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The purpose of the present study is to investigate the extent to which female and male university students from low-income countries express different entrepreneurial intentions. Specifically, the study empirically tests whether the anticipated financial returns to entrepreneurship versus salaried employment, or the perceived barriers to entrepreneurship exert a stronger influence on the relationship between gender and entrepreneurial intentions.

To test the relationship of anticipated rewards versus barriers to entrepreneurship on gender and entrepreneurial intention, the study uses new data from a field survey in Sierra Leone and employs multiple mediation analyses.

The authors find that the relationship between gender and entrepreneurial intentions operates through the mediator of perceptions of the financial returns to entrepreneurship but not perceived barriers to entrepreneurship.

The authors study intent, not behavior, acknowledging that cognitive intent is a powerful predictor of later behavior. Implications for future research on entrepreneurship in the African context are discussed.

The results from this study can be applied to both pedagogic and business settings in the field of entrepreneurship, with concrete implications for policymakers.

Results suggest that the gender gap in entrepreneurial intentions (EI) for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)- and business-educated students in Sierra Leone is predominantly influenced by anticipated financial returns to occupational choices, as opposed to perceived barriers to entrepreneurship, a more frequently studied antecedent to EI.

The purpose of the current article is to examine the effect of the inefficient allocation of academic individuals in the Israeli labor market in terms of mismatch between their fields of education and occupation – a phenomenon referred in the literature as “horizontal mismatch” and “job-field underemployment” – on their duration of unemployment, in the local labor market.

A sample size of 8,554 participants have taken part in the survey by the Central Bureau of Statistics: Undergraduate students at academic institutions in Israel in the academic year of 2010–2011, who were sampled again in the academic year of 2017–2018, to determine the nature of their integration into the labor market, and the quality of their career progress. The study’s methodology is statistical-correlational, and its data mainly based on the answers of the participants in the research tool (questionnaire). A T-test for independent samples (via SPSS) has proven the key results.

The average cumulative annual duration of unemployment, as of graduation with a bachelor’s degree, among the mismatched graduates, was found to be higher than the average cumulative annual duration of unemployment among the matched graduates.

The current study’s originality lays both in its large sample size (8,554), and in the repeatability element of its sampling (test-retest reliability). Also, its findings regarding the consequences of the nature of the match between the educational field and occupational field – on the quality of integration of academics in the Israeli labor market, are pioneers in this field.

This bibliometric literature review aims to uncover the (1) intellectual foundations and (2) topical evolution in the field of career aspiration research.

We employed the systematic literature review methodology following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. According to the predetermined criteria, 286 articles were included from the Web of Science database. Then, we employed performance analysis, science mapping and natural language processing to address our research objectives.

Co-citation analysis uncovered four foundational themes: (1) gender and leadership aspiration, (2) Social Cognitive Career Theory, (3) process of career development and (4) adolescents’ career aspiration. Moreover, co-word analysis showed that scholarly foci have shifted from adolescents’ career development to diverse streams. This shift was indicated by the exploration of additional research samples, such as university students, and topics related to specific aspirations (e.g. entrepreneurial and managerial aspirations) and gender issues (e.g. women leadership and gender stereotypes).

Although this review has limitations related to data selection, it presents implications for practice, theory and future research on career aspirations.

The study illuminated the past and development of a research domain, thus advancing the understanding of career aspirations and inspiring future research.

This phenomenological study, conducted within the discourse on the underrepresentation of women in academia, examined the factors influencing the advancement of women academics in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

The sample comprised twenty-one women academics from both public and private universities in Peru. Data were collected through in-depth interviews based on the women's experiences and subsequently processed using Moustakas’ (1994) stages for encoding, categorization, and analysis.

The study introduces a conceptual framework of nine factors – personal tastes and preferences, attitudes towards science as a vocation, care work, work–life balance, congruent gender roles, occupational segregation, lack of opportunities, low salaries, and lack of gender equality policies – that impact the career progression of women in STEM fields.

The results offer valuable insights for policymakers and academic authorities to address the barriers affecting women academics in STEM. The uniqueness of this paper lies in its investigation in Peru, a country with the highest female labor force participation in Latin America, where women constitute the majority of undergraduate program graduates.

This study aims to explore how factors such as working conditions, lifestyle choices and demographic characteristics may affect the mental health of industrial workers in Kuwait.

Within the scope of the study’s objective, the authors reached 400 industrial workers (228 male, 172 female) working in oil and gas organizations in Kuwait. An ordered logistic regression model was conducted to examine the effect of relevant independent variables on workers’ mental health.

Result indicated that employees with a lower education level (p-value = 0.015), employees who were smokers (p-value = 0.004) and employees with night shifts (p-value = 0.019), were more likely to experience mental health issues. Furthermore, result strongly highlights a higher chance of experiencing mental health problems among the workers who had longer working times (p-value = 0.000). On the other hand, having children (p-value = 0.042), visiting a mental health professional (p = 0.014) and living in a house with others (flat mate, family members, etc.) (p-value = 0.016) were statistically significant factors to improve employees’ mental health. Surprisingly, the authors’ research did not find a significant relationship between the mental health issues experienced by employees and their yearly income.

The paper lies in its exploration of the impact of working conditions, lifestyle choices and demographic factors on mental health of industrial workers using statistical approach. By applying ordered logistic regression, this study uncovers new insights into mental health of industrial workers.

