UCF Political Science Student’s Research Wins Big

Jennifer Hudson presenting her award winning research at the 2017 UCF Graduate Research Forum.

Jennifer Hudson, a University of Central Florida Department of Political Science graduate student, won the Miami-Florida Jean Monnet Center of Excellence Best Paper Award for graduate students.

Hudson is pursuing her master’s degree in political science. She was selected for the award for her paper on “Wage-Setting Institutions and Wage Inequality in the OECD: An Examination of the Effects of Liberalization of Wage-Setting Institutions and Membership in the EU and EMU on Wage Inequality.”

In her paper, Hudson offers an expansive cross-national analysis of the effects of recent liberalization in wage-setting institutions on wage inequality in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

“Knowing this information will serve to facilitate policy-making and the determination of which arrangements of wage-setting institutions best serve to address wage inequality in light of increasing global pressures to liberalize,” Hudson explained.

Hudson’s interest in economic inequality has been the driving force behind her excellent work in the field. Her push for change has also earned her recognition at the Fourteenth Annual Graduate Research Forum where she won a second place master’s award for her research on important issues regarding youth labor conditions – a topic she feels strongly about. Her paper titled “Youth Labor Market Outcomes and the NEET Population in the EU: Do Poor Labor Market Opportunities Discourage Youth?” is a condensed version of her thesis.

“Recognizing that youth face many insecurities in the labor market opens up a number of questions in relation to issues of human security, social unrest and economic development,” Hudson said.

The work Hudson conducts is instrumental to her current and future research because, according to her, she will revisit it throughout her academic and professional career.

Hudson’s hard work has brought her a long way and will continue to move her forward as she plans to pursue UCF’s doctoral degree in security studies in the beginning of fall 2017, following her spring 2017 master’s graduation.