Results

CEP election analysis

Work, wages and inactivity

The recent aggregate performance of the UK labour market looks good. But aggregate performance often obscures important changes around averages. Inequality along several dimensions remains a persistent feature of the UK ...Read more...

Journal article

Explorations in Economic History:

The impact of public transportation and commuting on urban labor markets: Evidence from the New Survey of London Life and Labour, 1929–1932

The growth of public transport networks in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries had profound effects on commuting in the industrialized world, yet the consequences for labor markets during this important per...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The trouble with inactivity

Concerns about a recent rise in economic inactivity have prompted new policies aimed at discouraging early retirement and encouraging the labour force participation of women with young children. Stephen Machin and Jonath...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

The trouble with inactivity

Elevated concerns over the consequences of recent rises in the UK economic inactivity rate for growth, wages and prices have prominently featured in recent public debate about the labour market and the economy. This pape...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

Should the UK government get active about economic inactivity?

Concerns about a rise in economic inactivity have prompted new policies aimed at discouraging early retirement and encouraging the labour force participation of women with young children. Such interventions would be more...Read more...

Journal article

Economica: Forthcoming

'Good jobs', training and skilled immigration

Has skilled immigration into the UK led to a reduction in the training of native-born workers? To address this concern, this paper describes a theoretical model where immigration can affect the training of native-born wo...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Commute and thrive

The advent of commuting in 1930s London opened up opportunities to working-class people. Andrew Seltzer and Jonathan Wadsworth show how public transport boosts the labour market....Read more...

Blog

The Conversation:

Research into 1930s commuting in London shows how public transport boosts the labour market

An argument to justify public transport closures has often been lack of profitability for the service provider. However, Andrew J. Seltzer and Jonathan Wadsworth find that such discussions often miss much of the full val...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The impact of public transportation and commuting on urban labour markets: evidence from the new survey of London life and labour, 1929-32

This paper examines the consequences of the commuter transport revolution on working-class labour markets in London, circa 1930. Using GIS-based data constructed from the New Survey of London Life and Labour, we examine ...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

Are wages keeping up with the cost of living?

There is currently much debate about whether pay should keep pace with either productivity or inflation. How we measure price growth has a big influence on what we observe, shedding light on how different parts of the ec...Read more...

Blog

The Overview:

Has the pandemic changed the workplace forever? (podcast)

Millions of US workers are quitting or changing jobs in an ongoing trend dubbed the Great Resignation. With job vacancies rising to record highs on both sides of the Atlantic, is the UK also facing a resignations surge? ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Accidents will happen: (de)regulation of health and safety legislation, workplace accidents and self employment

In 2015, the UK government exempted "low-risk" self-employed workers from legislation on workplace safety. This reversed a move two decades earlier that incorporated the self-employed more fully into the same regulatory ...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

Are we really witnessing a 'great resignation'?

Jonathan Wadsworth questions the idea that the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a large rise in the number of people quitting their jobs, either to move to a new job or a new life outside work....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Population growth, immigration and labour market dynamics

This paper examines the role of population flows on labour market dynamics across immigrant and native-born populations in the United Kingdom. Population flows are large, and cyclical, driven first by the maturation of b...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

How has Covid-19 affected part-time jobs?

People in full-time employment have been far more protected from job loss than part-time workers over the course of the pandemic. Jonathan Wadsworth writes how younger workers have lost out in both part-time and full-tim...Read more...

CEP Insights

Immigration

People move to a new country for many reasons. How do these individual stories of seeking fresh opportunities play out over time both for those arriving and for the communities they move into? Economists are particularly...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

School's in: are more of the young staying in education during the downturn?

With Covid-19's effect on the availability of part-time and weekend jobs, more young people are staying on at school. Jonathan Wadsworth examines the links between study and work in the youth labour market....Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

A year in the UK labour market: what's happened over the coronavirus pandemic?

Jonathan Wadsworth explains how the performance of the UK labour market during Covid-19 shows that the most notable effects of a downturn caused by restrictions on mobility are the more dynamic aspects: falls in hours, h...Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain:

Covid-19 and the youth labour market. The kids are (probably) alright

Jonathan Wadsworth considers youth unemployment in light of the UK's furlough scheme, the end of lockdowns and economic downturn....Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain:

Long-term unemployment and the Covid downturn

With the first signs of rising unemployment under the crisis are beginning to ripple through the labour market, Jonathan Wadsworth examines trends in employment against unemployment, the chances of finding work among tho...Read more...

