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Using a Shanghainese context, the purpose of this paper is to understand the effects of the public library in its community, as well as its ability to create social capital. Along with this, this paper aims to look at some socially disadvantaged groups within Shanghai and see the positive benefits that the Shanghai Library (SHL) has in society.

Using a total of 410 respondents from Shanghai through a questionnaire, this study investigates how different groups of disadvantaged groups (namely, students, elderly and unemployed) living in Shanghai perceived the social values, and contributions functions of the SHL to the local community, and its capacities to create social capital.

Findings of this study indicate that respondents expressed an overall highly positive outlook of the SHL’s value to the community, and they found it to have an important role in their daily lives.

This study will be useful for understanding the roles of the public library in a Chinese context, as well as the views and perceptions of the public library to disadvantaged user groups in China.

The purpose of this paper is to identify enablers and inhibitors to the adoption of mobile internet services by socioeconomically disadvantaged people: an understudied population adversely affected by digital inequality.

A qualitative study combining a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. In total, 32 socioeconomically disadvantaged people explored mobile lottery services and subsequently were asked a series of semi-structured questions about their perceptions of the technology.

Users’ attitudes toward mobile internet services were ambivalent. They experienced some advantages of smartphones (including escaping spatiotemporal constrains, fashionableness, privacy, and cost-effectiveness) and conceived of mobile internet services in terms of social advantages (including their ubiquitous nature, fitting in socially and fear of being “left behind”). However, they also experienced barriers and concerns, such as limited mobile data packages, external barriers from mobile services (including security concerns, complex online help tutorials, irrelevant pop-ups, and a lack of personalized services) and internal psychological barriers (including technophobia, self-concept, and habitus).

The findings are of limited generalizability due to the small size of the sample. However, the study has implications for understanding the acceptance of technology among socioeconomically disadvantaged people.

The study has social implications for bridging digital inequality in terms of socioeconomic status.

While previous studies have primarily focused on enablers of adopting mobile internet services by active users, this study reveals both the promise of and the barriers to the use of such services by inactive users who comprise an under-served population.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects from perceptions of age disadvantageness when job candidates are interviewing with recruiters from different age groups. More specifically, the authors examine the issues of intergenerational recruiting through the lens of social identity theory (SIT) and relational demography. Using these theoretical underpinnings, problems that result from dissatisfaction with between group inequities in the recruiting process are explored.

Using these theoretical underpinnings, problems that result from dissatisfaction with between group inequities in the recruiting process are explored. Results from a survey of 176 undergraduate students actively pursuing sales positions provide evidence that candidate perceptions are influenced by age of the interviewer.

The results support that sales job candidates do indeed feel disadvantaged when interviewed by older recruiters. Compared to interviewers from a more similar age in-group interviewer, the respondents felt a greater difficulty in establishing commonality and credibility and they felt the need to establish dependability, demonstrate professionalism, energy, and enthusiasm with an older out-group interviewer. Interestingly, sales job candidates did not feel lower levels of job confidence relative to the age-group of the interviewer.

The study reflects the perceptions of sales job applicants sampled from only two universities in the same region of the USA. Generalizations outside of this job applicant population (i.e. major and geography) cannot be made based on this limited group of respondents. Additionally, outcomes were not explored in this paper, so there is no way to know with certainty that these feelings of disadvantageness translate to concrete differences in results, such as lower job acceptance.

From a recruiting/hiring managers’ perspective, they should be mindful that younger sales job candidates may feel uncomfortable or disadvantaged relative to age/generational differences. This could potentially even impact a recruit's desire to consider a company and accept a job offer, based on perceived organizational cultural differences. Educators need to prepare college students for the interview process. They should make students aware that they may feel the need to compensate for feelings that stem from intergeneration differences.

From a theory perspective, the study applies the SIT to a human resource and recruiting context to better understand possible recruiting barriers that may be particularly relevant in today's changing recruitment environment. This represents one of only a few empirical research efforts that has attempted to explain intergenerational recruiting issues relative to SIT. In addition to the use of SIT and relational demography, this paper introduces a unique context.

This paper explores the nature and operations of the supply chain that serves disadvantaged groups. With the increasing reliance on supplementary food provision through food aid, the authors seek to emphasise efficiency and sustainability in these supply chains.

Semi-structured interview data from 32 senior managers and experts from both commercial and food aid supply chains were abductively analysed to develop a relationship-based map of the food chains that serve disadvantaged groups.

Disadvantaged groups are served by a hybrid food supply chain. It is an interconnected supply chain bringing together the commercial and the food aid supply chains. This chain is unsurprisingly plagued with various challenges, the most critical of which are limited expertise and resources, operational inefficiencies, prohibitive logistics costs and a severe lack of collaboration.

This study identifies the currently limited role of logistics companies in surplus food redistribution and highlights future pathways. Additionally, the authors present useful actionable propositions for managers, practitioners and policymakers.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the social and economic disparities across social groups in rural Uttar Pradesh. The paper demonstrates that the structure of the rural economy in India is characterised by deeply ingrained prejudices and social discrimination. The four-village study undertaken in one of the most populated states in India, Uttar Pradesh, clearly reveals that there is a huge disparity in terms of various social and economic indicators and that the so-called high growth has hardly helped in bettering their lives.

