Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Residential mobility – Great Britain'

As residential mobility recursively links individual life courses and the characteristics of places, it is unsurprising that geographers have long sought to understand how people make moving decisions. However, much of our knowledge of residential mobility processes derives from cross-sectional analyses of either mobility decision-making or moving events. Comparatively few studies have linked these separate literatures by analysing how residential (im)mobility decisions unfold over time within particular biographical, household and spatio-temporal contexts. This is problematic, as life course theories suggest that people frequently do not act in accordance with their underlying moving desires. To evaluate the extent to which residential (im)mobility is volitional or the product of constraints therefore requires a longitudinal approach linking moving desires to subsequent moving behaviour. This thesis develops this longitudinal perspective through four linked empirical studies, which each use British Household Panel Survey data to analyse how the life course context affects the expression and realisation of moving desires. The first study investigates how people make moving decisions in different ways in response to different motivations, triggers and life events. The second study harnesses the concept of ‘linked lives', exploring the extent to which the likelihood of realising a desire to move is dependent upon the desires of a person's partner. The third study analyses the biographical dimension of mobility decision-making, investigating how the long-term trajectories of life course careers are associated with particular mobility biographies. The final empirical chapter develops these insights, exploring the duration and abandonment of moving desires. Taken together, these studies test and extend conceptual models of mobility decision-making by empirically engaging with neglected facets of life course theories. Fundamentally, the thesis uncovers how aggregate mobility patterns are produced by the interactions between individual choices and multi-scalar constraints.

Over the next decade the ‘Baby Boomer' cohort will increasingly contribute to the proportion of those aged 60 and over in Britain. The issue of how the mobility of older people has changed for different cohort groups has not been considered in a historical context. Ryder (1965) argued that cohort groups could be important in determining behaviour as have other social structural factors, such as socioeconomic status. This thesis merges the disciplines of transport geography and population studies using a novel approach of cohort analysis, which has not been used widely for studying mobility trends. Using National Travel Survey data from 1995-2008, the mobility trends of older people in Britain are explored by creating pseudo cohorts. Pseudo cohorts are artificially created datasets which are constructed from using repeated cross-sectional data (McIntosh, 2005, Uren, 2006). This technique can differentiate ‘age', ‘period' and ‘cohort' effects in mobility trends. Age effects are differences in behaviour between age groups i.e. changes in mobility associated with age itself. Period effects relate to changes in behaviour in all age groups over a period of time. Cohort effects are those associated with behaviour common to particular groups born around the same time (Glenn, 2005, Yang, 2007). The influence of the Scottish concessionary travel policy on the mobility of older people at the aggregate level is also considered using Scottish Household Survey data from 1999-2008. This policy is very blunt and based on assumptions about older age. As cohorts differ, these assumptions may no longer hold and therefore the policy may not be effective. This thesis argues, using a longitudinal demographic perspective, that structural effects shape mobility of cohorts differently over time. The findings reveal although mobility amongst older people is rising in general, there would actually be declining mobility were it not for the Boomer cohort. Amongst younger cohorts mobility is lower. The analysis also shows that women travel further than men, a fundamental break with the past, specific to this generation. This thesis illustrates the importance of cohort membership in explaining mobility change.

This thesis is an examination of the definition and implementation of ‘good practice’ in residential care for senior citizens. The central contention is that ‘good practice’ is a term that has been variously defined. Different groups define it in different ways, and their definitions have changed over time. This reflexive qualitative study explores ‘good practice’ in local authority, voluntary and private residential care homes in Scotland from the perspective of policy, practice and the experience of senior citizens who live in them. The study is based on analysis of policy documents, historical studies, and reanalysed interview and survey data from two earlier studies conducted by the author and colleagues. The thesis shows that the notion of ‘good practice’ that emerges in policy and practice documents is a confused and often conflicting set of ideas. Historically, the earliest were driven by concerns over cost. In more modern times, statements about ‘good practice’ have had a more benevolent intent but are frequently flawed by paternalistic and ageist assumptions. It is shown that staff in residential homes typically adopt a different set of attitudes: their preoccupation is with safety and the avoidance of risk. Although benevolent in intention, these interpretations of ‘good practice’ are also at variance with what residents themselves actually want. Two particular models or styles of care are examined in detail. One of these is the use of ‘keyworkers’, often implemented in ways that fail to realise its potential. The other is the ‘hotel’ model of care. The potential of this model as an alternative to the statutory model is explored. The thesis concludes that it is a model that can realise the goal of enabling residents to exercise independence, choice and privacy while meeting their needs in residential care.

