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This paper outlines the main changes that have effected a transformation in the nature of academic work: on the one hand, the increasing diversification and specialisation of academic tasks, and on the other, new forms of control over academic work. An analysis of these trends leads to a discussion of the relationships between the evolution of academic work and non-academic work. (Contains 7 notes.)

The development of a uniquely Australian system of innovation and its relation to the vocational education and training (VET) system is considered in this discussion paper. It asserts that the Australian system of innovation fits the pattern of incremental innovation and diffusion of technical knowledge. It focuses on arrangements prior to the formation of the technical and further education system in the late 1970s. It concludes that the diffusion of knowledge and the development of a workforce capable of developing innovative local technical solutions has long been the domain of VET institutions in Australia. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.) [This report was published with funding provided through the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training. The author/project team was funded to undertake this research via a grant under the National Vocational Education and Training Research and Evaluation (NVETRE) Program.]

Data from the 1811 and 1851 census in England and Wales as well as other data from those countries in 1891 and 1921 were analyzed to investigate individuals' timing and extent of departure from the parental home. The authors found the following: (1) there was a gradual increase in the ages at which children left the parental home; (2) the pace of departure became more rapid over the entire period studied for males, although for females, the pace was increased in the twentieth century; (3) there was a decline in non-familial residence; and (4) there was a rise, especially in the twentieth century, in post-marriage co-residence with parents. The trends were attributed to a general decline in farm employment and domestic service (where employees had traditionally been given room and board) and the subsequent rise in urbanization and industrialization. The period from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century increasingly witnessed a divergence between the experience of leaving the parental home and entry into the labor market. The author suggested further research on the changing patterns of the timing of entry into the workplace. (Contains 17 tables and 73 references.) (AJ)

The 9 papers in this compilation on rural industrial development are titled as follows: (1) "U.S. Employment Shifts Through 1985" (gains, regional losses, relation to per capita income and economic activities, geographic concentration, and national basis of regional projections); (2) "Large Industry in a Rural Area: Demographic, Economic, and Social Impacts" (research findings and further needs, policy implications, and activity descriptions); (3) "Current Spatial Organization of Industrial Production and Distribution Activity" (national perspective, regional employment allocations, metro/nonmetro differentials, manufacturing activities, and alternatives); (4) "Rural Industrial Growth in the Southeast Since 1962" (economic outlook and pacesetting, patterns of nonmetro economic growth, and rural employment gains); (5) "Community Planning and Decisionmaking to Attract Industry" (current situation, choices, multiplier effects, taxes, jobs, community leadership and responsibility, and organizational roles); (6) "Industry's Viewpoint of Rural Areas: Corporate and Community Decisionmaking for Locating Industry" (representative statements); (7) "Problems in Rural Communities After Industry Arrives"; (8) "An Industrial Promotion Survey: A Guide for Your Rural Community's Development"; (9) "Rural Development Through Electronic Technology" (approaches, products, services, etc.). (JC)

Utilizing data derived from the U.S. Census, a 10 percent stratified sample of U.S. population from nonmetropolitan counties (276 counties) as of 1950 was examined in terms of 2 opposing hypotheses: (1) the higher the level of manufacturing activity, the higher the quality of the housing in rural areas; and (2) industry attracted to rural areas will have no significant impact upon the quality of housing in rural areas. Zero-order correlations were used to measure the associations among the following variables: (1) median education; (2) male; (3) female; (4) median family income; (5) median age; (6) proportion of civilian labor force in durable manufacturing; (7) proportion of civilian labor force in nondurable manufacturing; (8) quality of housing. T-tests were performed to determine which associations were significant. A multiple regression equation encompassing all of the variables was utilized to determine the total variance explained and the relative importance of each on the quality of housing. Separate correlations and regressions were used on the census data for the years 1950, 1960, and 1970. The hypothesis stating that industry would not significantly affect the quality of housing in rural areas was supported. (JC)

This paper, the introductory chapter to a forthcoming book ("Financing Recurrent Education"), discusses the political and economic dimensions of life-long learning (recurrent education) and suggests methods by which a recurrent education system might be constructed and financed. The decline in youthful labor force entrants and forecasted changes in technology and the labor force are producing a need for a system that provides opportunities for education and training throughout the life cycle of workers. The author presents nine different motives for advocating the expansion of recurrent education and points out that this very diversity of approaches and motives may be the greatest political obstacle to its adoption and implementation. A bibliography is included. (MD/MLF)