The paper is based on primary data collected from the Census survey of villages exploring socio-economic disparities across social groups by using decomposition models.

The results evidently lend credence to the postulations that a large proportion of the disadvantaged groups are prone to multiple deprivations, both in the society and in labour markets. The inquiry reveals this phenomenon clearly.

From the policy point of view, it is therefore imperative to ensure the direct and focussed provision of basic human requirements in terms of education, employment and income of the state. The implementation of direct policy interventions is an absolute necessity if the state has to guarantee convergence and the inclusive growth process on a sustained basis.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study the inequality among the social groups in terms of education, employment, income and livelihood opportunities in selected villages of four districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Purpose — In this chapter, a series of disaggregated analyses are undertaken to better understand the component nature of transport disadvantage, its variation across geographic locations and its impact on specific social groups. The first section describes the process used to form the four sub-scales of transport disadvantage used in section 5.1.4.1 of Chapter 5.1. The second section compares the transport characteristics experienced in four geographic areas: inner urban, outer urban and fringe Melbourne and regional Victoria.

Methodology — Self-reported transport disadvantage is disaggregated into four factors using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The characteristics of these four factors and the differences between geographic locations are compared in tabular form with t-tests and chi-square analyses used to assess statistical significance. Some correlation analyses are also used.

Findings — Transport disadvantage characteristics that make people vulnerable/impaired or rely on others have the greatest impacts on well-being. The strongest relationships between transport disadvantage and well-being are experienced in regional and fringe urban areas.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue on “Disadvantaged workers in the labour market” and to draw some policy implications that are common to the studies included in the special issue.

The paper introduces several econometric methodologies adopted in the special issue. Such methodologies represent an excellent overview of the typical approaches developed by applied economists to address the issue under discussion. They include: dynamic probit models allowing for unobserved heterogeneity and endogenous initial conditions; propensity score matching; the non parametric Ñopo decomposition to take into account sample selection bias; endogenous switching models to estimate employment choice; and fixed effects models and Arellano and Bond dynamic panel estimator.

The articles in the special issue highlight several common factors that make the disadvantage at the labor market emerge. The first factor is the recent financial crisis which especially affects young people. Differences in common support – generally due to segregation in low pay jobs – are also important. Several factors favor persistence of the disadvantage, namely the inefficiency of the educational system and the lack of financial support to the weakest groups.

The paper adopts the EU definition of “disadvantaged workers”, namely workers who find it hard to enter the labor market without assistance. The authors show the relevance of the analysis produced in this special issue to design specific policies fine‐tuned to the needs of disadvantaged workers. In addition, institutional reforms, and/or interventions on structural variables are also in order.

The paper introduces a number of articles proposing innovations in the interpretation and application of a wide range of theoretical approaches and econometric methodologies.

There is sufficient empirical evidence to suggest that discrimination, defined as absence of equal opportunities, exists before the market as well as in the market against certain social categories in India. Inequality in access to sources of human capital acquisition reinforces inequality in the labour market and vice versa. Apparently, caste‐community discrimination and class discrimination overlap. However, in the case of socially deprived categories, the latter accentuates the former. The impact of modernisation notwithstanding, the inegalitarian sacral tradition of caste still has strong hold over the minds and lives of Indians. The development processes have strengthened caste and community consciousness resulting in the metamorphosis of different social categories into interest groups. With patron‐client relationship as the basis for political mobilization, development policies have favoured the dominant social categories as well as the articulate better‐off sections across all social categories. So it seems that “divinely ordained” social inequities persist in a secular garb, though possibly with reduced inhumanity. Yet, with increasing political assertion of the lower social categories and widening opportunities for social mobility, hegemony of the traditional elite is likely to decline. The change in the composition of the elite should foster non‐brahmanical pragmatic cultural ethos conducive to social mobility and development. The policies designed to promote equal opportunities, taking into account heterogeneity of Indian society, will speed up the process of socio‐economic change.

Analyses the major objective of the EXLIB Project, which focuses on the building of a library system, within the framework of the European Union, that would guarantee the visually disadvantaged access to information under conditions similar to those existing for the sighted population. Proposes that the existing library infrastructure be adapted to the needs of the former and that present telematic facilities be further developed, in accordance with the needs and infrastructures in each one of the Community countries.

Internet studies have rarely addressed gender and/or ethnic differences in health information seeking on social media. Moreover, the role of locality size in explanation of this phenomenon has been overlooked. This study proposed a diversification approach to address these issues. According to it, belonging to numerous disadvantaged groups increases the probability of health-related Internet/social media use.

The data were collected via telephone survey. The sample consisted of 798 Israeli Internet users who reported using social media for any purpose, gender, ethnic affiliation and locality of residence. The data were analysed using a logistic regression technique.

Arab female social media users, who resided in small localities, were more likely than the other studied social groups to seek both non-medical and medical information on social media. Furthermore, Arab female social media users were found having the highest likelihood among all studied social groups to seek information regarding physical activity and medications on social media.

The findings largely supported the diversification approach and signal a major need for a greater supply of public health information for members of minority groups, especially those residing in small localities.

The study investigates triple social disadvantage in health-related social media use.