The profile and geography of employment in Britain is undergoing considerable change. This is demonstrated most visibly in terms of gender composition; in rising numbers of women in paid employment; the replacement of full time with part time employment; in de-regulation and the proliferation of temporary and insecure employment. With increasing numbers of 'wives' and 'mothers' in paid employment this restructuring is reflected in a new and changing geography of household divisions of labour. Paradoxically, this global push towards greater labour market flexibility has implications for reduced labour mobility. Conventionally, a mobile labour force is considered the mainstay of a flexible labour market. A paradox emerges from an understanding that, rather than being individuated, labour is situated within particular household structures. Moreover, within such structures the co-ordination of home and work imposes further significant (time-space) constraints. These constraints suggest that decisions concerning residential location must increasingly facilitate both male and female employment as well as daily household practices of consumption, production and reproduction. Frequently, such practices entail an intimate connection between the household and networks of paid and unpaid labour which are rooted in the locale. This thesis provides both a conceptual and an empirical link between housing and labour markets. It draws upon multiple method research to consider the extent to which a causal relationship exists between household employment structure and relative rates of residential mobility. Secondary data from the UK Census of Population provides an extensive backdrop of trends for Britain in the 1990's. Qualitative biographical research provides insight into the processes of residential mobility such as those of 'bargaining power' in household decision-making. Evidence from the extensive research suggests that single earner households are more mobile than households with two full time earners. Household biographies demonstrate, however, that residential mobility behaviour is inadequately explained by economic factors alone.

The residential property market accounts for a substantial proportion of UKeconomic activity. However, there is no reliable forecasting service to predict theperiodic housing market crises or to produce estimates of long-term sustainablevalue. This research examined the use of artificial neural networks, trained usingnational economic, social and residential property transaction time-series data, toforecast trends within the housing market. Artificial neural networks have previously been applied successfully to produceestimates of the open market value of a property over a limited time period withinsub-markets. They have also been applied to the prediction of time-series data in anumber of fields, including finance. This research sought to extend their applicationto time-series of house prices in order to forecast changes in the residential propertymarket at national and regional levels. Neural networks were demonstrated to be successful in producing time-seriesforecasts of changes in the housing market, particularly when combined in simplecommittees of networks. They successfully modelled the direction, timing and scaleof annual changes in house prices, both for an extremely volatile and difficult period(1987 to 1991) and for the period 1999 to 2001. Poor initial forecasting results forthe period 2002 onwards were linked to new conditions in the credit and housingmarkets, including changes in the loan to income ratio. Self-organising maps wereused to identify the onset of new market conditions. Neural networks trained with asubset of post-1998 data added to the training set improved their forecastingperformance, suggesting that they were able to incorporate the new conditions intothe models. Sensitivity analysis was used to identify and rank the network input variables underdifferent market conditions. The measure of changes in the house price index itselfwas found to have the greatest effect on future changes in prices. Predictionsurfaces were used to investigate the relationship between pairs of input variables. The results show that artificial neural networks, trained using national economic,social and residential property transaction time-series data, can be used to forecaststrends within the housing market under various market conditions.