Blog

State of Working Britain Blog:

1 million missing immigrants (and 1.2 million more UK-born)

Jonathan Wadsworth examines the Labour Force Survey, highlighting the strange case of a rapid fall of around 750,000 in the immigrant population of working age over the last year contained in the latest ONS labour market...Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain:

Who's being made redundant during Covid? Who is staying at work. And is it any different from usual?

Following his previous blog post looking at trends in redundancies over the COVID period relative to previous downturns, Jonathan Wadsworth looks to understand who is being laid off and whether this is any different from...Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain:

Redundancies and the labour market under Covid. Has furlough helped? And other related things you may have missed

Redundancies are often seen as commensurate with unemployment - but not always. In this blog post, Jonathan Wadsworth analyses the links between the UK's furlough scheme and redundancies....Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

The government's furlough scheme has almost certainly helped prevent a large rise in unemployment over Covid-19 (so far)

Jonathan Wadsworth explains why the furlough scheme seems to have done its job in preventing mass layoffs, as well as other reasons why the total entering unemployment is still much lower than in the 2008-2011 downturn....Read more...

Blog

State of Working Britain Blog:

Two things about ethnicity pay gaps that may have passed you by

Last week the ONS published a study setting out recent trends in ethnicity pay gaps. Despite lots of caveats in the article, many papers duly reported the end of pay gaps by ethnicity. There are reasons to think however...Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain:

UK labour market under Covid part 3: layoffs, hiring & wages

Recessions, usually signify a rise in layoffs. Even the last recession, which was accompanied by much more wage moderation than previous ones, generated a significant rise in redundancies. This time it is a little differ...Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain:

What's happening to the labour market under Covid-19? Part 2

So if unemployment, employment or more marginal types of working appear little changed under COVID, things are different from normal if we look elsewhere. Figure 1 shows the percentage of workers who say they had a job b...Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain:

What's happening to the UK labour market under Covid-19? Looking for signs of excess and what it shows (so far). Part 1

Six months into the worst pandemic of the modern era, the worst recession of the modern era and yet and yet .... the labour market is proving to be remarkably resilient (so far) – at least along the dimensions normally ...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

The UK labour market and Covid-19: how to measure excess, where to look for it, and what it shows

Think the outlook for the UK labour market in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic looks bad? But just how bad? And along which dimensions? Jonathan Wadsworth answers these questions. He concludes that the crisis was mar...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Labour markets in the time of Coronavirus: measuring excess

Recessions are usually accompanied by some combination of job loss, hiring freezes, wage cuts or hours reductions. In a rapidly evolving economic crisis there is a need for timely information to assess labour market perf...Read more...

Blog

LSE Brexit:

Immigration is no longer the most pressing concern among the electorate

Immigration is no longer the most pressing concern among the electorate going into this election that it was prior to the Brexit referendum, writes Jonathan Wadsworth (LSE). More than three years on, concerns about Europ...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Immigration

Immigration remains a highly contentious issue and its purported effects on the labour market and the wider economy are still highly contested. The discussion below is intended as an overview of what we know and what we ...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Immigration

Immigration remains a highly contentious issue and its purported effects on the labour market and the wider economy are still highly contested. The discussion in this briefing is intended as a short overview of what we k...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trainspotting: 'good jobs', training and skilled immigration

While skilled immigration ceteris paribus provides an immediate boost to GDP per capita by adding to the human capital stock of the receiving economy, might it also reduce the number of ’good jobs’, i.e. those with train...Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

Measure for Measure: Has the Government Already Met its Net Immigration Target Without Noticing?

Read more...

Journal article

Fiscal Studies:

Off EU Go? Brexit, the UK Labour Market and Immigration

Immigration remains a highly antagonistic issue and its purported effects in the labour market are still contestable. Against this background, the UK looks set to undertake a large overhaul of its immigration policy foll...Read more...

