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Background: Early Childhood Caries (ECC) is a prevalent chronic non-communicable disease that affects millions of young children globally, with profound implications for their well-being and oral health. This paper explores the associations between ECC and the targets of the Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG 8). Methods: The scoping review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. In July 2023, a search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus using tailored search terms related to economic growth, decent work sustained economic growth, higher levels of productivity and technological innovation, entrepreneurship, job creation, and efforts to eradicate forced labor, slavery, and human trafficking and ECC all of which are the targets of the SDG8. Only English language publications, and publications that were analytical in design were included. Studies that solely examined ECC prevalence without reference to SDG8 goals were excluded. Results: The initial search yielded 761 articles. After removing duplicates and ineligible manuscripts, 84 were screened. However, none of the identified studies provided data on the association between decent work, economic growth-related factors, and ECC. Conclusions: This scoping review found no English publication on the associations between SDG8 and ECC despite the plausibility for this link. This data gap can hinder policymaking and resource allocation for oral health programs. Further research should explore the complex relationship between economic growth, decent work and ECC to provide additional evidence for better policy formulation and ECC control globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates international differences in wage inequality and skills and whether a compressed wage distribution is associated with high unemployment across core OECD countries. Wage dispersion and wage structure are widely debated among policymakers; compressed wage structure is often perceived as an important cause of high unemployment. Firstly, this paper examines differences in wage dispersion across OECD countries and their link to skill dispersion. Some countries that have more compressed (dispersed) wage structures simultaneously have more compressed (dispersed) skill structures as well, and skill differences explain part of the differences in wage dispersion. However, even when accounted for skills, some countries have a more compressed wage structure, most likely caused by labor market institutions. We do not find an effect of wage compression on the labor market performance in the low-skill sector. Based on the Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) survey of adult skills for core OECD countries, this paper cannot confirm the skill compression nor wage compression hypotheses. Rather than insisting on the deregulation of labor market institutions and reductions in public welfare policy as the main policy recommendations to achieve higher employment (and higher wage inequality), policymakers should reconsider aggregate demand deficiency and the variation in macroeconomic policies as potential explanations for the employment differences across countries. JEL Classification: J31, J24, E24 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is no doubt that thinking about inequality plays a part in the judgments and actions of politicians, sociologists, economists and ordinary people, too. This paper examines which factors substantially influenced regional employment. Labour market, employment and unemployment have been the subject of various researches and the labour market object has been subject of dispute. Employment and unemployment are both decomposed and analyzed through separate components (such as: full employment, effective employment, atypical employment, precarious employment, regional/local employment etc., respectively, total unemployment, partial or hidden unemployment, technical and structural one and so on). The specific literature about the regional inequalities considered the income per capita as the most relevant indicator measured by Gini coefficient. Gini index measures the extent to which the distribution of income or consumption expenditure among individuals or households within an economy deviates from a perfectly equal distribution. At regional level we studied several indicators that generate regional disparities, and influence employment quality such us: employment rate, tertiary and medium employment, unemployment rate, occupied population in informal sector, employment in primary sector, rural employment, female employment. We developed a scoring based on the deviation from the average of a group of key indicators and devised a map of employment quality resulting from multi-criteria analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labor market ‘flexibilization’ or ‘deregulation’ is seen by many as a requirement for economic and occupational growth. As one route towards more flexibility, many European countries increased the so-called atypical or non-standard forms of employment while leaving the regulation of existing employment relations largely unchanged. In Italy, this led to a strong segmentation of the labour market. As employment is the only connection to a series of welfare entitlements, this praxis might lead to strong cleavages in the society. In this paper, we investigate the ongoing process of labour market ‘flexibilization’ and its consequences for individual labour market careers and social inequalities and ask whether the deregulation has fulfilled the expectations attached to it. In detail, we study the entries into the marginal labour market and the consequences for employment careers of these forms of ‘new’ flexible employment. Empirical findings based on Indagine Longitudinale sulle Famiglie Italiane data cast doubts on the effectiveness of the specific form of market deregulation in Italy and confirm strong long-term implications of atypical employment episodes for career chances. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Copyright of Empresa y Humanismo is the property of Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Navarra, S.A. