Our kids : The American dream in crisis

How many countries are included in the 2013 HDI? The 2013 HDI covers 187 countries, the same number as in 2012 and 2011. Maintaining the same number of is the result of intensified efforts by the Human Development Report Office (HDRO) to work with international data providers and national statistical agencies to obtain required development indicators for the HDI which had been unavailable for some countries in previous years. For a full explanation of the results and methodology of the 2013HDI and other indexes in the 2014 Human Development Report, please see the Technical Notes 1-5. What does the HDI tell us? The HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone. The HDI can also be used to question national policy choices, asking how two countries with the same level of GNI per capita can end up with different human development outcomes. For example, Malaysia has GNI per capita higher than Chile but life expectancy at birth is about 5 years shorter, mean years of schooling is shorter and expected years of schooling is 2.5 years shorter resulting in Chile having a much higher HDI value than the Malaysia. These striking contrasts can stimulate debate about government policy priorities. Did the HDI rankings change for many countries in 2013? Based on the consistent data series that were available on 15 November 2013, there are few countries with changed ranks between 2012 and 2013. The HDI values for 2012 and 2013 are given in Table 1 of Statistical Annex. The HDI trends since 1980 are given in Table 2. In this table we also provide the change in ranks between 2008 and 2013. We advise users of the HDR not to compare the results from different Reports, but to use the consistent data given in Table 2 of the latest report. The consistent data are based on the latest data revisions and are obtained using the same methodology. The effect of change in achievements (improvement or declining) in human development indicators of

human Development Index

/pdf/negotiations-varieties-contexts-processes-and-social-order-1o12fgo2b9.pdf

Negotiations: varieties, contexts, processes and social order

The New Careers: Individual Action and Economic Change

Between 1947 and 1974, income growth was distributed fairly evenly among households in various income groups. However, income inequality has increased over the past 30 or so years. Since the mid-1970s, real income growth for households at the 95th percentile of the distribution has grown at a pace nearly 3/2 times that of households at the 20th percentile. A similar pattern holds between men and women. The Gini coefficient (lower-left chart), a more complete measure of income inequality, considers the entire income distribution. It indicates that income inequality is rising overall. One explanation holds that the increasing disparity of income in the U.S. over the past 30 years results from skill-biased technological change that has benefited higher-skilled workers. The skill-biased hypothesis asserts that technology improvements boost the productivity (and hence the income) of skilled labor by more than it does the unskilled. Since the 1980s, demand for skilled labor has kept pace with the relatively greater supply of skilled workers (as estimated by the rising proportion of college-educated workers), exerting upward pressure on wages for higher-skilled workers. Since the early 1980s, the average real wage has risen roughly 30% for male college graduates and nearly 50% for males with a postgraduate degree. 0 25 50 75 100 125

Income Inequality : Understanding the Needs of Economically Disadvantaged Children and Families

‘Return to school’ for enhancement of career is considered a means to career mobility. However, if ‘return to school’ is chosen after a certain stage it has its own costs and challenges. It becomes...

Does distance matter? A study of married Indian women professionals staying away from families to pursue higher studies*

According to the United Nations, more than 500 million people in the world suffer from some form of disability (Despouy, 1988). India also reports high prevalence of disability. The Census data of 2001 revealed that in India there were about 21.9 million (2.13 per cent of the total population) people with disability (PwD), whereas the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) data of 2002 estimated these figures to be 49–90 million. The difference in estimates of Census (2001) and NSSO (2002) for different types of disabilities can be explained by the lack of universal definitions and criteria of disability used during the surveys (Walia, n.d.). As per the latest Census data of 2011, there is a substantial increase of 22.4 per cent in the disabled population of India during the decade, with over 26.8 million (2.21 per cent of the total population) people in the country suffering from one or the other kind of disability (Sivakumar, 2013). These figures at the national level can be considered as mere estimates and the actual disabled population can be much higher than the one mentioned above. One of the reasons for low reported figures can be the stigma attached to disability that prevents many people, especially women and rural disabled, from declaring their disability (Hiranandani & Sonpal, 2010; Jeffery & Singal, 2008). This fear or stigma can be attributed to the way people perceive disability. A disability refers to a physical, sensory or mental limitation that interferes with a person’s ability to move, see, hear or learn (Ministry of Social Affairs National Committee for the Disabled, 2003–2004). A person may be either born disabled or may become so later in life due to an illness or an accident. According to Census 2011, 20.3 per cent of the disabled are locomotor impaired, followed by hearing impaired (18.9 per cent) and visually impaired (18.8 per cent). Nearly, 5.6 per cent of the disabled population suffers from mental impairment, a classification introduced in the 2011 Census (Sivakumar, 2013).

