Climate change impacts on Namibia's natural resources and economy

Climate change is likely to exacerbate the dry conditions already experienced in southern Africa. When rainfall does come, it is likely to be in bursts of greater intensity, leading to erosion and flood damage. However, these predictions have had very little influence on policy in southern African countries. Computable general equilibrium (CGE) model simulations for Namibia indicate that over 20 years, annual losses to the Namibian economy could be up to 5% of GDP, due to the impact that climate change will have on its natural resources alone. This will affect the poorest people the most, with resulting constraints on employment opportunities and declining wages, especially for unskilled labour in rural areas. Namibia must take steps to ensure that all its policies and activities are ‘climate proofed’ and that it has a strategy to deal with displaced farmers and farm workers. The need to mainstream climate change into policies and planning is clear, and it is the responsibility of industrialized nations, who have largely created the problem of climate change, to help Namibia and other vulnerable countries cope with climate change impacts and plan for a climate-constrained future.     

大城市通勤方式与职住失衡的相互关系

随着城市的扩张,人们的就业—居住空间跨度不断扩大。通勤方式的多样化和通勤效率的提高会对就业者的职住状况产生影响。以通勤时间作为通勤成本能从就业者的角度辨析个体的职住失衡状况。本文基于贝叶斯-tobit的统计分析方法,结合北京市7个街道和地区的问卷调查数据,分析了慢行交通、机动车、轨道交通、地面公交等4种通勤方式与职住失衡的相互关系。同时,引入就业可达性和用地混合度作为调节变量,考察其对不同通勤方式与职住失衡之间原有关系的影响。研究发现：①慢行交通的通勤方式与职住失衡程度存在负相关性;②机动车、轨道交通和地面公交的通勤方式与职住失衡程度存在正相关性;③就业可达性和用地混合度会弱化慢行交通、轨道交通、地面公交通勤方式与职住失衡程度的原有关系,即在低就业可达性和用地混合度条件下,慢行交通通勤者的职住失衡度更低,而轨道交通和地面公交通勤者的职住失衡度更高;④就业可达性和用地混合度的差异对机动车通勤与职住失衡之间的关系没有影响。上述结果表明：低就业可达性和用地混合度能够缓解慢行交通通勤者的职住失衡程度;但对于轨道交通和地面公交的通勤者来说,低就业可达性和用地混合度会加剧其职住失衡的程度。此外,机动车通勤者不易受外部客观因素的影响而改变出行方式。     

珠三角外围地区农村回流劳动力的就业选择及影响因素

在农村劳动力持续外流的同时,农村地区的劳动力存在着弱回流,农村回流劳动力对乡村振兴与重构极为重要。基于珠三角外围地区不同地域类型的15个村的问卷调查资料,采用Logistic回归模型,对农村回流劳动力的就业选择特征及非农就业的影响因素进行综合分析。研究发现：① 外出务工的工资性收入的资本积累,是返乡从事零售、杂货、服装和个体修理等个体经营的基础,非农就业在空间选择上倾向于中心镇或县（区）。② 农村人口外流致使农村地域的人地关系发生显著变化,农地生计保障性功能弱化,农地规模经营的租种成本降低,部分农村回流劳动力选择从事农业生产,主要以种植经济果林、药材为主,助推了农用地非粮化。③ 农村回流劳动力的非农就业受到个人特征、家庭特征、村庄特征等多元因素影响。在个人特征方面,年龄越小、受教育程度越高的回流者从事非农职业的倾向性越大;在家庭特征方面,家庭务农人数与务工人数越少、农田面积越小的回流劳动力倾向于从事非农职业;在村庄特征方面,不同县域的农村劳动力就业倾向差异较大,距离县城越近的农村劳动力从事非农职业的几率越大。县域村镇体系的中心地发展与规划建设是乡村转型发展的关键地域节点。     

Stuck in transition? Exploring the spaces of employment training for youth with intellectual disability

This paper is concerned with the experiences of young adults with intellectual disabilities as they transition from high school in search of paid employment. The experiences of people with intellectual disability remain under-researched within geography. We use qualitative techniques to examine the experiences of six young adults with intellectual disabilities. Data are drawn from interviews with the youth themselves, their parents, and employers, as well as from participant observation at an employment training program for the intellectually disabled. While the primary goal of the youth and their parents was to make a transition to competitive paid work, a lack of transition planning, a shortage of appropriate opportunities and other factors meant the youth spent considerable time in ‘transitional spaces’ such as the vocational training centre, sheltered workshop, and supported employment placements. While these spaces are organized around an explicitly economic goal of augmenting the youth’s employability, they can play a critical role as spaces for social interaction and meaningful activity outside the home. Study findings point to the importance of moving beyond paid employment as the core of a successful transition to consider a broader goal of ‘meaningful activity’.     