This thesis investigates the transnational migration of Slovakian Roma from the eastern borderlands of the European Union to Great Britain. Based on more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork in the village of Tarkovce and in several British cities, this study examines concrete pathways through which Roma come to migrate and experience their movement. For Tarkovce Roma, the most recent migration opportunity offers a potential means to carve out a sense of a viable life and of autonomy amidst the oppressive circumstances and asymmetrical relations they experience with non-Roma dominant groups and non-related Roma. I focus on Tarkovce Roma strivings for existential mobility, which condition their physical movement to the place of destination, and on their hopes for upward socio-economic mobility. I argue that migration enables Roma to contest and re-negotiate the hegemonic racial and social categories which historically place them at the bottom of social hierarchies. The thesis explores the unevenly distributed possibilities and complex inequalities that Tarkovce Roma encounter on their journeys towards realising their hopes in migration. I situate these differences within the daily sociability of Tarkovce Roma, intense webs of kinship and friendship ties, and key concepts of ‘soft hearts' and ‘heaviness.' I describe how Roma migrants come to occupy one of the most vulnerable positions in the British labour market and how they simultaneously, and constantly, search for other ways of making ‘big money.' Finally, I address questions of categorisations, in particular the internal differentiations between Roma, as well as the transformation that many Roma migrants encounter in British cities, from initial ‘invisibility' to ‘visibility'. By focusing on one particular neighbourhood in Glasgow, I analyse the shifting forms of ethno-cultural categorisations that mark Roma/Gypsy difference.

The background for this thesis is the dramatic growth in travel demand that has taken place in developed countries in the last decades, and is gathering speed at the global level. This goes in hand in hand with a dramatic increase in motorisation and car use. This phenomenon is the object of Chapter 1.Increasing mobility and motorisation has raised two kinds of concerns, corresponding to two research fields. Concerns for the environmental consequences of transport are behind the concept of environmentally sustainable transport. Transport contributes to both climate change emissions and oil depletion, arguably two of the most important environmental challenges of the 21st century. However, as mobility grows, society (and urban structure) adapts itself: the result is that being able to cover great distances at sufficient speed has become paramount. In other words, mobility and accessibility have become key factors for social inclusion, resulting in new forms of social inequality and/or reinforcing existing ones. In the theoretical part of this thesis (Part I), these two fields of research are reviewed. Chapter 1 discusses the environmental consequences of increasing motorisation, as well as policies for environmentally sustainable transport. Also, different approaches to the study of increasing motorisation (car ownership modelling, the ‘travel and the built environment’ debate and the concept of car dependence) are reviewed. Chapter 2 introduces the field of transport and social exclusion research, and reviews policies to tackle transport disadvantage. Interestingly, these two fields of research have remained quite separate until very recently. Arguably, this is a problem, for at least three reasons: firstly both concerns arise from a common problem, i.e. the increasing demand for (car) travel; secondly, the leading policy concept of ‘sustainable transport’ includes both environmental and social goals (as well as economic ones); finally, literature in both fields provides numerous examples of instances where there is a trade-off or a latent tension between environmental and social goals (as discussed in Chapter 2). This in turn is arguably a strong barrier to the implementation of sustainable transport policies. At the theoretical level, the goal of this thesis is to put forward an integrated framework to conceptualise the social and environmental consequences of increasing motorisation, and their interrelationships. To do this, I use the concept of car dependence. Since it has mostly been used in studies concerned with the environmental consequences of increasing motorisation, the notion is introduced in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, I put forward a typology of forms of car-related transport disadvantage, and illustrate how they arise from the process of increasing car dependence. In Chapter 3, I put forward an original working definition of car dependence, aimed at reconciling the two concerns and highlighting the role that the different forms of car-related transport disadvantage play in the self-reinforcing cycle of increasing motorisation. All throughout the theoretical chapters, the emphasis is on the spatial dimension of car dependence: urban structure and the built environment adapt to increasing motorisation, and this results in further motorisation, thus creating a self-reinforcing cycle with both environmental and social consequences. The research object of this thesis is households without cars. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, it is located at the intersection of the two research fields. From an environmental perspective, carless households have been studied as examples of environmentally sustainable behaviour. Notably, existing research has sought to identify households who choose to live without cars, exploring their motivations and trying to understand how to encourage carfree living. By contrast, in transport and social exclusion research, lack of car access has been considered as the most important form of transport disadvantage in developed societies. Accordingly, studies have focused on the exclusionary consequences of living without cars. Overall, studies on environmentally sustainable transport focus on a type of carless that is quite different from that considered by research into transport and social exclusion: an inadvertent outcome of this situation is that the overall view of the sheer variety of situations that cause people to live without cars is lost. By contrast, I argue in this thesis that there is a need to focus on the composition of the carless group as a whole, and on how it varies over time and space. The empirical work illustrated in Part III of this thesis is organized around two research questions, and both deal with the composition of the carless households group. Notably, the research questions are derived from the ‘car dependence’ theoretical framework, as illustrated in Chapter 3. In a nutshell, the idea behind both research questions is that there is a relationship between the degree of car dependence of a given (local) society and the composition of the carless households group. The two research questions adopt different approaches to explore the relationship between car dependence and the composition of the carless households group. Question 1 adopts a synchronic perspective, by comparing types of area with different levels of car dependence at the same moment in time. Differences in the composition of the carless group across different types of area are explored, with reference to the following four areas: socio-demographics, reasons for not owning cars, travel behaviour and accessibility to services and opportunities. Based on the results of previous research, the different types of area are assumed to correspond to different degrees of car dependence. Question 2 adopts a diachronic perspective by comparing the composition of the carless households group at different moments in time. The assumption is that, given the continuing process of increasing motorisation, car dependence is higher at a later moment in time. In this case, only the socio-demographic composition of the carless household group has been explored. In accordance with the tradition of the Doctoral Programme in Urban and Local European Studies at the University of Milan-Bicocca, the empirical work has focused on two case studies: Germany and Great Britain. Information about the countries (with reference to transport and spatial planning policies and previous research on car ownership trends and households without cars) is provided in Part II (chapters 4 and 5). Both research questions have been explored for both case studies, and the empirical results are illustrated in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7. The research strategy adopted is quantitative secondary analysis of national travel surveys (Mobilität in Deutschland and National Travel Survey). For the synchronic analysis, I used data from the 2008 wave of MiD and a pooled sample (2002-2010) for NTS. For the diachronic analysis, I compared data from the 2002 and 2008 waves of MiD, and single waves of the continuous NTS survey over the period 2002-2010. The data analysis techniques employed include, beside descriptive analysis, (multinomial) logistic regression, cluster analysis and latent class analysis. All techniques are described in detail in Appendix A in Part V. Appendix B and C report the details of the data analysis for both case studies, as well as technical details for both national travel surveys. Part IV consists of a single concluding chapter, including two sections. Firstly, the empirical evidence for the two case studies is brought together and discussed in light of the research questions and hypotheses. Secondly, the empirical results are discussed in light of the theoretical and policy debates outlined in Part I and II. In the following, I outline the main empirical results of this thesis. - firstly, the carless households group is considerably more concentrated among marginal social groups in low density and peripheral (‘car dependent’) types of area. To put it simply, this means that the composition of the carless group is a good indicator for the level of car dependence of a local area. More formally stated, this means that the strength of the association between non-car ownership and its socio-demographic determinants increases as the degree of urbanity decreases. This is a novel conclusion, and sits alongside the results of previous research suggesting that the car is more of a necessity in low density areas - secondly, the ‘mobility gap’ and the ‘accessibility gap’ of carless households (as compared to car-owning households) increase as the degree of urbanity decreases. Also, results for the British case study suggest that carless individuals are more likely to rely on car lifts, taxis and other motorised transport modes in the most car dependent areas. However, in-depth analysis shows that all of these results are also the by-product of the varying socio-demographic composition of the carless group across different types of area - thirdly, carless households in low density areas are more likely to mention age and health-related constraints as reasons for not owning a car. Conversely, they are less likely to mention choice and lack of need. However, perhaps counterintuitively, it