Which children benefit from non-parental care?

This paper investigates the relationship between non-parental care and toddlers’ behavioral outcomes using data from Australia. In particular, we explore heterogeneity in the relationship using the unique data on quality attributes: carer/child ratio, share of qualified staff, and expert ratings. The results suggest that full-time non-parental care, particularly center care, is negatively associated with toddlers’ behavioral outcomes. The negative association is however mitigated when centers have a larger number of carers per child. The negative association between non-parental care and behavioral outcomes also appears to be larger for children with better-educated parents.     

The impact of child labor on schooling outcomes in Nicaragua

Child labor is considered a key obstacle to reaching the international commitments of Education For All. However, the empirical evidence on the effects of child labor on educational attainments is mostly limited to static measurements. This paper assesses the consequences of child labor on schooling outcomes over time by employing a three-year longitudinal household data set from Nicaragua. The potential endogeneity of past child labor and school outcomes is addressed through instrumental variables. The time a child dedicates to work is found to have harmful consequences on subsequent educational achievements, even after controlling for previous human capital accumulation and other factors. In particular, working over three hours a day is associated with school failure in the medium term. A distinction by type of work shows that time spent in market production has larger negative effects on school outcomes than time spent performing household chores.     

Economic returns to speaking ‘standard Mandarin’ among migrants in China's urban labour market

This article uses data from the China Urban Labour Survey administered across 12 cities in 2005 to estimate the economic returns to speaking standard Mandarin among internal migrants in China's urban labour market. The article builds on studies that estimate the economic returns to international immigrants of being fluent in the major language of the destination country and studies that estimate the economic returns to proficiency in the national language among groups of people who speak a minority language. Importantly, we control for potential endogeneity bias in the estimates of the effect of language fluency on earnings. We find that for migrants as a whole, there are considerable economic returns to speaking standard Mandarin. We also find gender differences. While the coefficient on fluency in standard Mandarin is statistically significant and large for females, the coefficient on fluency is statistically insignificant for males. One possible explanation for this finding is that female migrant workers are engaged more in occupations which have greater contact with urban locals and hence the return to investment in language skills is higher.     

Immigration and student achievement: Evidence from Switzerland

This paper investigates empirically whether immigrant students in Switzerland perform poorly compared to their native counterparts and provides some explanations. Using a national sample of the 2000 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) database, we first analyze the impact of immigrant status on pupils’ achievement. We find a negative and significant impact of immigrant status on test scores in reading, mathematics and science literacy, even after controlling for a set of characteristics. We then decompose the observed reading score gap between Swiss and immigrant students to identify whether gaps in endowments explain test score differences along the distribution. Lower endowments explain most of the achievement gap in reading between Swiss and second-generation immigrants. However, lower returns explain around one quarter of the achievement gap between Swiss and first-generation immigrants for the weakest pupils.     

Labour market mismatch among UK graduates: An analysis using REFLEX data

There is much disagreement in the literature over the extent to which graduates are mismatched in the labour market and the reasons for this. In this paper we utilise the Flexible Professional in the Knowledge Society (REFLEX) data set to cast light on these issues, based on data for UK graduates. We find substantial pay penalties for overeducation for both sexes and for overskilling in the case of men only. When both education and skill mismatch variables are included together in the model only overskilling reduces job satisfaction consistently for both sexes. Using job attributes data it appears that the lower wages of the overqualified may in part simply represent a compensating wage differential for positive job attributes, while for men at least there are real costs to being overskilled.     

Teachers’ unions and compensation: The impact of collective bargaining on salary schedules and performance pay schemes

This study examines the impact that collective bargaining has on multiple dimensions of teacher compensation, including average and starting salaries, early and late returns to experience, returns to graduate degrees, and the incidence of different pay for performance schemes. Using data from the School and Staffing Survey (SASS) and a more recent data set, the Teacher Rules, Roles and Rights (TR3), we find that collective bargaining has a significant impact on all aspects of current, qualification-specific salary schedules. Further, we find some evidence that bargaining impacts the design of performance pay plans. Specifically, unions tend to encourage teacher bonuses that are based on additional qualifications or duties, but discourage bonuses that directly reward improved student test scores.     

Subject choice and earnings of UK graduates

Using a survey of a cohort of UK graduates, linked to administrative data on higher education participation, this paper investigates the labour market attainment of recent graduates by subject of study. We document a large heterogeneity in the mean wages of graduates from different subjects and a considerably larger one within subject with individuals with the most favourable unobserved characteristics obtaining wages almost twice as large as those with the worst. Moreover, gender differences in wages within subjects are also large. We then simulate a graduate tax to calculate a willingness to pay – in form of tuition fees – to capture these subject wage premia.     

爆发力训练与有氧耐力评价指标的相关性研究

为研究同时进行爆发力训练与有氧耐力训练所产生的效果,本研究以14名耐力运动员为实验组(E)、14名耐力运动员为控制组(C)进12周的训练,实验组除15%爆发力训练代替传统耐力训练外,其余训练内容相同。结果发现:5 km跑成绩与RE在实验组明显提高(P<0.05),控制组无差异;5 J在实验组有非常显著性提高(P<0.01),控制组下降显著(P<0.05);VO2max在控制组显著性提高(P<0.01),对实验组变化不明显。混合控制组与实验组数据发现:5km跑时间与RE存在中度负相关(r=-0.54)。结论:同时进行爆发力与耐力训练在不改变VO2max的情况下可以提高5 km跑的成绩。     

普通高校大学生24式简化太极拳教学研究

太极拳是我国民族文化的瑰宝,24式简化太极拳也是普通高校经常选用的体育课教材之一。为了更好地提高普通高校大学生24式简化太极拳教学水平,文章根据大学生实际情况以及太极拳自身特点,结合长期实践教学经验,着重从太极拳的课程设计,教学方法的选择运用以及课后练习巩固的安排等方面进行探讨,以求促进大学生学习太极拳的兴趣和信心,使其能快速掌握太极拳动作和精髓。