Journal article

ILR Review:

The Impact of Acquiring Unrestricted Work Authorization on Romanian and Bulgarian Migrants in the United Kingdom

When Romania and Bulgaria (the so-called A2 countries) joined the European Union in 2007, the United Kingdom imposed temporary restrictions on the employment and welfare entitlements of A2 citizens that lasted until Janu...Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

Brexit and the UK's Immigration Needs

Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

Is There a Public Sector Pay Premium?

Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

Interesting Times: Immigration and the UK Election

Read more...

CEP election analysis

Immigration and the UK Economy

Immigration to the UK has grown a lot over the last 20 years and a significant fraction of this growth has been from other EU countries, especially after 2004 and the accession of the eight East European countries (‘A8’)...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Unemployment and Domestic Violence: Theory and Evidence

Does rising unemployment really increase domestic violence as many commentators expect? The contribution of this article is to examine how changes in unemployment affect the incidence of domestic abuse. Theory predicts t...Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

Let's Talk about Immigration: Young People, Jobs and Training

Read more...

CEP Brexit analysis

BREXIT 2016: policy analysis from the Centre for Economic Performance

On June 23rd, the British people will vote in a referendum over whether or not to remain in the European Union. It is the most important vote that most of us will have in our lifetimes. And one that will have major reper...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Why immigration is no reason to leave the EU

A major argument of Brexit campaigners is that leaving the European Union would give the UK more control over the flow of immigrants, who they claim hurt the jobs and pay of native-born workers. CEP research shows that E...Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

SWOB 10. EU-turn if you want to. Brexit & Immigration

Read more...

CEP Brexit analysis

Brexit and the impact of immigration on the UK

A reduction in immigration from the European Union (EU) following a vote for Brexit would not lead to any improvement in living standards for those born in the UK. Cuts in EU immigration would not offset the big fall in ...Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

SWOB 9. Is it Worth It? Are there too many graduates in the UK?

Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

SWOB 8: Employment Performance: UK versus the USA. Jury Out

Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

SWOB 7:International Women's Day: Reasons to be (a little bit) cheerful about women in the UK labour market, 1, 2, 3

Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

SWOB 6: Record Employment in the UK? Well yes but.......

Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

SWOB 5: Rumours of the end of the job for life are a little exaggerated (but not if you're male)

Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

SWOB 4:Where Have All the Men Gone? Men, Women & Employment in the UK

Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

SWOB 3: Are Immigrants Taking All the New Jobs?

Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

SWOB 2: Is the Rise in Low Skilled Jobs holding back Wage Growth?

Read more...

Blog

The State of Working Britain blog:

The State Of Working Britain Blog: 1. Are we there yet? Full Employment in the UK

Read more...

CEP election analysis

#ElectionEconomics: The Research Evidence on Key Issues for Voters in the 2015 UK General Election

Please see the CEP #ElectionEconomics report(Paper 1)and the Executive Summary (Paper 2) that cover all the election 2015 briefings, discussing the research evidence on 15 of the UK's key policy battlegrounds: immigratio...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Immigration and the UK Labour Market

During periods of strong economic growth, migration is and has always been important for filling gaps in the labour market. Perceptions do not seem to line up with the existing academic evidence. On balance, the evidence...Read more...

CEP policy analysis

Immigration, the European Union and the UK Labour Market

During periods of strong economic growth, migration is and has always been important for filling gaps in the labour market. On balance, the evidence for the UK labour market suggests that fears about adverse consequences...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Immigrant's access to social housing: perception and reality

Although most UK immigrants are likely to be eligible to apply for social housing, there is no evidence that they have preferential access – if anything the reverse seems to have been the case. But it does seem that ther...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Immigration and the access to social housing in the UK

This paper investigates the impact of immigration on the probability of being in social housing in the UK. In recent years immigrant households are slightly more likely than natives to be in social housing but once one c...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Unemployment and domestic violence

Contrary to popular belief, the incidence of domestic violence in Britain does not seem to have risen during the recession. But according to research by Jonathan Wadsworth and colleagues, men and women have experienced d...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Unemployment and domestic violence: theory and evidence

Is unemployment the overwhelming determinant of domestic violence that many commentators expect it to be? The contribution of this paper is to examine, theoretically and empirically, how changes in unemployment affect th...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Immigration: The Evidence from Economic Research

Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Musn't Grumble. Immigration, Health and Health Service Use in the UK and Germany

A rise in population caused by increased immigration, is sometimes accompanied by concerns that the increase in population puts additional or differential pressure on welfare services which might affect the net fiscal co...Read more...