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0256090915590334

Realigning Business Strategy to Cater to Customers with Disability (CwD) in the Indian Context

As the work environment is changing globally, newer trends of work and career mobility are emerging. ‘Return to school’ for the enhancement of career is considered as a means to career mobility. The present study explores what fa ctors spur well-qualified married women professionals to take a break from their career so as to join a rigorous educational program which requires them to stay away from their families for a substantial time. This study is a part of a larger research on dual career couples. The researc h is grounded in the Indian context. The ten cases included in this study are of married Indian women professionals, who opted to stay away from their families (including, in some cases, babi es and small children) in another city / country to pursue higher studies. This study is exploratory and qualitative in nature and is based on semistructured interviews of the participants. In the b ackdrop of the traditional Indian society with stereotypical notions of gendered roles, the study focuses on the motives of professional women for such a decision, the facilitators, and the chal lenges faced by them during their academic pursuit. Dissatisfaction with work situation, need for skill enhancement, and an urge to develop one’s own identity emerged as the main motives. Support and encouragement from spouse and other family members as well as age were reported a s key facilitators. The main challenges faced were psychological turmoil, strain on signifi cant relationships, and the financial stretch and stress.

https://www.iimahd.ernet.in/assets/snippets/workingpaperpdf/18573577502013-10-04.pdf

Soaring on wings of aspiration and support: A study of married Indian women professionals staying away from families to pursue higher studies

The present study is based on the data from two Multinational Corporations (MNCs) located in the state of Gujarat in India. The study explores the influence of organizational image and organizational practices on the voice and neglect behavior of shop-floor employees. The study found that irrespective of attractive organizational image, weak organizational practices induce voice behavior among the employees as they hope that organizational practices will improve overtime. However, employees shift to neglect behavior when they lose the trust in the management. Implications of the study for academia and industry were discussed.

Voice or Neglect: Understanding Employee Behavior in Two Multinational Corporations

There has been a world-wide increase in the incidences of downsizing practice across economies and across organizations. This has been considered as the basis for coping with increasing competition. The present paper looks into some studies on downsizing. The focus of the paper is majorly on the research methodology used in these studies. This paper analyses the methods used for the study of downsizing and suggests the ideal methods of study for: a) organizational outcomes, and b) individual outcomes, which include the victims, the survivors and the implementers. The suggestion is to have context specific and issue specific studies with more emphasis towards the triangulation of qualitative and quantitative methods to increase the soundness of the study. Introduction For economies like US, the 1990s have been a decade of downsizing. In reaction to the Japanese competition, many US organizations created organizational cultures based on flexibility, insecurity and temporary work contracts (Littler, 2000). Hence, came up the concept of delayering and downsizing of the workforce at a broad level across the organizations. Initiated in US later on, these strategies of organizational change diffused to other economies also as a major route to competitive success. Hence, downsizing also became one of the major interventions for organizational change across the economies and organizations (French & Bell, 2003).

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Richa Saxena

Papers

Does distance matter? A study of married Indian women professionals staying away from families to pursue higher studies*

Realigning Business Strategy to Cater to Customers with Disability (CwD) in the Indian Context

Soaring on wings of aspiration and support: A study of married Indian women professionals staying away from families to pursue higher studies

Voice or Neglect: Understanding Employee Behavior in Two Multinational Corporations

Methods for the Study of Downsizing: A Review