Work and Labour Markets

There is a growing recognition that people over the age of fifty experience discrimination in the labour market. This ground-breaking report provides new evidence that ageism and discrimination are also having devastating effects on the lives of people as young as forty, with a cost to the economy of up to £31 billion per year.

This is the last of three reports in a longitudinal study that has followed the journey of a group of young people from less advantaged families through Higher Education and into the labour market. This report focuses on the young people's progress from full-time study into the graduate labour market. Free PDF available at www.jrf.org.uk

The welfare of ethnic minority individuals in Britain depends critically on how they fare in the labour market. This report provides a detailed empirical analysis of labour market outcomes and explores how ethnically diverse these outcomes are and how they have changed over time.

A free pdf version is available at www.jrf.org.uk

This study examines the relationship between poverty and informal work. Exploring the experiences of people in low-paid informal work, it contends that unless government seeks to include the informal economy in its strategies, it will never be able to reach its employment or anti-poverty targets.

Free pdf version available at www.jrf.org.uk

With the increase in mothers' employment both the government and many employers are promoting flexible working policies to improve work-life 'balance'. This report considers the effects of these changes on the lives of both women and men. It examines three employment sectors in detail - banking, grocery retail and local authorities.

Any attempt by governments to stem the tide of early retirement will need to focus as much on employers' management of human resources as on the impacts of social policy. This report focuses on this previously neglected area: employers' policies and practice as a dynamic force in retirement decisions.

Against a background of population ageing, policy makers in the majority of industrialised countries are developing policies aimed at extending working life and promoting the benefits of employing older workers. This report reviews developments in several countries and offers recommendations for public policy.

This report looks at the role of finances in decisions about early moves out of work. Drawing on in-depth interviews with people who make an early retirement, it makes a distinctive contribution to understanding their experiences, looking at the importance of money alongside other influences, including health and domestic circumstances.

This report explores the possibilities of more flexible forms of work that bridge the gap between a steady career job and retirement. It examines such jobs in the wider context of the types of transition that are being made by people leaving work early.

Based on up to date qualitative and ethnographic research, and using a Foucauldian theoretical approach, this book examines youth education-to-work transitions in the UK and demonstrates how different employability schemes work in practice for young people from varying social and regional backgrounds.

This collection examines the nexus between the emancipation of women, and their role(s) in civil service organisations. It covers the role of social media in organising, the significance of religion in many cultural contexts, activism in Eastern Europe and the impact of environmental degradation on women’s lives.

Available Open Access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. The gender pay gap is economically irrational and yet stubbornly persistent. Focusing on the finance industry which is known for its gender pay disparity, this book explores the efforts being made to fix gendered inequities in the workplace and the factors stalling progress for the future.