http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/keyword/labor Inquiries Journal provides undergraduate and graduate students around the world a platform for the wide dissemination of academic work over a range of core disciplines. en-us Tue, 21 Apr 2026 13:09:29 -0400 Tue, 21 Apr 2026 13:09:29 -0400 http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1903/from-flourishing-industrial-slavocracy-to-restrictive-tenancy-and-re-enslavement-the-southern-labor-force-before-and-after-the-civil-war By Mang Lu - Some scholars of American history suggest the institution of slavery was dying out on the eve of the Civil War, implying the Civil War was fought over more generic, philosophical states' rights principles rather than slavery itself. Economic evidence shows this conclusion is largely incorrect; the industrial slavocracy of the south was thriving—Southern aristocrats had every reason to fight the prospect of abolition, for the Southern economy and capital structure was almost exclusively on the ownership of Black men and women. After the war, repression continued through economic means, as... Tue, 25 May 2021 09:44 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1903/from-flourishing-industrial-slavocracy-to-restrictive-tenancy-and-re-enslavement-the-southern-labor-force-before-and-after-the-civil-war http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1797/cobalt-computation-and-the-congo-making-corporations-pay-for-their-transnational-terrors By Isabel G. Padalecki - Though electronic products are ubiquitous in the modern Western world, most people are not aware of the origins of the batteries that power devices such as laptop computers and mobile phones. Lithium-ion batteries, though used primarily in wealthy and affluent nations like the United States, include the element cobalt, a mineral mined primarily out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Lenntech). Despite the fact that the technologies supported by cobalt have greatly enhanced the lives of affluent Western technological consumers, the mining of cobalt has wreaked havoc on many Congolese communities... Tue, 15 Sep 2020 07:33 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1797/cobalt-computation-and-the-congo-making-corporations-pay-for-their-transnational-terrors http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1515/child-care-policy-and-female-labor-force-participation-a-comparison-of-germany-and-sweden By Analia Cuevas-Ferreras - Labor markets have traditionally been regarded as the product of a demand and supply of labor.2 In Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, political economists Peter A. Hall and David Soskice put forth two types of economies whose variant organization and structures lead them to experience distinct hiring incentives, which can impact the configuration of a country's labor market leading to gendered hiring practices. On the one hand, there are Liberal Market Economies (LMEs), which are free market economies "characterized by a relatively decentralized system... Mon, 05 Dec 2016 12:00 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1515/child-care-policy-and-female-labor-force-participation-a-comparison-of-germany-and-sweden http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1408/exploiting-the-poor-and-powerless-forced-labor-systems-in-the-early-and-later-modern-world By Drew Liquerman - Our world has witnessed significant shifts, transformations, and evolution in government systems, the balance of power among nations, economics, the rights of men and women, and social structures and relationships over the past 500 years. However, the plight of the poor and powerless worker has remained static. Societies blessed by climate, latitude, disease resistance, powerful militaries, and a little bit of luck have used this opportunity to exploit others. Throughout recorded history, nations and cultures have taken advantage of the cheap or free labor of conquered areas or the downtrodden... Sat, 14 May 2016 07:46 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1408/exploiting-the-poor-and-powerless-forced-labor-systems-in-the-early-and-later-modern-world http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1407/an-econometric-analysis-of-the-major-choice-of-first-generation-college-students By Sam Trejo - Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, I estimate a multinomial logit choice model for the college major decisions of first-generation college students|students who are the first in the families to attend college|and non-first-generation students. The model controls for other factors such as sex, race, ability, and family income to isolate the effect of first-generation status on major choice for two otherwise identical students. I find that first-generation college students do make statistically different college major selections than otherwise identical students. I then... Tue, 03 May 2016 12:00 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1407/an-econometric-analysis-of-the-major-choice-of-first-generation-college-students http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/905/the-labor-market-in-saudi-arabia-foreign-workers-unemployment-and-minimum-wage By Hammad S. Alhamad - On the other hand, Saudi nationals have witnessed high levels of unemployment for the past