is carless households in compact cities who are the most likely to be carless for economic reasons These empirical results contribute to theoretical and methodological debates in both fields of research (environmentally sustainable transport and transport and social exclusion research). Notably: - by showing the variety of conditions associated with non-car ownership, I counter the assumption that lack of car access per se leads to serious transport disadvantage. While the goal of this thesis was not to identify those carless households who are transport disadvantaged, distinguishing them from those who are not, the empirical results suggest that not owning cars might result in very different forms of disadvantage, ranging from virtual immobility to reliance on others for car lifts to time poverty (as a result of lengthy commutes with alternative modes). This thesis shows that these different forms of non-car ownership are not distributed randomly, but follow a spatial pattern: therefore, it might serve as a blueprint for future studies based on ad-hoc surveys or adopting a qualitative approach - the empirical chapters bring to light the peculiar features and the complex structure of the carless households group. Indeed, this population is: concentrated among marginal social groups; concentrated in large cities and in the most densely populated areas; more concentrated among marginal social groups in suburban and rural areas and where population density is low (a novel conclusion). Arguably, this increases the risk of drawing wrong or misleading conclusions when comparing means between the car-owing and the carless population. In other words, the complex structure of the carless households group has methodological implications for future research - the empirical results about the reasons for not owning cars suggest that the emphasis of existing research on questions of choice is misplaced. The data do not show a continuum between the poles of choice and constraint, but rather the existence of ‘absolute’ constraints to car ownership (such as those related to old age and health-related mobility difficulties), on one hand, and the complex interweaving of ‘weaker’ economic constraints with choice and lack of need, on the other. Notably, one possible interpretation of the results is that low-income households have to choose between ‘two evils’: lack of car access (with possible implications in terms of reduced accessibility) and the economic stress arising from owning and running a car. Depending on the structural constraints brought about by the built environment, they end up choosing one or the other. In other words, there might be a complementary relationship between two forms of car-related transport disadvantage: car deprivation and car-related economic stress. While this hypothesis is not tested in this thesis, it is put forward for future research To sum up, with this thesis I hope to demonstrate two things. First, it is possible to conceptualize the environmental and the social consequences of transport within a single framework, and to conduct empirical studies that take into account both sides. The key link between the two concerns is the need to own and drive cars. Second, focusing on those who do not own cars is a powerful way to understand better what makes people so reluctant to give up theirs.

Ein Viertel der britischen Beschäftigten und mehr als ein Fünftel der Beschäftigten in Deutschland arbeiten Teilzeit, mit steigender Tendenz in beiden Ländern. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden die Teilzeit als am weitesten verbreitete Form flexibler Beschäftigung und ihre Konsequenzen untersucht, um zu diskutieren, welche Möglichkeiten und Schwierigkeiten hieraus für die Erwerbstätigen entstehen. Darüber hinaus werden die Konsequenzen für den regulierten deutschen und den flexiblen britischen Arbeitsmarkt kontrastiert. Befürworter der Arbeitsmarktflexibilisierung argumentieren, dass Teilzeit als Arbeitsmarktchance anzusehen ist, etwa für solche Beschäftigtengruppen wie Frauen, die bislang vom Normalarbeitsverhältnis, durch unbefristete Vollzeitbeschäftigung charakterisiert, ausgeschlossen waren (Inklusionsthese). Deshalb ist eine Egalisierung von weiblichen und männlichen Erwerbsverläufen zu erwarten. Im Gegensatz dazu argumentieren Gegner flexibler Beschäftigung, eine Ausweitung der Teilzeit bedroht gültige Beschäftigungsstandards und führt zu einer Zunahme sozialer Ungleichheit im segmentierten Arbeitsmarkt (Exklusionsthese). Ergebnisse auf der Basis des British Household Panel Survey 1991 bis 2001 und des Deutschen Sozio-ökonomischen Panel 1984 bis 1991 zeigen auf, dass Teilzeit großes Potenzial hat, Individuen in den Arbeitsmarkt zu integrieren, das bislang jedoch nicht vollständig genutzt wird. Besonders für Frauen entstehen Arbeitsmarktchancen durch Teilzeit. Allerdings sind Beschäftigte mit höheren Bildungsinvestitionen, wie nach der Humankapitaltheorie zu erwarten war, stärker an Vollzeitbeschäftigung interessiert, um ihre Einkommen zu maximieren. Außerdem sind Teilzeitbeschäftigungsverhältnisse von durchschnittlich geringerer Dauer und Teilzeitbeschäftigte weisen ein höheres (geringeres) Risiko auf, im Falle eines beruflichen Wechsels abzusteigen (aufzusteigen) als Vollzeitbeschäftigte. Zusammengenommen weisen diese Ergebnisse darauf hin, dass die Ungleichheit zwischen den Geschlechtern auf dem Arbeitsmarkt zwar abnimmt, bedingt durch die Heterogenisierung sowohl der weiblichen als auch der männlichen Beschäftigten, jedoch ein Bedarf an attraktiven Teilzeitstellen auf dem Level qualifizierter Beschäftigung fortbesteht.