Indian families are undergoing a transition due to a combination of factors such as rapid urbanization, economic development, educational advancements and major global connect. The shift from traditional joint families to urban nuclear families, changing pattern of the size of families, transformed gender roles in the domestic sphere, rising educational and career aspirations and increased occupational choices, new technological and economic contributions collectively contribute to a new landscape for Indian families. While these changes bring about new forms and structures of modern Indian families, they also reflect the resilience of the conventional value system of Indian families in adapting to the demands of a rapidly changing world. This chapter outlines the changing dynamics of Indian families in the 21st century. Changes in marriages and their influence on family making have been discussed with a special focus on inter-caste and intra-caste marriages and modern families. In urban India, age at marriage is also discussed in the background of formation of families. This chapter provides a discussion on changed gender roles and hierarchies within families. This chapter also highlights separation and divorce which led to single-parent families and broken families in Indian society.

The authors' work aims to identify the employer-specific drivers of the college (or university) wage gap, which has been identified as one of the major determinants of the dynamics of overall wage and income inequality in the past decades. The authors focus on three employer-level features that can be associated with asymmetries in the employment relation orientation adopted for college and non-college-educated employees: (1) size, (2) the share of standard employment and (3) the pervasiveness of incentive pay schemes.

The authors' establishment-level analysis (data from the Basic Survey on Wage Structure (BSWS), 2005–2018) focusses on Japan, an economy characterised by many unique economic and institutional features relevant to the aims of the authors' analysis. The authors use an adjusted measure of firm-specific college wage premium, which is not biased by confounding individual and establishment-level factors and reflects unobservable characteristics of employees that determine the payment of a premium. The authors' empirical methods account for the complexity of the relationships they investigate, and the authors test their baseline outcomes with econometric approaches (propensity score methods) able to address crucial identification issues related to endogeneity and reverse causality.

The authors' findings indicate that larger establishment size, a larger share of regular workers and more pervasive implementation of IPSs for college workers tend to increase the college wage gap once all observable workers, job and establishment characteristics are controlled for. This evidence corroborates the authors' hypotheses that a larger establishment size, a higher share of regular workers and a more developed set-up of performance pay schemes for college workers are associated with a better capacity of employers to attract and keep highly educated employees with unobservable characteristics that justify a wage premium above average market levels. The authors provide empirical evidence on how three relevant establishment-level characteristics shape the heterogeneity of the (adjusted) college wage observed across organisations.

The authors' contribution to the existing knowledge is threefold. First, the authors combine the economics and management/organisation literature to develop new insights that underpin the authors' testable empirical hypotheses. This enables the authors to shed light on employer-level drivers of wage differentials (size, workforce composition, implementation of performance-pay schemes) related to many structural, institutional and strategic dimensions. The second contribution lies in the authors' measure of the “adjusted” college wage gap, which is calculated on the component of individual wages that differs between observationally identical workers in the same establishment. As such, the metric captures unobservable workers' characteristics that can generate a wage premium/penalty. Third, the authors provide empirical evidence on how three relevant establishment-level characteristics shape the heterogeneity of the (adjusted) college wage observed across organisations.

This study aims to examine the association between apprenticeship training and self-employment and how gender moderates the association.

Secondary data from the World Bank’s Skills Towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) survey on Ghana were analysed using a binary choice (logit regression) model. The STEP survey drew its nationally representative sample from the working-age population (15–64 years) in urban areas.

After controlling for several factors identified in the literature as determinants of self-employment, the results indicate that completing apprenticeship training increases the likelihood of being self-employed. However, women who have completed apprenticeship training are more likely to be self-employed than men.

By examining the moderating effect of gender on the association between apprenticeship training and self-employment, this study has offered new evidence that policymakers can use to promote self-employment, especially among women, to reduce the entrepreneurial gap between men and women.

In recent years, there has been a growing trend of individuals willingly opting for employment positions that do not fully use their education, skills and abilities, a phenomenon known as voluntary overqualification. This study aims to investigate the factors that influence and the formation mechanism of this emerging phenomenon. Drawing upon social cognition theory, this study explores the relationship between work values and voluntary overqualification while also examining the mediating role of the future work self and the moderating role of perceived marketability.

This study used a longitudinal approach, collecting data through questionnaires administered at multiple time points. The sample consisted of 607 employees from various departments of five Chinese companies. Regression analysis using the PROCESS macro in SPSS was used to test the research hypotheses.

The results indicate a positive relationship between employees’ work values and voluntary overqualification. Furthermore, this relationship is mediated by the future work self. Additionally, perceived marketability plays a moderating intermediary role in the whole model.

This study contributes to the overqualification literature by introducing a novel type of overqualification and unveiling the mechanism by which work values influence voluntary overqualification. The findings provide insights for understanding and managing employees who are voluntarily overqualified.

The influx of expatriates to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries has led to labor imbalance inducing these countries to initiate workforce nationalization policies. However, despite the policies' emphasis on increasing the presence of nationals in all sectors, employing nationals in the private sector is still a critical challenge for policymakers. This paper explores local job seekers' and employees' perceptions of employment choices in the private and public sectors.

Adopting a qualitative approach, data were collected through in-depth interviews with 28 local job seekers, either not currently employed or employed but seeking another job.

The data revealed a contextualized understanding of positive and negative connotations pertaining to employment in the private and public sectors in Qatar.

Understanding nationals' negative preconceived notions against working in the private sector and the perceived benefits of public sector employment lays the groundwork for developing measures to help policymakers to create labor market-oriented policies that stimulate mobility between the public and private sectors.

This study contributes to the workforce nationalization literature in the GCC countries by examining local job seekers' perceptions associated with employment in the private sector and the public sector. A closer examination of why nationals are hesitant to enter the private sector can propel the pendulum towards higher success rates of workforce nationalization.