Paper presented at Conference Connecting to Work: Consequences of Long-Term Unemployment and Prospect for Job Creation, UCLA: Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, April 1-2 2011.In this paper, we will argue, based on a survey we conducted with employers, that the willingness of Dutch employers to cooperate with social services is highly dependent on company size. Therefore, in our opinion, social services should take company size into account when they are trying to find employers who are willing to cooperate with them. Whereas all employers underline the importance of financial considerations when it comes to their intention to cooperate with social services, employers at small companies (less than 11 employees) are especially sensitive to a more idealistic approach (“making a difference”) compared to employers at middle-sized (11-100 employees) and large companies (over 100 employees).
There has been a rapidly growing number of studies of the geographical aspects of happiness and well-being. Many of these studies have been highlighting the role of space and place and of individual and spatial contextual determinants of happiness. However, most of the studies to date do not explicitly consider spatial clustering and possible spatial spillover effects of happiness and well-being. The few studies that do consider spatial clustering and spillovers conduct the analysis at a relatively coarse geographical scale of country or region. This article analyses such effects at a much smaller geographical unit: community areas. These are small area level geographies at the intra-urban level. In particular, the article presents a spatial econometric approach to the analysis of life satisfaction data aggregated to 1,215 communities in Canada and examines spatial clustering and spatial spillovers. Communities are suitable given that they form a small geographical reference point for households. We find that communities’ life satisfaction is spatially clustered while regression results show that it is associated to the life satisfaction of neighbouring communities as well as to the latter's average household income and unemployment rate. We consider the role of shared cultural traits and institutions that may explain such spillovers of life satisfaction. The findings highlight the importance of neighbouring characteristics when discussing policies to improve the well-being of a (small area) place.
Re-structuring of a Dutch mono-industrial region; example of TwenteTable of contents of the chapter Introduction Geography and location of Twente Industrialization of Twente and development of the Textile Industry Decline of the Textile Industry Restructuring Twente: arguments for a regional innovation strategy Moving towards a more diversified economy Stronger co-operation between governments, universities, and industries The role of universities and the example of ‘Kennispark Twente’ Further regional and international co-operation Twente today
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