A quarter of British employees and more than one in five German employees are part-timers, with a rising tendency in both countries. In this study, part-time as the most widespread type of flexible employment and their consequences are investigated to discuss opportunities and problems emerging for individual employees. Additionally, these consequences are compared for the strongly regulated German and the highly flexible British labour market. Proponents of flexible employment state that part-time gives labour market opportunities to those groups such as women which have been formerly excluded from the standard employment relationship, characterised by permanent full-time contracts (Inclusion hypothesis). Therefore, an equalisation between male and female employees is expected. In contrast, opponents of flexible employment argue that an expansion of part-time threatens existing employment standards and produces higher social inequality in a segmented labour market (Exclusion hypothesis). Evidence based on the British Household Panel Survey from 1991 to 2001 and the German Socio-economic Panel from 1984 to 1991 shows that part-time employment has a huge potential to integrate individuals in the labour market which has not been fully used so far. Especially for women, employment opportunities emerge. However, employees with high investments in their human capital are more interested in full-time employment to maximise their income as expected according to the human capital theory. Moreover, part-time episodes are on average of shorter duration and part-timers have a higher (lower) risk to experience downward (upward) mobility than their full-time employed counterparts. These results suggest that while there is a decrease of gender inequality in the labour market due to the increasing heterogeneity of both, female and male employees, there is still a need for more attractive part-time positions on the level of skilled work.

This thesis develops a theory of international social closure to examine (i) the politics of membership in status groups – or, clubs – in international society and (ii) the persistence of clubs in international society. This thesis offers new concepts to improve the English School’s understanding of international society, its expansion, and its reproduction. In so doing it also addresses limitations and gaps in the IR status literature and the global governance and diplomacy literatures concerned with clubs and networks. This thesis analyses strategies of exclusion, entry, and incorporation used by actors to deny, attempt, or grant inclusion into clubs as well as the institutional contexts underpinning those clubs. Specifically, this research undertakes a study of instances of exclusion, entry, and incorporation in the context of three clubs: the Family of Civilised Nations, the Great Powers club, and G-summitry. In the first two cases, this research relies primarily on secondary sources while in the case of G-summitry it presents original empirical research gathered through archival research, interviews, and ethnographic participant observation. This thesis presents four main conclusions about the operation of closure: (i) the logics of different closure games are defined by overarching normative institutions of international society; (ii) despite a collectivist closure rule, closure in international society is predominantly individualistic; (iii) actors seeking entry tend to employ deferential entry strategies that reproduce a stratified status quo order; and (iv) incorporation promotes stratification along both functional and cultural lines. This thesis also draws three specific conclusions that run counter to much current scholarship: (i) contemporary international society is neither more open nor less hierarchical than nineteenth century international society; (ii) hierarchy is reproduced to a large degree by entry and incorporation strategies rather than exclusion strategies; and (iii) closure does not run along a ‘west versus the rest’ fault line.

