Lately, we face many challenges that threaten the well-being of society and the quality of life. All of these challenges are complex and closely related, which means that one approach can have positive consequences for others. In this context, population growth, an extremely delicate subject, from a social and ethical point of view has generally become a threat to the entire planet, and in particular, to urban agglomerations. At the global level, population growth puts even greater pressure on basic resources, from fresh water to fertile land, endangering the very existence of humanity. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the population trend globally, as compared to the population trend in the big urban agglomerations, as well as the evolution of some indicators of the quality of life depending on the population growth. Following the analysis, we aim to identify various challenges and develop proposals for the sustainable development of urban space.

The present research aims to establish the impact that the current crisis situation the planet is facing, namely the COVID-19 pandemic, has had so far on the Romanian labor force market. In this context, given the lack of information and information regarding this pandemic and its effects, the administration of a questionnaire among the population was considered to identify the research results. The method of semantic differential and the method of ordering the ranks were used for the interpretation of the results. With the help of this questionnaire, it will be possible to answer the question of the research in this study: What are the main effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Romanian labor market? The main results showed that the COVID-19 pandemic affected the Romanian workforce; the respondents of the applied questionnaire claimed that they obtained better results and maintained a similar income, but the health crisis also influenced the mentality of employees, with respondents stating that in the event of changing jobs, they would consider it very important for the new employer to ensure the conditions for preventing and combating COVID-19, as well as complex health insurance. However, analyzing at the macroeconomic level, it was found that the COVID-19 pandemic induced an increase in the number of unemployed people in the Romanian labor market.

Entrepreneurial education is one of the fastest growing areas in the world today, with a growing interest in academia, which allows the possibility of linking current labor market needs to academic theory. The purpose of this article is to make a positive contribution to the formation of future entrepreneurship programs, by analyzing existing curricula to identify potential educational gaps, as well as to identify the skills needed by students in the context of sustainable business development. This will allow entrepreneurial trainers to exchange ideas that facilitate collective learning and help inform researchers about the future directions of education. This article will focus on the analysis of existing entrepreneurship education at the international level, as well as on the development of suggestions on how entrepreneurship education can progress further, as a way of shaping the future development of the economy. Keywords: entrepreneurial education, sustainable business, sustainable development

Research background: The concept of sustainable development had as its starting point the global ecological crisis 1929-1933 and was later developed by encompassing all economic and social and human spheres, reaching that today, sustainable development is the new path of humanity. Sustainable development has been conceived as a solution to the ecological crisis determined by the intense industrial exploitation of resources and the continuous degradation of the environment and seeks first of all to preserve the quality of the environment. Sustainable development promotes the concept of reconciling economic and social progress without endangering the natural balance of the planet. Purpose of the article: The objective of this paper is to highlight the trends determined by the current health crisis. Methods: The main research method is the bibliographic study doubled by a secondary documentary analysis that allowed us to identify both the historical evolution of the concept and the detachment of current trends. Findings & Value added: All these concepts take on a new meaning in the current pandemic context and the trend seems to be man’s return to nature and villages, perhaps determined by home isolation as the central method imposed by most countries in the fight against Coronavirus.

The fundamental objective of this research is to learn how trade liberalization, male employment, urbanization, and foreign direct investment (FDI) affect women’s participation in the labor force. To continue, this study aims to determine the effects of trade and other factors on women’s employment in three distinct sectors (i.e., agriculture, industry, and service). From 1991 to 2021, we analyzed data from eight SAARC countries. The study’s theoretical foundation was the Cobb–Douglas production function. To better understand the connections between trade liberalization and the SAARC labor market, this paper used panel quantile regression (QR) and generalized method of moments (GMM) to empirically explore the key determinants of female employment in total and three sub-sectors. The QR method was used in the study because it looks at how variables affect each other beyond the data mean. Additionally, our data set does not follow a normal distribution, and the connection between the explained and explanatory factors is non-linear. Trade openness has a beneficial effect on total female employment throughout system GMM and all quartiles. Total female employment also benefits from an increase in GDP and FDI. However, women’s access to the workforce is hampered by urbanization. Many strategies for increasing women’s participation in the workforce across three sectors are addressed in this article. The major finding of this study is the rate of change in female employment across three industries. Women’s participation in the service and manufacturing sectors increases, whereas their participation in agriculture decreases, as a result of increased trade openness. Although these studies can assist policymakers in choosing the best feasible trade adjustments, they will also add to diverse academic and policy discussions on trade liberalization and its gender consequences. Since trade has become more accessible, more and more women are entering the workforce. Therefore, workers should acquire industrial and service-sector-related competencies.

The health crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic has induced, among other things, an increase in the importance of remote work or teleworking (TL) in the current period. The objective of this research is to identify the economic and social impact of telework in changing the behavior of employees in Romania. The research was conducted approximately one year after the onset of the pandemic until the beginning of the vaccination period in Romania. The research proposed includes three main directions of analysis of the extracted data, which are related to telework efficiency, this being considered one of the most important indicators for a company. In order to obtain conclusive results, we used a mixed methodology, combining results obtained through a survey based on a self-administered electronic questionnaire, with a data mining analysis. Detailed analysis of the groups identified based on work efficiency allowed us to highlight the most common employee profiles. This analysis was doubled by a second classification experiment, which provided us a more detailed analysis of the groups identified based on job satisfaction and highlighted the most common employee profiles. The expansion of telework in various economic areas is a result of adaptation to the new economic and social conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.