Associate Professor Shahina Amin has taught at the University of Northern Iowa since August 2000 in the Economics department, coming to UNI from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Grinnell College. She teaches Microeconomics, Business Statistics, Principles of Microeconomics, Principles of Macroeconomics, and Economics of Labor Markets.
Economics, as the study of how to manage scarce resources, involves a unique way of thinking. Dr. Amin said that she became interested in Economics after listening to an early Professor’s lecture on opportunity cost. “I realized I think like an economist, it just clicked!” For Professor Amin, the greatest thing is seeing understanding grow in students. They get enthusiastic about the subject when it “clicks” for them. It is gratifying to know know that students will be able to use what she teaches in their real lives.
Dr. Amin's teaching focus is the Economics of Labor Markets. This course analyzes how labor markets function, how individuals make decisions about work, how firms hire workers, compensation, welfare, minimum wage, social security, immigration, discrimination, and equality. This is the course that is most closely related to Dr. Amin's research focus, and she is able to use her own research to provide examples of the concepts she teaches.
Since coming to UNI, Professor Amin has written several articles on child labor and the impact of women in the workforce. The research is especially important to her because of her experiences in Bangladesh, where she has seen firsthand the impact of child labor and women in the workforce in developing countries.
In her research on child labor, Dr. Amin has discussed the negative impact of working in dangerous conditions from an early age, as well as the negative impact it has on the child's education. In addition to the negatives of child labor, Dr. Amin investigates the ways in which sanctions against countries that support child labor damage their economies, driving poor families with working children further into poverty.
Dr. Amin also conducts research on the impact of women in the workforce, focusing on developing countries. She studies the relationship between a wife’s earnings and her husband’s education, as well as the relationship between a wife’s education and her husband’s earnings. Dr. Amin's doctoral dissertation focused on women’s earnings and income inequality in Malaysia.
Originally from Bangladesh, Shahina Amin now lives in Cedar Falls with her husband and son.
Updated 15-Sep-08
