Publications

This report, based on 42 interviews with workers, trade unionists and other stakeholders, examines the phenomena of low-paid and precarious work in Sheffield. It focuses on the factors driving the prevalence of such work (including the links with welfare reform), the experiences of workers in seven distinct employment sectors, as well as trade union responses…

Summary of presentations at the WISERD and Department for Work and Pensions Areas of Research Interest (ARI) Workshop on the 23rd and 25th March 2021.

Northern Ireland (NI) forms an important outlier to the established international pattern of a pronounced gender pay gap (GPG) in favour of men. Using contemporary data from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey we provide a comprehensive analysis of the GPG in NI and make comparisons to the rest of the UK. Despite the relatively common…

In Europe, about one in eight people of working age report having a disability; that is, a long-term limiting health condition. Despite the introduction of a range of legislative and policy initiatives designed to eliminate discrimination and facilitate retention of and entry into work, disability is associated with substantial and enduring labor market disadvantage in…

In this study we quantify the size and drivers of the contemporary gender pay gap among medical doctors employed in the UK public sector. In using nationally representative data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, we make comparisons to doctors employed in the private sector, as well as to other public sector medical…

Spatial variance in union membership has been attributed to the favourable attitudes that persist in areas with an historical legacy of trade unionism. Within the United Kingdom, villages and towns located in areas once dominated by coalmining remain among the strongest and most durable bases for the trade union movement. This article empirically examines the…

Read our annual report, WISERD Insight, featuring our key areas of activity, income profile, funding and engagement activities in 2020.

International Labor Relations Review, 75(2): 458-487. he authors use data from the British Skills and Employment Surveys to document and to try to account for sustained work intensification between 2001 and 2017. They estimate the determinants of work intensity, first using four waves of the pooled cross-section data, then using a constructed pseudo-panel of occupation–industry…

Discussions triggered by campaigns around the Black Lives Matter movement have prompted WISERD to reflect on our track record of research on the structural inequalities, unequal life chances and injustices associated with racism. WISERD has undertaken a significant amount of research on these inequalities. This review aims to highlight the range of research that WISERD has…

Sustainability 12(20) 8309 Many European pandemic citizens will likely be unemployed during the COVID-19 crisis. This article explores whether it is possible to alter existing data governance extractivist models to incentivize the emergence of platform and data co-operatives to protect European pandemic citizens’ labor and digital rights. As such, this article aims to decipher the rationale…