Defence date: 13 December 2004
Examining board: Michael Haliassos, Department of Economics, University of Cyprus ; Andrea Ichino, European University Institute ; Karl Schlag, Supervisor, European University Institute ; Jan C. van Ours, Department of Economics, Tilburg University

Defence date: 23 May 2016
Examining Board: Professor Hans-Peter Blossfeld, European University Institute; Professor Fabrizio Bernardi, European University Institute; Professor Angela M. O'Rand, Duke University; Professor Cristina Iannelli, The University of Edinburgh
The UK's comparatively open and flexible education system provides more options for individuals from less advantaged backgrounds to participate, and has a high uptake of tertiary and adult education. However, individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds remain proportionately under-represented at the highest levels of post-compulsory education. The complex relationship between expansion, the diversification of educational systems and freedom of choice in modern liberal societies means that the background from which students are drawn remains highly relevant to their progression. Multiple options and qualitative differences between courses and institutions puts the onus on students and parents to make correct career decisions - if students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are found more often in less prestigious educational pathways, then prestigious higher level institutions are likely to remain exclusive. The major contribution of my dissertation is the development of an overview of UK educational and labour market pathway formation and its influence on individuals' educational trajectories and social positions. More specifically, I expand on Kerckhoff's (1993) work on "Diverging Pathways: Social Structure and Career Deflections", taking into account changes since the introduction of the comprehensive system, gender differences and adult education. I further the distinction between a pathway and a trajectory in life-course research and elaborate on the debated question of "persistent inequality", taking the theoretical perspective of "effectively maintained inequality" (Lucas 2001) into account. Finally, I consider the role of interactions between different types of inequality (cumulatingdimensions). This thesis finds that students from more educated backgrounds are more likely to choose academic subjects and pathways early, which influences their performance and further progression opportunities. It also finds that men and women differ regarding educational pathways, that vertical gender inequalities and horizontal gender differences at first labour market entry have remained relatively stable over the latter half of the 20th century. And finally, that adult education and learning is subject to a "Matthew effect" (Merton 1968).

OBJECTIVE: To investigate differential item functioning or item bias of the Rivermead Mobility Index (RMI) and its impact on the drawing of valid comparisons with the RMI between subgroups of patients after stroke who differ with respect to age, sex, or side of lesion. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: A rehabilitation center in the Netherlands and 2 stroke rehabilitation units and the wider community in the United Kingdom. PARTICIPANTS: The RMI was completed for patients undergoing rehabilitation after stroke (N=620; mean age +/- SD, 69.2+/-12.5y; 297 [48%] men; 269 [43%] right hemisphere lesion, and 304 [49%] left hemisphere lesion). INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Mokken scale analysis was used to investigate differential item functioning of the RMI between subgroups of patients who differed with respect to age (young vs older), sex (men vs women), and side of stroke lesion (right vs left hemisphere). RESULTS: No differential item functioning was found for any of the comparison subgroups. CONCLUSIONS: The RMI allows valid comparisons to be made between subgroups of patients undergoing rehabilitation after stroke who differ with respect to age, sex, or side of lesion.

Przedmiotem rozprawy doktorskiej są urzędnicze kariery realizowane w polskim korpusie służbie cywilnej tj. pionowa i pozioma mobilność zawodowa członków tego korpusu. Praca koncentruje się na zewnętrznych uwarunkowaniach tych karier na tle procesów polityzacji i profesjonalizacji służby cywilnej. Rozprawa – z uwagi na jej politologiczny charakter – obejmuje analizę uwarunkowań: politycznych, prawnych, ekonomicznych i kulturowych. W pracy doktorskiej analizowane są również sytuacje, w których urzędnicy zawodowi obejmują stanowiska polityczne w urzędach administracji rządowej (minister, wiceminister, członek gabinetu politycznego). Innym, badanym zagadnieniem jest zmiana statusu zatrudnienia w służbie cywilnej, tj. uzyskanie statusu mianowanego urzędnika służby cywilnej poprzez ukończenie tzw. postępowania kwalifikacyjnego lub Krajowej Szkoły Administracji Publicznej. W całej pracy dużo uwagi poświęcono wyższym