Although progress has been made in combatting the most visible and easily controlled forms of pollution (exhaust, industrial waste, sewage, etc.), other pollutants have been largely ignored. Pollutants which are uncontrolled and which are increasingly recognized as dangerous include carbon dioxide, toxic substances such as dioxin, mirex, lindane, mercuric oxide, lead and mercury, and nuclear wastes. Reasons for lack of success in removing these and other pollutants include the following: (1) pollution control efforts have gone into solving those problems which appeared most solvable, (2) more public expenditures have been aimed at correcting problems which have technical solutions, and (3) some important pollutants cannot be controlled by any known technologies. Analysis of data regarding pollutants indicates that uncontrolled pollution exacts real costs on health and property and that cost-effective investment in abatement equipment can yield measurable net benefits. The conclusion is that controlling pollutants will require fundamental changes in life-styles and common business practices. (Author/DB)

A study of a representative sample of 121 World Bank-funded vocational education and training components suggests that the level of economic development and consequent size and dynamism of industrial employment powerfully influence the outcome of such education and training. Consequently, future investment strategies should differ among countries that are at different levels of industrialization. Investments in middle-income countries should emphasize rehabilitation, quality improvement, and further development of institutional efficiency. In lower middle-income and larger lower-income countries, investments should support institutional development and policy issues, including separation of vocational education from other education and development of alternatives to direct government financing. In small low-income countries, resources should be concentrated in nonformal training centers, training quality, development of management capacity in training institutions, and aggressive marketing of training opportunities and services. These and other recommendations were based on the findings from analysis of questionnaire responses that provided quantitative data and narrative descriptive and evaluative data. (A 58-item bibliography and 30 tables appear in the report.) (CML)

The low fertility of Western industrial nations is likely to become a permanent condition; in the absence of immigration, populations with below-replacement fertility will eventually decline in size. But at the same time fertility is declining, international migration to the West is accelerating. Legal immigration to the United States rose from about 300,000 per year in the early 1960s to more than 570,000 per year in the early 1980s; the United States is now accepting nearly twice as many immigrants and refugees as all other nations combined. Immigration from Third World countries contributes to population growth in the following ways: (1) the addition of the immigrants themselves; and (2) immigrant fertility, which is often higher than native fertility. A stationary population, characterized by a fixed size and an unchanging age-sex structure, is forming in the United States; the indigenous population is diminishing, and a new population of immigrants and their descendants is emerging. This is evidenced by America's Hispanic population, which is growing three times faster than the total population. The potential for further change in the ethnic, racial, and linguistic balances of national populations is perhaps greater in Europe than in the United States. Concerns have been raised that immigrants are failing to adapt to the culture of their new home: increasingly immigrants are the focus of tension and the targets of abuse and violence. Recommendations for public policy are suggested. A list of references is included. (BJV)

At the end of the 1960s, the industrial park of Montes Claros, Brazil, was established. Until then the economy of the municipality had been based on cotton, beef cattle, and subsistence farming. The main obstacle to industrialization was the lack of a qualified local labor force. Trapped between the costs associated with workers recruited elsewhere and the deficiencies of workers recruited locally, firms in Montes Claros sought a number of alternatives. When the traditional training alternatives failed, a group of local business owners, the Commercial and Industrial Association, obtained contributions from 15 firms to establish the Educational Foundation of Montes Claros (FEMC). The school began by offering short courses in areas of urgent need. At the end of 1989, the Technical School, the core activity of the FEMC, enrolled 2,419 students in middle and secondary school, afternoon classes for adolescents, and night classes for students aged 14 to 40 who work during the day. The FEMC offers short courses, ranging in length from 4 to 120 class hours, and offers the direct sale of services. Income comes from student fees, scholarships, contributions of local firms, and sale of services. The effort represents a novel and successful approach to vocational school finance, in which costs are divided between employers and students, with only minimal contributions from public funds. (12 references) (YLB)

Industrial expansion remains essential for the development and structural transformation of most sub-Saharan African economies. The advantages of industrialization go beyond the provision of manufactured goods and the diversification of exports to the modernization of society. Growth rates in formal manufacturing tell little about the economic benefits and sustainability of the industrialization process in Africa. Industrial development is beset by a pattern of negative interaction among policy incentives, capabilities, and institutions that has held back growth and, in some cases, led to a vicious spiral of decline. The region has a rich supply of natural resources and primary export products, but only a tiny core of industrial skills. It has built up physical capacity too quickly for its capabilities, institutions, and infrastructures to cope. The industries that have been set up have been highly protected, tightly controlled, and, in many cases, run by incompetent public sector organizations. The stock of skills and technical knowledge needed to manage these industries has grown, but not rapidly enough to lead to substantial gains in efficiency. Each country can act in some fashion to improve conditions in policy incentives, capabilities, and institutions, including implementation of a policy of selective intervention, education and training to produce trained workers, stimulation of technological activity relevant to manufacturing industries, and building up of management capabilities. (Contains 35 references.) (YLB)

