workfare programs are counter‐productive to achieving the official policy goal of improving self‐efficacy and gaining paid employment. The empirical discussion presented in the paper is based on a semi‐longitudinal study that tracked 75 long‐term unemployed people in three different labour markets in Australia between 2005–2007. The study was funded by the Australian Research Council and Jobs Australia.