Link to formal advertisement to follow during the week:
Post
Details
PhD
Studentship Stirling Management School
Full-Time with Start Date on October 1st 2013 (with some flexibility)
Closing date: midnight on 31st August 2013
Full-Time with Start Date on October 1st 2013 (with some flexibility)
Closing date: midnight on 31st August 2013
Salary:
Fees plus 13k per annum
The
Post
This 3-year PhD
studentship, jointly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and
Skills Development Scotland, is targeted at a highly motivated individual who
wishes to work with our team on a study on the interaction of psychological and
economic outcomes during the period of transition of education to the labour
market. The successful applicant will conduct their PhD either in Economics or
in Business and Management working with Professor Liam Delaney and Dr. Michael
Daly of the Stirling Management School Behavioural Science Centre.
Description
of Duties
We aim to develop and
supervise the implementation of a programme of research to identify the welfare
impact of the transition from education to work and how well-being and
decision-making strategies explain heterogeneity in employment outcomes. This
project will: (i) review the youth labour market including the changing nature
of job opportunities and employment and training support, (ii) specify how core
components of the well-being of young people are influenced by unemployment and
engagement with labour market activation schemes. Furthermore, we will
identify: (iii) the individual differences in well-being and personality traits
that determine engagement with activation services and entry to the labour
force, and (iv) approaches that could be used to diminish the welfare effects
of the transition to work and facilitate successful engagement in job-search
and with skill development services.
This study will
capitalize on several pre-existing publically available datasets to meet the project
aims. A critical mass of large (N > 10,000) scale representative databases
have recently collected detailed information about the psychological
well-being, personality and employment characteristics (e.g. job search
duration) of individuals residing in Scotland and across the UK. We will focus
on the Annual Population Survey (cross-sectional survey of 165,000 UK
residents), Understanding Society (longitudinal study of 40,000 UK residents),
and the National Child Development Study (prospective cohort study of over
17,000 UK residents) data available through the Economic and Social Data
Service. These datasets offer rich opportunities to examine the welfare effects
of youth unemployment and behavioural factors which underlie heterogeneity in
the transition from education to employment in Scotland.
The projects will
develop along three strands. The first strand of the project examines the
changing youth labour market and the effects of this period of transition on
the perceptions and well-being of young people. Well-being is a complex
multilayered construct, with concepts such as happiness, eudaimonia, life
satisfaction, and distress which are often used interchangeably but, in
actuality, expressing many different ideas (Linley, Joseph, Harrington, &
Wood, 2006). The aim of this section of the project will be to examine the
extent to which these different concepts can be used to increase our
understanding of the well-being effects of the transition from education to
work. Furthermore, the impact of the recent recession on perceptions of
employment prospects and well-being will be a core topic of investigation.
The second strand of
the project attempts to examine the bi-directional nature of the causality
between the transition from education to work and well-being. There are two
large bodies of literature, one dominant literature that quantifies the effect
of unemployment on well-being, but also an increasingly important literature
examining the effect of well-being throughout the life-cycle on employment outcomes
(e.g. Goodman et al., 2011). This strand of the project will examine a very
plausible and understudied pathway, namely that people with a vulnerability to
distress have a higher propensity to fail in transitioning from education to
work. For this group, the experience of unemployment is particularly stressful
and can further exacerbate mental health problems. We will employ longitudinal
analyses to better understand the reciprocal relationship between well-being
and the duration of the transition from education to work.
The third strand of the
project develops the implications of these results for labour market policy for
young people in Scotland. To the extent that stress and depression influence
economic activity and have an interconnection, the importance of understanding
how this interacts with the social context of a modern welfare state is clear.
The main targeted outcomes will be high-impact
scientific publications in the areas of economics, psychology, and management.
Specific outputs will include: 1)
An empirical paper detailing the changing labour market prospects for young
people and how the period between education and employment affects the
well-being of those making this transition, 2) A paper which specifies the differential effect of personality
and well-being as measured using a diverse set of measures on job search,
engagement with apprenticeships/activation programs and successful entry into
employment, 3) An overview paper
which examines how an understanding and consideration of well-being and
personality could act to smooth the transition from education to employment.
Core papers from this work will be of interest to field journals in Economics
such as the Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Economic Behaviour and
Organisation, Psychology journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology and
Psychological Science are realistic targets for this work.
The PhD student will
receive extensive training in the use of novel methods in survey methodology as
they apply to economics, psychology and management research, and training in
how researchers can make effective use of administrative and survey data. High-frequency
panel studies being conducted in The Netherlands, Ireland, Canada and the USA,
will serve as an international training laboratory where the student can
capitalise on advanced survey and statistical training to test novel ideas that
require new measures such as anchoring vignettes, experimental survey data,
bio-markers and measures of well-being and preference parameters. The study team run several graduate
courses in advanced behavioural science theory, methods and statistical
analyses which the student can audit. The team also contribute to the Scottish
Graduate School of Social Science Summer School. The student will gain essential
skills from attending these and other methodological summer school courses. This training will enable the student to apply
econometric models to understand the effects of unemployment utilising rich
secondary data surveys such as the Understanding Society and National Child
Development Study data. This will enable a comprehensive assessment of the
extent and nature of the well-being effect of unemployment.
Essential
Criteria
Strong intrinsic interest in research at the
intersection of Economics and Psychology. Ability and willingness to contribute to the intellectual life of the center including participating in seminars, journal clubs, group discussions and related activity.
An Honours degree, or equivalent professional qualification.
Excellent written and oral communication skills.
Ability to work individually and autonomously as well as potential to work as part of a team.
Some proficiency in STATA and/or SPSS.
Desirable
Criteria
Postgraduate training in Economics or Psychology
with a strong emphasis on statistics.Specific knowledge of techniques for panel data analysis.
Existing experience directly in the area of statistical analysis of determinants of psychological welfare.
Evidence of active engagement with the area of behavioural science including student publications, internship experience and social media activity.
Experience of preparing research papers.
Additional
Information
About
the Stirling Management School Behavioural Science Center
Formed in 2012, the
Behavioural Sciences Centre is an interdisciplinary research centre which
brings together approaches from economics and psychology to address the key
questions in society, such as how to better understand and foster economic and
industrial prosperity, decision making and behaviour, and health and
well-being. The centre pursues these goals through basic science and applied
research, educational programmes, and industrial collaborations. Full details
of the work of the behavioural science center at Stirling are available at the
website below. We strongly encourage candidates to explore this website.
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