Need Help with Research Methods!!?

Question

Hi everyone

I have to conduct a literature review based on two variables...however, I'm having a very hard time finding any articles on certain variables.

I came up with one: "As immigration increases, unemployment increases." but I'm having a very hard time finding any recent articles on this subject.

Is there any suggestions as to what other variables I could use for my methods assignment? And if yes, does it have alot of articles on it, and where would I get access to it?

Thanks guys!

Answer 1

How are you putting the terms in for the search and what kind of materials do you have at hand. If your school doesnt have great databases id try to see if you cant find something on some different scholarly search engines. I would think Immigration and Unemployment should turn up a number of different resources. If unemployment isnt working, you might try using another indicator or perhaps something more broad that could still be tested, like economic growth. You would probably have to operationalize what growth means, but thats doable.

Answer 2

There has been quite a bit written on this subject, but most of the first few things I came across have been written about other countries -- particularly Canada. This should be sufficient to provide a theoretical grounding for research on America (or whatever country you're studying). If you're looking for specific information on a particular country, it might take some digging.

JSTOR (www.jstor.org) is a very good place to look, assuming you can access it from your school.

In particular, there's a paper called "Do Migrants Rob Jobs?" in journal of economic history that seems useful and is available on JSTOR (linked below).

If you have trouble getting access to this, there are probably other papers you can find with whatever resources are available to you -- rest assured that there's nothing wrong with the topic you've chosen.