decade. Unemployment peaked in 2011 at 12.4% (Saudi Ministry of Labor, 2012); this was due mainly to structural problems such as competition from lower paid foreign workers. In addition to the problem of the many unskilled Saudi workers who need training in order to be integrated into the labor market, there is a demographic issue: the largest age group is the youth between 20 and 34. The labor market needs to accommodate this large number of workers every year, estimated to be around 300,000 (Fakieh, 2013... Sat, 28 Jun 2014 10:12 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/905/the-labor-market-in-saudi-arabia-foreign-workers-unemployment-and-minimum-wage http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/765/an-econometric-analysis-of-the-backward-bending-labor-supply-of-canadian-women By Adib J. Rahman - Although there have been a few studies on the women’s labor supply in both developed and developing countries, there are no recent studies as of 2009 that focus on the “backward-bending” labor supply of Canadian women. While some studies have focused on labor supply and its elasticities by considering the aspect of poverty in the labor supply analysis (El-Hamidi 2003, Sharif 1991, Dasgupta & Goldar 2005), and others have focused on testing the hypotheses advanced by the Nakamuras (1981) of finding a backward-bending supply curve for females similar to that of males (Robinson... Wed, 25 Sep 2013 09:23 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/765/an-econometric-analysis-of-the-backward-bending-labor-supply-of-canadian-women http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/717/the-tongue-of-the-learned-how-the-elaboration-likelihood-model-and-group-communication-can-improve-biblical-literacy By Jonathan D. Brackens - Interest in the intersection of religion and politics has grown in salience in the Post-9/11 era. Recent scholarship purports that when it comes to religion, Americans are profoundly ignorant. This ignorance leads to religious insensitivity that often results in suboptimum outcomes; thus, both religious and secular scholars have proposed policy actions to address religious illiteracy. As it pertains to biblical literacy, a policy debate exits which argues the question of whether or not the public sector should be involved in improving it. While each scholar proposes policies aimed to increase... Tue, 18 Dec 2012 03:43 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/717/the-tongue-of-the-learned-how-the-elaboration-likelihood-model-and-group-communication-can-improve-biblical-literacy http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/665/green-alliances-collaboration-between-businesses-and-environmental-advocacy-organizations By Anam Qudrat - The use of the familiar “command and control” approach to coerce businesses with government interference in order to raise awareness of the damage caused to the external environment proves to be ineffective, resulting often in violence and no long-term plan to introduce environmental consciousness (Livesey, 1999). Instead with the promotion of mutual collaboration, the concept of market based environmentalism emerges where ecological alternatives are made attractive to businesses so they can adopt them independently (Azzone & Bertele, 1994). Under this methodology, businesses are... Fri, 20 Jul 2012 08:05 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/665/green-alliances-collaboration-between-businesses-and-environmental-advocacy-organizations http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/318/the-equivocal-nature-of-exploitation-how-poor-workers-in-developing-nations-exploit-capitalist-greed-for-a-profit By Colin R. Fraser - Learning to play guitar is painful. For the first months, the coarse steel of the guitar strings shreds the soft skin of the player’s fingertips into a disgusting bloody mess. A reasonable person who does not play guitar would be entirely justified in thinking that the guitar student ought to take it a little bit easier on his poor fingers. Nonetheless, if the guitar student wants to some day be able to play without the pain, his best move is to play as much as possible. In the developing world, sweatshop labour might be viewed in a similar light as the mutilated fingertips of the guitar... Mon, 08 Nov 2010 09:42 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/318/the-equivocal-nature-of-exploitation-how-poor-workers-in-developing-nations-exploit-capitalist-greed-for-a-profit http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/245/labor-relations-under-the-bush-administration By Daniel J. Doyle - On January 20, 2001, George W. Bush was sworn into office as America’s 43rd President. Bush stood out amongst his 42 predecessors as the country’s first President to hold a Masters Degree in Business Administration.[1] This degree was granted by the Harvard Business School, an institution criticized by many in the Labor Movement as a place that has produced some of the uglier faces in modern business management.[2] Bush was called the CEO President because his decision making process closely resembled that of a business leader.[3] This style is marked by several advantages, including... Thu, 06 May 2010 08:05 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/245/labor-relations-under-the-bush-administration