Joong-Hwan Oh

Inequalities in nonfatal work injury: the significance of race, human capital, and occupations

Little research is conducted to examine the determinants of nonfatal injury on the job. In particular, this study stresses the importance of race, human capital, and occupational conditions in explaining nonfatal injury at work. It measures nonfatal work injury as an episode of work injury, using the data from the 1988 Occupational Health Supplement (1988 OHS) to the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). First, this study confirms no association between race and nonfatal injury at work. Second, the findings show that human capital, expressed through education and work experience, is the crucial determinant of nonfatal injury at work. In general, workers of more years of schooling and more work experience encounter less nonfatal injury at work than their counterparts. Third, the results also demonstrate the significance of occupational conditions (occupational positions and work activity) for nonfatal injury at work. Specifically, workers in professional occupations experience less work injury than workers in production occupations, but more work injury than workers engaged in clerical jobs. Even after controlling for occupational positions, there is a significant correlation between work activity and nonfatal work injury. Our study is a first step towards the causation of nonfatal injury on the job in terms of race, human capital, and occupational conditions. Therefore, the next step of work injury study needs to consider the influence of the other important determinants on nonfatal injury at work.

Social disorganizations and crime rates in U.S. central cities: Toward an explanation of urban economic change

Abstract Little attention has been paid to the simultaneous impacts of urban economic change, in particular the effects of industrial restructuring from manufacturing to service industries in central cities and the suburbanization of employment, on both central-city social disorganizations and crime rates in central cities. This study first assumes that urban economic decline aggravates central-city social disorganizations (family disruption, and population mobility). Second, this study proposes that urban economic decline increases central-city crime rates (seven index crime rates). This study used four predictors of economic transformations in an intrametropolitan area between 1980 and 1990 to measure urban economic change. Three of these measures were indicators of central-city economic change (changes in central-city employment ratio of service to manufacturing sectors, unemployment rate, and poverty rate), and one was an indicator of suburban economic change (suburban employment rate). Results from a sample of 153 central cities confirmed that a rise in the central-city employment ratio accelerated suburban population mobility. After including two measures of social disorganizations, urban economic change had a significant effect on central-city crime rates, in which a decline in manufacturing employment, relative to service employment, increased three central-city crime rates: aggravated assault, larceny, and burglary rates. Two central-city crime rates, rape and larceny, increased with a rise in central-city poverty rate, as well. In contrast, suburban employment growth was related to a decrease in central-city violent crime rates.

The Quest to Understand Self-employment in American Metropolitan Areas

The mechanisms shaping a shift in intrametropolitan self-employment remain poorly understood. In response, this study aims to examine shifts in both central-city and suburban self-employment by integrating the changing forces of intrametropolitan economy and population with their economic interdependence within an entire metropolitan area. Using a change-score model, data collected over two time-periods (1980—90 and 1990—2000) are pooled. The analysis shows that a decline in intrametropolitan manufacturing employment, which can be understood as an aspect of local economic restructuring, leads to an increase in intrametropolitan self-employment. Also, the data suggest that a rise in metropolitan-level immigrant population contributes to the growth of central-city self-employment. Moreover, this paper demonstrates that a shift in central-city self-employment is affected by both central-city and suburban economic transformations.

Immigration and social capital in a Korean-American women’s online community: Supporting acculturation, cultural pluralism, and transnationalism:

This study of a Korean-American women’s online community, also known as the “MissyUSA” community, has incorporated the concept of social capital with an important topic within each of three major migration research areas—legal immigration status in assimilation, the retention of Korean culinary culture in cultural pluralism, and transnational plans in transnationalism. The central argument of this article is that this “MissyUSA” community creates social capital for its online members. One important form of social capital stressed here is social resources that correspond to its online members’ (information seekers) access to valuable information regarding the process of obtaining legal status as documented immigrants, Korean-style cuisines, and their transnational plans. Moreover, social support is also regarded in this study as another form of social capital. In this case, the “MissyUSA” community becomes a network of social supporters by which they (respondents) support its information seekers through the transmission of their knowledge and/or through their positive emotional reactions.

Internet Use and Face-to-Face Social Interaction: An Analysis of Time-Use Data in South Korea and the US

Using time-use data collected in South Korea and the United States, this study examines what Internet users would do if they did not spend time online and whether these activities would include face-to-face social interaction, an important condition for a sense of attachment, physical and psychological health, and social integration. In contrast to most previous studies, we attempt to control for unobserved individual heterogeneity by either using a fixed-effects method or identifying random non-users—Internet users who do not go online on a specific day. Moreover, our cross-cultural comparison helps find more generalisable effects of Internet use. Despite the inconsistent statistical significance in the US and some differences between societies, overall, the results indicate that online time displaces time spent on face-to-face interaction with family and non-family members.