Publications

Following political devolution in the late 1990s and the establishment of the governments for Wales and Scotland, the education systems of the four home countries of the UK have significantly diverged. Consequently, not only does that mean that education research in the UK has to be sensitive to such divergence, but that the divergence of…

Using mixed methods this paper explores issue salience and the policy framing associated with the substantive representation of ethnic minorities. Its focus is party programmes in Westminster (1964–2010) and Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections (1998–2011). The analysis reveals a significant increase in issue salience driven by parties of the Left. This applies to both…

This Report is based on survey data collected from two samples of workers: 7,213 workers aged 20-65 years old and living in Britain in 2006 and 3,200 similarly aged workers in 2012. Both surveys were boosted in Wales yielding a total sample of almost1,000 workers in Wales – 407 respondents in 2006 and 587 in…

This paper reports on two research projects, one of them completed some time ago, theother ongoing. The first project was funded by the New York based Russell SageFoundation and involved a comparative study of low pay in the five European countries – theUK, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark. This was subsequently extended in acomparative…

The percentage of income held by the top 1% in the UK has increased since the 1970’s, from 6% in 1979 to 14-15% in 2001. If we compare Wales and the North of England with the East and London, earnings were 8% lower in 1979 and 25% lower in 2007. From 1970-2012 there has been…

The purpose of this paper is to examine the welfare participation of immigrant groups in the UK, which has experienced a large growth in its immigrant flows and population levels in recent years, especially following EU enlargement in 2004. The analysis particularly focuses on the types of benefits that immigrants tend to claim, as well…

Over recent decades there has been an international shift towards multi-level governance. Against this backdrop, many comparative welfare studies take government policy outputs as the starting point for their analysis. However, the associated pluralization of electoral systems in unitary states means that welfare choices are no longer exclusively informed by single state-wide ballots. Accordingly, this…

For over sixty years significant research activity has addressed the extent to which the effects of social class over the life-course have determined or contributed to an individual’s economic and social fate in old age. This has led to the elaboration and discussion of a whole host of conceptual and measurement issues among a growing…

Work is an important feature of the modern Welsh economy. A lot is known about pay, but less is known about other features of work such as what skills do jobs require, how relevant are qualifications for work, and how does training and learning compare with other parts of Britain. This report provides some answers.

Attitudinal data on the experience of work and the intrinsic quality of work in Wales are relatively rare. This report offers unique insights into the stresses and strains of work, the attitudes of workers towards employment and who they work for, and the fear of job loss.