rangą urzędnikom, gdyż to oni stanowią elitę administracyjną i mają bezpośredni kontakt z poziomem politycznym. W pracy poza analizą pozostał problem awansu kobiet, osób niepełnosprawnych oraz przedstawicieli innych grup defaworyzowanych w służbie cywilnej. Poza zakresem szczegółowej analizy pozostały także, co do zasady, inne wewnętrzne uwarunkowania kariery takie jak kwestie osobowościowe (zdolności przywódcze, ambicja) czy wiek. Praca w ograniczonym stopniu dotyczy również mobilności międzynarodowej, tj. przepływu kadr między administracjami narodowymi lub administracją narodową a organizacjami międzynarodowymi. W związku z tym nie będzie analizowana np. kwestia zatrudniania cudzoziemców w polskiej służbie cywilnej wynikająca z unijnej zasady swobodnego przepływu osób. Rozprawa pomija także zagadnienie rekrutacji do służby cywilnej osób, które nigdy wcześniej w niej nie pracowały. Nie analizuje się zatem tzw. „pierwszego zatrudnienia” w służbie cywilnej. Co do zasady, praca dotyczy sześcioletniego okresu, w którym obowiązywała najnowsza Ustawa o służbie cywilnej z 2008 roku (od wejścia w życie 24.03.2009 do 24.03.2015). Problem badawczy pracy dotyczy tego, jakie uwarunkowania zewnętrzne w jakim stopniu decydują o drogach urzędniczej kariery. Głównym celem rozprawy jest natomiast weryfikacja następującej hipotezy badawczej: „ścieżki urzędniczej kariery w polskiej służbie cywilnej są w największym stopniu determinowane przez uwarunkowania polityczne”. Celem cząstkowym jest analiza elementów stanowiących przedmiot badań. Są to przede wszystkim uwarunkowania ścieżek kariery w służbie cywilnej w Polsce. Dodatkowo, analiza obejmuje uwarunkowania występujące w brytyjskiej, francuskiej i unijnej służbie cywilnej. Drugim celem cząstkowym jest identyfikacja kierunków rozwoju mobilności urzędniczej. Trzecim jest z kolei zaproponowanie rozwiązań w zakresie mobilności urzędniczej, które usprawnią funkcjonowanie państwa.
The careers pursued by the officials in the Polish civil service corps, i.e. vertical and horizontal occupational mobility of the members of this corps, is the subject of the doctoral thesis. The thesis focuses on the external determinants of these careers against the processes of politicization and professionalization of the civil service. The thesis – due to its political science nature – encompasses the analysis of the political, legal, economic and cultural determinants. In the thesis the situations in which civil servants take political positions in government administration offices (minister, deputy minister, political cabinet member) are also analyzed. Another issue under consideration is the alteration of the employment status in the civil service i.e. gaining the status of the civil servant through the completion of so called qualification procedure or the graduation from the National School of Public Administration. In the whole thesis considerable attention has been paid to senior civil servants, since they constitute the administrative elite and have a direct contact with the political level. The problem of advancement of women, people with disabilities and the representatives of other, disadvantaged groups in the civil service remained outside of the analysis conducted in this thesis. In general, other, internal career factors like personal issues (leadership abilities, ambition) or age remained outside of the detailed analysis as well. The work to a limited degree applies also to international mobility, i.e. flow of cadres between national administrations or between the national administration and international organizations. Hence, the issue of employing the foreigners in the Polish civil service resulting from the European Union principle of free movement of persons will not be analyzed. The doctorate ignores also the issue of recruitment of persons, who have never worked in the civil service. Therefore, the so called “first employment” in the civil service is not being analyzed. In principle, the doctorate regards the six-year period, in which the newest Civil Service Act from 2008 was in force (from entering into force on 24.03.2009 to 24.03.2015). What external determinants to what degree decide about the officials’ career paths is the research problem of the doctorate. Its main objective is to verify the following research hypothesis: “the career paths of officials in the Polish civil service are to the greatest degree determined by political factors”. The partial aim is to analyze the elements constituting the subject of the research. Above all, these are the determinants of the career paths in the civil service in Poland. In addition, the analysis includes the determinants present in the British, French and European civil service. The identification of the directions of changes in the officials’ mobility development is the second partial aim. The third one, on the other hand, is to propose the solutions in the scope of civil servants’ mobility, that will improve the functioning of the state.