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the contribution of work factors, health, and work ability to social inequalities in early exit from employment among older employees in Germany. Methods Longitudinal data from the representative German lidA Cohort study was linked with employment register data to obtain maximum information on exit routes out of paid employment. Information of N=2438 respondents, aged 46 and 52 at baseline, were obtained for a follow-up of six years (2011–2017). Causal mediation analysis with inverse odds weighting was conducted using discrete-time survival outcomes and baseline measurements of the socioeconomic status (SES: education), work factors, health, and work ability. Results Older employees with low SES were at an increased risk of exiting employment early by receiving disability pension and through long-term unemployment but not through an unspecified labor market exit when compared to those with high and moderate SES. Low work ability accounted for up to 38% of the social inequalities in work exits into disability pension. Less-than-good physical health accounted for up to 59% of inequalities in work exits into long-term unemployment. Work factors contributed considerably to inequalities in exits through unemployment but not disability pension. Conclusions This study finds social inequalities in early exits through disability pension and long-term unemployment among older employees in Germany, predominantly attributable to differences in work ability (disability pension) and physical health (unemployment). Investments in work ability and promotion of physical health may constitute promising approaches to counteract an increase of these inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article aims to map formal adult education in terms of the determinants of educational upgrading later in life, relating these back to social inequalities from a comparative perspective, and to labour market outcomes following participation, particularly the probability of being employed. It relies on a longitudinal analysis of data from the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden and Russia. Results show that educational upgrading at mature ages has the potential for reducing social inequalities in all the countries analysed. Upgraders tend to come from a medium to low education background in Russia and the UK but from the tertiary educated in Spain and Sweden. Labour market marginalisation increases the chance of upgrading particularly in Sweden. Upgrading tends to increase employment opportunities, though these are in some cases conditional on being employed whilst studying. This is specifically the case for Russia and for men in the UK. We also found important country-specific gender diferences in the efect of upgrading on employment opportunities, according to which women beneit more than men in the UK and Sweden. We conclude with some suggestions about the institutional efects that produce diferences between countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proclaimed gender equality and legal regulation in the area of labour market have yet to yield satisfactory results for unemployed women. During job interviews, women are subjected to some forms of discrimination that should have been put behind us, both according to the legal system in force and according to the social practice of the EU. However, it seems that this is not the case, at least according to the results of the 2007 research on the sample of unemployed women in Croatia. These results show that the practice of gender discrimination of women during hiring and later employment persists, thus hindering many unemployed women the possibility of a truly equal access to employment, and without resolving their already threatened existential conditions. The paper presents some of the research results that show certain elements of gender discrimination at the labour market in Croatia, analysing some important issues of gender equality and equal employment opportunities of unemployed women in Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between racial equity in labor market processes and racial equality in future labor market rewards. In particular, a regression standardization procedure is used to project the degree of racial inequality in earnings that would exist among men at various future points in time based on three different sets of assumptions about attainment processes in labor market and educational institutions. The most important results suggest that even if racial discrimination were eliminated immediately in labor market and educational institutions, it would take almost 50 years for the black-white earnings ratio to reach .95. This incompatibility between equity and equality needs to be considered more explicitly both by those who advocate a color-blind labor market and those who advocate preferential treatment for blacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developments in the youth labour market are regularly framed as successful by the UK Government who argue that young people have a growing and vibrant jobs market. Sociological discourse has tended to focus on the growth in precarious work and the substantial decrease in the availability of employment for young people. Far less attention has been paid to the parallel issue of whether these changes are associated with shifts in occupational level. Yet occupational position remains one of the most powerful general indicators of life chances, social and material reward and status available. To examine how the occupational position of young people in the UK may have altered, this article focusses on two periods either side of the Great Recession (2005-7 and 2015-17). We find there has been a reduction in regional inequality in the level of jobs young men and women are doing. For young men, there has been a disproportionate loss of less advantaged occupations, raising the average occupational position in a number of regions. For women, the opposite trend has occurred; there has been a disproportionate loss of more advantaged occupations, leading to a general drop in the average advantage level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal for Labour Market Research is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The present study seeks to find out how gender, age, area of living, parent background in terms of educational level and occupation determine the probability of youth to be out of the labour market in six Sub-Saharan Africa countries. We utilize data from the school-to-work transition surveys from 2014 and 2015 from the ILO. For each country, we first calculate a revised version of the Human Opportunity Index developed by the World Bank. Second, we compute the contribution of each factor to that index. The results show that dissimilarity has a marked influence in Madagascar and to some extent Malawi and Uganda, while the major challenges with getting the youth onto the labour market are still in