Systems and Structures
Why Are So Few Africans at Work in Ireland? : Immigration Policy and Labour Market Disadvantage
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Philip O'connell
This paper explores why African immigrants have poor labour market outcomes in Ireland, with very low employment and exceptionally high unemployment rates. The analysis draws on the 2011 Census to examine outcomes for different groups of immigrants. Controlling for individual characteristics suggests that the labour market disadvantages suffered by Africans cannot be attributed to compositional differences: Africans in Ireland are a relatively well-educated group concentrated in the prime working-age groups. The paper investigates an alternative explanation that suggests that the African disadvantage may be due to the policy of excluding asylum seekers from the labour market. I create a novel measure of the risk of exposure to the Irish asylum system by expressing the number of asylum seekers in years prior to the 2011 Census as a proportion of the Irish-resident population from each country. This asylum risk variable is found to influence labour market outcomes, reducing employment and increasing unemployment chances. Moreover, its inclusion in the models also reduces the effects of African group membership. Even controlling for individual characteristics and risk of exposure to the asylum system, there remains a substantial residual African disadvantage in both employment and unemployment, which may be due to discriminatory practices by employers.
Labor and Employment Governance in a Federal Philippines: A Policy Delphi-Survey Study
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session John Emmanuel Villanueva
As federalism continues to gain significant traction under the current administration of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, this research strives to provide guidance for the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and other concerned policy/decision makers in delineating labor and employment governance within the context of a federal system of government for the Philippines—what areas belong to the federal government’s exclusive jurisdiction, what aspects fall within the sole dominion of the regional governments, and what areas require shared responsibilities between the two tiers. Banking on an exploratory, mixed-methods approach, preferences and views of ‘experts’/informed advocates from concerned stakeholder groups at the national level, as well as tripartite representatives at the regional level, were gathered and analyzed to provide an ideal governance set-up for the labor and employment sector in a ‘Federal Philippines’.
A More Perfect Union: Identifying the Relationship Between Political Efficacy and Voting Behavior in University Students in the US 2018 Midterm Election
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sarah Erickson, Emily Bourgeois
America has one of the lowest voter-turnout rates in the developed world (Pew Research, 2018). Voting behavior, which is already low, is then stratified across race, age, and socioeconomic status (Krogstadt et. al. 2017). The youngest portion of America’s electorate, late millennials and early post-millennials, have among the lowest voter turnout across age groups. To better understand this voting bloc, it is imperative to study their relationship to the political system. Moreover, it is important to understand whether a lack of millennial participation is the result of the individual or the result of a fundamentally flawed system. Therefore, the present study seeks to understand the relationship between internal political efficacy, (one’s internal confidence in their ability to participate in the system) external political efficacy, (one’s belief in the ability of their vote to affect the current system at hand), and voting behavior. We surveyed a sample of two hundred and fifty undergraduate students to examine these relationships. While there was a correlation found between high internal and external political efficacy and increased voting behavior, the average participant had a low external political efficacy score and a high internal political efficacy score. We found that the average participant has confidence in themselves to participate in the system but low confidence in the system itself. Ultimately, this study identified a fatal malady of the political system: an educated portion of the electorate with no true belief in the adaptability of its government.