Technological change was unskilled-labor-biased during the early Industrial Revolution, but is skill-biased today. This is not embedded in extant unified growth models. We develop a model which can endogenously account for these facts, where factor bias reflects profit-maximizing decisions by innovators. Endowments dictate that the early Industrial Revolution be unskilled-labor-biased. Increasing basic knowledge causes a growth takeoff, an income-led demand for fewer educated children, and the transition to skill-biased technological change. The simulated model tracks British industrialization in the 18th and 19th centuries and generates a demographic transition without relying on either rising skill premia or exogenous educational supply shocks.

This workshop collection contains a paper which analyzes the actual and potential income and wealth sources of rural inhabitants, an appendix which discusses the effectiveness of current transfer payment programs in reaching the rural poor, and a reviewer's comments. The paper by Emery Castle and Mark Goldstein describes incomes of rural residents in terms of natural resource endowments, natural resource policies, and aggregate economic activity. Also discussed are necessary conditions for effective public policies, and research issues. Findings indicate that rural areas are inhabited mainly by nonfarmers and that the cost of living declines with the size of the community, that primary industries have provided a declining percentage of employment, that public policy results are mixed, and that the welfare of rural people is closely associated with aggregate economic activity. Goldstein's appendix indicates that many of the current transfer programs only account for the demographic differences between rural and urban poor excluding many rural residents and that any program reforms should account for those differences. Philip Raup's comments applaud the paper's breadth, but suggest a few areas which could be expanded upon, including the entry of rural America into the world market, the low rate of net social return from efforts at large-scale resource development, and others. (PM)

Four papers consider the growth of telecommunications in developing countries: (1) "Telecommunications Investment in Developing Countries and the Generation of Foreign Exchange: The Impact of Electronic Funds Transfer" (Heather E. Hudson and Lynn C. York); (2) "The Effect of Information Sector Growth on Telecommunications Development Policies: A Comparative Case Study of Ireland and South Korea" (Christopher Sullivan) (58 references); (3) "Trends in International Telecommunications Development in the Third World" (Joseph N. Pelton) (abstract only); and (4) "The Rural Communication Services Project" (John K. Mayo) (abstract only). (EW)

There is no present consensus regarding long-term consequences of rural industrialization on society. Since 1950, smaller rural communities in the South and Southwestern United States have gained in industrialization due to their generally low-wage non-union labor supply and lower tax structure, both attractive to industry seeking greater profits. The aggressive state and promotional leadership in the South along with federal, state, and local subsidies have proven that even very small communities can attract industry if they are eager to do so and prepared enough to deal positively with the mixed social and economic consequences. Positive economic results such as increased per capita income and more people escaping poverty are offset by more dubious social consequences including unimproved community services, psychological readjustments for workers, weakened horizontal community ties, and outside leadership. The solution to the question of a changing rural social structure lies not in unguided rural industrialization but in a purposive set of policy alternatives based on community values and goals, and in locally-designed means of achieving those goals (including the creation of new capital structures to keep capital working and multiplying at the local level). (SB)

Demographic and economic conditions in the Caribbean region combine with social and historical factors to create a structural migration situation: direction and magnitude of the flow might shift, pressures pushing Caribbean Islanders toward migration are constant. Five structural "pull" features encourage migration: (2) the self-contained geographical space of the Caribbean; (2) the tendency of movement to the United States to be preceded by earlier moves, very often to sites of American-financed or managed job opportunities; (3) successful assimilation of Caribbeans into United States society; (4) the continuing role in international relations of ethnicity; and (5) Federal immigration law and national sentiment that support the principle of family reunification. Structural"push" factors, such as overpopulation, land hunger and land scarcity, also encourages migration. Caribbean nations' own efforts to industrialize and regulate migration (such as those made in Trinidad and Haiti) have not managed to solve the problems created by the large-scale migration of poor and unskilled workers, and the emigration to the United States of professionals and skilled workers. While measures such as the Caribbean Basin Initiative cannot cure the pressures of migration, they can help to alleviate internal economic problems and, therefore, they should be supported. Given the overall level of concern among all Caribbean governments, however, it appears that a Caribbean-wide approach to migration is overdue. (KH)