就业郊区化背景下郊区就业者日常活动时空间特征研究——以北京上地地区为例

个体日常活动时空间特征反映了其对城市空间利用的时空需求,是衡量社会服务、公共资源配置的新维度。基于个体行为分析郊区就业者日常生活时空间特征,有利于透视郊区就业者的空间需求以及就业郊区化带来的城市空间变革。利用2012年北京市活动出行调查数据,选取居住在北京郊区且在上地地区(郊区)工作的203个就业者样本,从非汇总角度对该群体日常活动时空间特征进行描述分析,揭示郊区就业者日常活动的时空需求。研究结果发现,郊区就业者在休息日的活动呈现较强的时间碎片化与空间分散性特征;郊区就业者对中心城区存在较强的空间依赖,很大一部分休闲购物活动需要前往中心城区发生,同时郊区大型商业设施也一定程度上吸引了郊区就业者,郊区功能趋向复合化;郊区就业空间职能较为单一,公共和商业设施供给不足,利用率较低,需进一步完善。     

Migratory Patterns and Settlement Experiences of African Australians of Refugee Background in Murray Bridge,South Australia

In the past decade Australian immigration policy has emphasised settlement of refugees/humanitarian entrants in rural and regional locations, in preference to metropolitan areas. The settlement outcomes of a case study of African humanitarian entrants of South Sudanese background in Murray Bridge, a regional centre in South Australia, are examined. These participants were self-settled secondary movers from metropolitan Adelaide. The factors which attracted them were centred on employment. Settlement outcomes for Murray Bridge respondents were better than their urban counterparts, in terms of both housing and employment outcomes. However, some later left Murray Bridge because of a lack of opportunities for tertiary education. The results highlight issues of sustainability of settlement and retention, in regional centres in Australia, and of the fluidity of attraction and retention factors and therefore settlement in regional centres.     

Transit,Employment and Women on Welfare1

Inadequate transportation has emerged as a major barrier to employment for welfare recipients required to transition from public assistance to employment under welfare reform. Transportation is a particularly daunting barrier for single women without access to a household car. This study uses multivariate techniques to examine whether nearby transit access impacts the employment outcomes of this population in Los Angeles County. Results show that the level of transit service near a recipient's home makes a moderate, yet statistically significant, contribution to increasing the probability of employment and transit use for work-related trips. However, recipients who use public transit face multiple problems, including overcrowding and infrequent service.     

Working in a Landscape of Recession and Expansion: Academic Jobs in Geography in the United States, 1990–2011

The recent economic recession brought much university hiring to a standstill in the United States. Geography, in spite of strong prerecession growth, was no exception. Without a sense of how the academic geography job market has changed over the past decades, however, it is difficult to assess any recession-related decline or the relative strength of any recovery. This article presents an analysis of academic job postings in the field of geography from 1990 through 2011. Using data aggregated from the AAG Newsletter, which acts as an informal clearinghouse for most academic openings for geographers at four-year colleges and universities in the United States, we assess changes in the overall magnitude in numbers of academic job openings, with the particular goal of placing the recession-based paucity of openings within its broader historical context. Our results indicate that, indeed, the recession led to a very sharp decline in advertisements, but compared to previous recessions, the recovery appears to have occurred very quickly. Open-rank and temporary/non-tenure-track positions appear to have been fairly robust to the poor economic conditions, whereas assistant professor openings were particularly hard hit.     

AN ESTIMATE OF ANNUAL GLOBAL ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTANT EMISSIONS FROM GRASSLAND FIRES AND AGRICULTURAL BURNING IN THE TROPICS

Faculty development in the fullest sense depends largely on the faculty member's learning environment. This article suggests ways in which departments can provide a context for professional growth through management of faculty assignments, professional rewards, departmental activities, and internal support. Leadership, consistency, and patience are discussed as the keys to a departmental approach to faculty development. The professional growth and productivity of its faculty members are obviously important determinants of a department's stature and hence its ability to remain viable in a period of academic retrenchment. Other elements of departmental policy that affect a unit's survival capabilities will be the subject of another article by these same authors to appear in the February issue.     

Creative economy and employment quality in large urban areas in Spain

The impact of the economic crisis should act as an incentive to devise less vulnerable economic development models for Spanish cities. This study confirms that the impact of the creative economy, one of the most interesting initiatives in this context, remains very limited. Furthermore, microdata obtained from a sample of one million workers in Spain, published annually by the Social Security system, confirm that the sharp contrasts emerging in employment quality between sectors and regions, the processes of ‘precariousness of talent’ and labour dualization expressed through inequalities in the occupational structure are each becoming significant threats to viable economic development. For the creative economy to be an effective instrument for metropolitan regeneration, adapted to suit the specificities of particular urban development paths, an improved understanding of the inherent complexity of creative-economy employment relations is required.