CEP policy analysis

Immigration and the UK Labour Market: The latest evidence from economic research

During periods of strong economic growth, migration is and has always been important for filling gaps in the labour market. On balance, the evidence for the UK labour market suggests that fears about the consequences of ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

The impact of immigration on the structure of wages: theory and evidence from Britain

Immigration to the UK, particularly among more educated workers, has risen appreciably over the past 30 years and as such has raised labor supply. However studies of the impact of immigration have failed to find any sign...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Role of Worker Flows in the Dynamics and Distribution of UK Unemployment

Unemployment varies substantially over time and across subgroups of the labour market. Worker flows among labour market states act as key determinants of this variation. We examine how the structure of unemployment acros...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Chernobyl: the long-term health and economic consequences

Hartmut Lehmann and Jonathan Wadsworth assess the long-lasting effects of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl disaster on the people of Ukraine....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Impact of Chernobyl on Health and Labour Market Performance

Using longitudinal data from Ukraine we examine the extent of any long-lasting effects of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl disaster on the health and labour market performance of the adult workforce. The variation i...Read more...

Book

The Labour Market in Winter
The State of Working Britain

This collection of essays - by leading economic experts on the UK labour market - provides an overview of the key issues concerning the performance of the labour market, and the policy issues surrounding it, with a f...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Employment, Inequality and the UK National Minimum Wage over the Medium-Term

This paper assesses the impact of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) on employment and inequality in the UK over the decade since its introduction in 1999. Identification is facilitated by using variation in the bite of the...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Jobs in the recession

The recession of 2008-09 inflicted a larger cumulative loss of UK output than any of the previous post-war recessions, yet there has been a relatively low loss of employment, at least so far. Paul Gregg and Jonathan Wads...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

The UK labour market and the 2008 - 2009 recession

The recession of 2008-2009 inflicted a larger cumulative loss of UK output than any of the other post-war recessions. Nevertheless, employment rates remained higher than might have been expected given the experience of p...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Immigration and the UK Labour Market: The Evidence from Economic Research

Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Did the National Minimum Wage Affect UK Prices?

One potential channel through which the effects of the minimum wage could be directed is that firms who employ minimum wage workers could have passed on any higher labour costs resulting from the minimum wage in the form...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Anatomy of a Health Scare: Education, Income and the MMR Controversy in the UK

One theory for why there is an education gradient in health outcomes is that more educated individuals more quickly absorb new health-related information. The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) controversy provides a case...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The Labour Market Effects of Immigration

What are the effects of increased immigration on the wages and employment of people who are already here, whether they are native-born or earlier immigrants? Research by Marco Manacorda, Alan Manning and Jonathan Wadswor...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

On the Relative Gains to Immigration: A Comparison of the Labour Market Position of Indians in the USA, the UK and India

While most studies of the decision to immigrate focus on the absolute income differences between countries, we argue that relative change in purchasing power or status, as captured by an individual’s ranking in the wage ...Read more...

Chapter

Wage arrears and inequality in the distribution of pay: lessons from Russia

in Aspects of Worker Well-Being

Many developing and transition countries, and even some in the industrialized West, experience periods in which a substantial proportion of the workforce suffer wage arrears. We examine the implications for estimates of ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Impact of Immigration on the Structure of Male Wages: Theory and Evidence from Britain

Immigration to the UK has risen in the past 10 years and has had a measurable effect on the supply of different types of labour. But, existing studies of the impact of immigration on the wages of native-born workers in t...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Gay pay in the UK

Has recent anti-discrimination legislation made a difference to the pay and employment prospects of gay men and lesbian women in the UK? Reza Arabsheibani, Alan Marin and Jonathan Wadsworth investigate....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Computer assisted exam results

John Schmitt and Jonathan Wadsworth look at 10 years' data on GCSE and A level results and conclude that access to a PC at home has a significant impact on outcomes....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Reconciling Workless Measures at the Individual and Household Level: Theory and Evidence from the United States, Britain, Germany, Spain and Australia

Individual and household based aggregate measures of worklessness can, and do, offer conflicting signals about labour market performance. We outline a means of quantifying the extent of any disparity, (polarisation), in ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Two Sides to Every Story: Measuring the Polarisation of Work

Individual and household based aggregate measures of joblessness can, and do, offer conflicting signals about labour market performance if work is unequally distributed. This paper introduces a simple set of indices that...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Is There an Impact of Household Computer Ownership on Children's Educational Attainment in Britain?

