Publications

Job quality, or the promotion of good work, is a ‘hot topic’.  It has featured as a prominent element in three separate government reports published in the space of eight months.  This began with the publication of the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices in July 2017.  One of its recommendations was that ‘more effort…

Building on previous work that has examined the use of research methods in industrial relations/employment relations (IR/ER), particularly Whitfield and Strauss (2000), this chapter updates its empirical work and re-examines its key postulates. IR/ER research continues to show a wide range of research methods and approaches. It is highly empirical, with a large proportion of…

Using longitudinal data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey (2001–2013), we examine the relationship between the dynamics of work-limiting disability, employment, and life satisfaction. By employing two alternative classifications of the dynamic trajectories of disability, we are able to explicitly consider the influence of disability exit in addition to examining…

The Labour Force Survey is used to examine the influence of sector on the UK gender pay gap 1997–2015. The assessment is twofold: first comparing gender pay gaps within sectors and second through identifying the contribution of the concentration of women in the public sector to the overall gender pay gap. The long-term narrowing of…

The Skills and Employment Survey (SES) is a survey series which can be traced back to the mid-1980s. It provides information for academics and policy makers looking at working life in Britain today and provides insights into how the situation has changed over time. The 2017 version of the survey (SES2017) was funded by the…

The aim of this Briefing is two-fold.  First, it provides data users with a concise and succinct outline of the fieldwork protocols and outcomes used to produce the Skills and Employment Survey 2017 (SES2017).  A fuller account can be found in the Technical Report provided by GfK which is available on the project web site.[1] …

It is well known that engineering is a key profession for both economic and social development. This is as true for China as it is for other countries which are in the process of development. However, what are the economic incentives for young people to enter the profession today? Currently, there are many studies of…

This paper presents findings from an investigation into the experiences of people who participated in training programmes in Wales, between 2009 and 2013, which were supported by the European Social Fund (ESF). The two ESF Operational Programmes (referred to as the Convergence and Competitiveness Programmes) benefiting Wales for the programming period 2007-13 provided just over…

The chapter focuses on the evolution of education as public policy in contemporary China, that is the period since Deng Xiaoping’s Opening-Up and Market Reform of the economy. This has seen extensive changes to the provision and content of China’s formal education system generally, and especially higher education; and in the relationship between education, the…

The National Assembly of Wales has powers in 20 devolved policy areas, including education, economic development, health, housing, social services and local government. Given the social democrat character of the first three elected assemblies in Wales, Wales would appear well placed to interrupt the reproduction of socio-economic disparities. However, Wales is a relatively poor part…