We examine the impact on the UK of the influx of workers from Eastern Europe. We look at the characteristics of the workers who have come to the UK since 2004. We also use data from a number of Eurobarometers 2004-2007 as well as the 2005 Work Orientation module International Social Survey...

We model the dynamics of social assistance benefit receipt in Britain using data from the British Household Panel Survey, waves 1-15. First, we discuss definitions of social assistance benefit receipt, and present information about the trends between 1991 and 2005 in the receipt of social...

We provide new evidence about the degree of social segregation in England’s secondary schools, employing a cross-national perspective. Analysis is based on data for 27 rich industrialised countries from the 2000 and 2003 rounds of the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA), using...

We analyze the dynamics of social assistance benefit (SA) receipt among working-age adults in Britain between 1991 and 2005. The decline in the annual SA receipt rate was driven by a decline in the SA entry rate, rather than by the SA exit rate (which actually declined too). We examine the...

This paper reviews current issues in youth labour markets in developed countries. It argues that young people aged 16-25 have been particularly hard hit during the current recession. Using the USA and UK as cast studies, it analyses both causes and effects of youth unemployment using micro-data....

This paper summarizes evidence for the existence of a wage curve a downward-sloping relationship between the level of pay and the local unemployment rate in modern micro data. At the time of writing, the curve has been found in 40 nations. Its elasticity is approximately -0.1. -- wage...

This paper examines the causes and consequences of changes in the incidence of entrepreneurship in the UK. Self-employment as a proportion of total employment is high by international standards in the United Kingdom, but the share has fluctuated over time. We examine the time series movements in...

The generalized entropy class of inequality indices is derived for Generalized Beta of the Second Kind (GB2) income distributions, thereby providing a full range of top-sensitive and bottom-sensitive measures. An examination of British income inequality in 1994/95 and 2004/05 illustrates the...

This paper investigates the demise of unionisation in British private sector workplaces over the last quarter century. We show that dramatic union decline has occurred across all types of workplace. Although the union wage premium persists it is quite small in 2004. Negative union effects on...

There was a time before the first Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (WIRS80) in 1980 when what we knew of industrial relations was based primarily upon small scale surveys and case studies. WIRS80 marked a radical departure in the study of industrial relations for two reasons. First,...