Identification of a Global Societal Issue to Study
A problem that people in the modern world encounter is the need for better jobs and prosperous economic prospects. Several reasons contribute to unemployment and a lack of economic opportunities. One challenge is that academic institutions offer courses to prepare students for jobs after graduation.
Most regions of the world have been troubled by unemployment, which has been accompanied by mounting allegations of an increase in social crimes. As a result, poverty has evolved into a social issue that concerns citizens of various developing nations. These nations now have to devise solutions to the issues that stand in the way of sustainable development and higher living standards for all populations worldwide.
Research Topic Selection and Use of Scholarly Sources
Methods for Identifying and Narrowing Down a Research Topic
Finding a way to focus on one’s topic before starting a research paper is a common issue. When an examination of the literature considers an excessive number of distinct, frequently at odds with one another, or only tangentially connected, opinions regarding how to approach the research challenge, the topic is too vast to be managed.
Critical Approaches to Evaluating Scholarly Sources
Academic work is reviewed by a group of experts before publication to ensure high caliber. Recognizing the elements that define a scholarly article is critical, even though the content and format of these publications can differ from one piece to the next.
- By the author. Scholarly papers are always written by subject-matter experts in their fields of study. These writers’ credentials are typically listed when you read an academic publication. Typically, the listing indicates the author’s affiliation with each organization.
- By audience. Scholarly authors create their works with scholars, researchers, and students in mind. Because of this, when writing the paper, they presume the reader has some level of experience and employ specialist vocabulary specific to the area of study they are covering.
- By references. Scholarly article authors must cite their prior research both in-text and after their papers if they use it in their work. A bibliography will be included at the end of every academic work.
Key Insights from Scholarly Journal Articles Supporting the Topic
The article by Benanav explores the fact that the International Labour Organization (ILO) replaced the term traditional sector, which had lost favor because it was used in conjunction with the modern industry, with the informal sector (2019). This article contends that a different context—the ILO’s post-war efforts to construct a globally applicable notion of unemployment for use in the “developing world”—best explains how the informal sector idea came to be adopted (Benanav, 2019). ILO officials gave up on this initiative in the late 1960s after realizing it was impossible to accurately indicate what they dubbed “disguised unemployment” in societies where labor for pay was not a standard social norm. This prompted the ILO to create substitute concepts, such as “employment in the informal sector.” The agency also struggled to operationalize those, and it soon realized that it had lost control over the measures’ potential policy ramifications.
The study by Feng & Rauch uses household survey data from nations with all income levels (2018) to determine how average jobless rates fluctuate with per capita income. The authors provide evidence showing that unemployment rises together with GDP per capita. To make sense of these facts, they develop a model with employees of various skill levels, two sectors, and a traditional sector where self-employed people produce output without compensation for their abilities. In other words, skill-based output is rising in a modern economic sector where firms hire through uncooperative labor markets.
References
Benanav, A. (2019). The origins of informality: the ILO at the limit of the concept of unemployment. Journal of Global History, 14(1), 107-125. Web.
Feng, Y., Lagakos, D., & Rauch, J. E. (2018). Unemployment and development. Web.