Liberia even after taking dissimilarity of unchangeable background into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Økonomi & Politik is the property of Djøf Forlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Individual- and household-based jobless rates can offer conflicting signals about labour market performance. We outline a means of quantifying and decomposing the extent of any disparity (polarisation) between individual- and household-based measures and apply this to data from five countries over 25 years. Comparing actual household workless rates with counterfactuals based on a random distribution of employment, we find evidence of growing disparities between individual- and household-based non-employment measures in all five countries. The extent of this polarisation varies widely, but for each country, most of the discrepancies stem from within-household factors than from changing household composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact of the globalization process on individual life courses and employment careers in modern societies from an international comparative perspective. Empirical results are summarized from the GLOBALIFE research project (Life Courses in the Globalization Process), which studied the effects of globalization on life courses for the first time. As the results demonstrate, the globalization process has had diverse effects on different phases of the life course. Qualified men in their mid-careers are broadly protected from the effects of globalization, while young adults are the losers of the globalization process. We also find that educational and class characteristics determine the extent to which an individual faces increasing labour market risks. Under globalization, these effects have intensified. The results of the GLOBALIFE project thus indicate that globalization triggers a strengthening of existing social inequality structures. Another central finding is that globalization has not led to the same outcome across various modern societies. Globalization appears to be distinctly filtered by deeply embedded national institutions. These 'institutional packages' entail diverse strategies of labour market flexibilization which themselves differentially shape patterns of social inequality in modern societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Newspoll reported in 2000 that by a margin of 70 to 28 per cent, Australians would prefer the gap between rich and poor to get smaller rather than have the nation's overall wealth grow as quickly as possible. This article examines the reasons for the increase in the dispersion of earnings, and changes in unemployment and workforce participation, which are central to this concern about inequality. The major finding is that the widening dispersion of earnings and changes in labour force status are principally due to changes in the structure of labour demand in favour of more skilled jobs. The article then considers what this changing job mix implies for policy directed to maintaining income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline in the unskilled share of French employment is chiefly due to the slackness of domestic demand for those industries with the highest proportion of unskilled workers. The spread of computers has not been particularly conducive to substitution between skilled and unskilled labor. We test and accept the hypothesis of technical-progress neutrality within French industries. The mechanisms that generate inequality do not appear to be the same in France and in the United States. The source of inequality isn't so much technical progress per se as its interaction with the institutions that regulate the labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: The challenge of immigrants and their integration into adopted countries is a key topic for the global field of social work. However, there is a paucity of research on immigrants' lived experiences in gaining access to the labour market. Thus, this study examines how immigrants in Norway experience integration while in the process of gaining access to the labour market. The prevalent notion of integration achieved through gainful employment narrows the concept of integration and disguises the underlying marginalization and inequalities that are derived from majority- minority dividing lines. (2) Methods: Data were collected via nine qualitative semi-structured interviews with ten immigrants (one interview was with a couple) living in Norway. Data was analysed by using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. (3) Results: The results showed that the participants experienced social exclusion but accepted this as an inevitable part of being an immigrant. The participants regarded the learning of Norwegian language as the key aspect to understanding social customs and forming informal relationships with native Norwegians and important for achieving integration. Freedom and equality were also regarded as issues of great importance. (4) Conclusions: The results provide the field of social work with important insights towards informing social work practices and challenging current paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists of education have until very recently ignored the role of organisational processes in generating the demand for qualified personnel, preferring instead to explain any inflation' of the value of credentials in terms of either class strategies of social reproduction or as the outcome of positional compel awn within the labour market. In recent years, however, neo- Weberian theorists have tried to redress this imbalance by pointing to the importance of contextual features of organisation (such as size and national prominence) as predictors of educational demand, while neo-Marxist historians of the firm have examined the role played by credentials within the control processes of the capitalist enterprise. As a preliminary to more extensive investigation, a path analysis was carried out using the data from the original Aston study which tested one possible causal model of the organisational processes behind the level of specialist qualifications found in a sample of firms and public institutions. This analysis underlines the importance of the organisational division of labour as a mediating influence between contextual features and patterns of bureaucratic control and suggests that the level of specialist qualifications, far from being `spuriously' associated with organisational structures, is deeply embedded in the causal network of complexity and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]