If personal computers (PCs) are used to enhance learning and information gathering across a variety of subjects, then a home computer might reasonably be considered an input in an educational production function. Using d...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Give PC's a Chance: Personal Computer Ownership and the Digital Divide in the United States and Great Britain

This paper summarizes inequalities in PC ownership using data from the US Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) and the British General Household Survey (GHS) for the period 1984-98. Between 1988 and 1994, British households ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Non-working classes

Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Tenures that Shook the World: Worker Turnover in Russia, Poland and Britain

We study worker turnover in a transition economy to investigate to what extent the length of time a worker has been employed by a firm shapes the turnover process. Using data from the Polish Labour Force Survey and The R...Read more...

Book

The State of Working Britain

What are the prospects for the British labour market at the start of the new century? Since the 1960s Britain has experienced a series of profound changes affecting the way of life and work. This overview and analys...Read more...

CentrePiece article

What it costs to lose your job

Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Grime and Punishment: Job Insecurity and Wage Arrears in the Russian Federation

The initial years of transition in the Russian Federation have been characterised by relatively smaller falls in employment than in other reform-orientated countries of eastern Europe, despite the huge negative shock cau...Read more...

CentrePiece article

End of the job for life?

Read more...

CentrePiece article

Free to choose

Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Free to Choose? Dimensions of Private Sector Wage Contract Re-Negotiation since 1979

The deregulation of the system of pay determination in Britain in 1979 was intended to give employers the freedom to determine wage increases without the restriction of pay norms or statutory limits. Yet thirteen years l...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Price is Right: Inflation and Nominal Wage Adjustment in Britain

How much changed regarding the wage employment relationship in Britain between 1979 and 1994, as the government tried to encourage greater wage and employment flexibility? This paper uses settlement group wage contact da...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Mind the Gap

Britain, perhaps uniquely, has experienced simultaneoud rises in both wage inequality and polarisation of eployment across households over the past twenty years. This article investigates the inter-relations of these two...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Everyone's A Winner?: Persistence in British Private Sector Wage Settlements

One important feature of labour market policy over the past 15 years has been an emphasis on promoting greater flexibility and responsiveness in wages to the fortunes of individual firms. This study analyses the patterns...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The rise of the no-job household

Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Effect of Minimum Wages on UK Agriculture

Since the abolition of the Wages Councils in September 1993, agriculture is the only sector in the UK economy covered by any form of minimum wage legislation. This paper investigates the impact of the system of minimum w...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Job Search Activity and Changing Unemployment Benefit Entitlement: Pseudo-Panel Estimates for Britain

Throughout the 1980s, the British unemployment compensation system was subject to a series of administrative changes. At the same time, the proportion of male unemployed workers receiving benefit fell by some twenty perc...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Eastern German Labour Market in Transition: Gross Flow Estimates from Panel Data

Following the unification of the two Germanies in October 1990, the former German Democratic Republic was subject to a series of economic shocks, resulting in large declines in output and employment. This paper investiga...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do Strikes Pay?

One-in-forty manufacturing settlements involved a strike during the 1980s. Strike days lost were equivalent to half a day for each worker in manufacturing. On average, for the decade as a whole, real pay increases where ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Unemployment Benefits and Labour Market Transitions in Britain

Recent evidence suggests that unemployment benefit recipients search more extensively than non-recipients. It is conceivable that benefit claimants, looking for work in a more formal search environment, enjoy an informat...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A Test of the Effect of Benefits on Search Activity in a Model of Endogenous Job Offer Arrivals

This paper endogenises the job offer arrival rate in a standard search model in order to test the hypothesis that unemployment-related benefits may affect the job search behaviour of unemployed workers independently of a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Who are the Unemployed?

This paper provides an analysis of the incidence of unemployment in Britain between 1979 and 1986. Using Labour Force Survey data, we attempt to quantify the extent to which different groups in the population are exposed...Read more...