Search Results

Machin and McNally (2008) used data from the British Cohort Study to investigate the relationship between reading skills at age 10 and weekly earnings at age 30. This short note builds on their research in three important ways. First, the authors extend the analysis to look at the association of maths as well as reading skills at age 10 with earnings in later life. Second, they investigate whether the relationship between skills and later earnings varies over time, by considering the relationship between age 10 skills and earnings at ages 34 and 38 as well as age 30. Third, the authors study whether the results differ depending on whether hourly wages are used rather than weekly earnings, given that the association may differ if people with higher reading and maths skills choose to work different numbers of hours per week.

Excerpt from publication. Show less

[In the UK] there were large cuts to the public workforce over the last parliament during a period of fiscal consolidation. The public workforce fell by 375,000 between the start of 2010 and the end of 2014. The pace of public workforce cuts is likely to accelerate over the new parliament. Conservative party plans outlined in their manifesto imply a further reduction in the public workforce of 580,000 between 2014-15 and 2018-19, unless the government imposes further public pay restraint. {The authors] look at the movement between jobs, or 'mobility', of workers in the public and private sectors.

[The authors] set out the extent to which reductions in the public workforce to date have been delivered by reducing net inflows from outside the labour force (freezing recruitment of new workers and not replacing workers who move to non-employment) and increasing net outflows to the private sector (more workers moving from the public sector to the private sector than moving in the other direction). [The authors] also explore the extent to which workers change jobs within sectors and move around the country. Both these forms of job mobility provide evidence on how the fluidity and flexibility of labour markets are changing over time and form a useful comparison in order to judge whether across-sector moves are relatively common or not. [It may also be expected that] these forms of job mobility [will] differ between the public and private sectors because of differences in the transferability of skills within sectors and the nature of rewards.

Excerpts from publisher's website. Show less

This report provides the first quantitative evidence on the characteristics and outcomes of gap year takers in the UK. It does so by using two rich survey datasets: the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE), which follows a cohort of young people as they make decisions about whether or not to enter higher education (HE) and whether or not to take a gap year at the height of the recent recession, and the British Cohort Study (BCS), which follows the population of individuals born in Great Britain in a particular week of April 1970, who were first eligible to enter HE in September 1988. These two datasets together enable an assessment of the intentions, activities and characteristics of a recent cohort of gap year takers and the long-term consequences of the decision to delay entry into HE for a range of outcomes, with a particular focus on wages and earnings.

Excerpt from publication. Show less

Time-limited in-work benefits can help increase the probability of moving into paid work and also improve job retention. We examine the effectiveness of two time-limited in-work benefits. These were introduced in Great Britain in the early to mid-2000s and were known as 'in work credit' (IWC) and the 'Employment Retention and Advancement demonstration' (ERA). Key findings include: The positive impacts of these benefits persisted after the benefits stopped being paid; Encouraging full-time work seemed to be much more effective than encouraging part-time work; Policymakers wanting to improve job retention and progression, or implement universal credit's in-work conditionality, should consider the role of financial incentives alongside personal advice; and this research is an excellent demonstration of the power of rich, linked administrative data, and of the DWP's Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study (WPLS) in particular.

Edited excerpts from publisher's website. Show less

This paper estimates the effects of entering the labour market when the economy is weak on subsequent living standards using consistent long-running household survey data from the UK. In line with previous research, we find persistent scarring effects on employment and earnings. However, we also provide the first estimates of impacts on net household incomes and household expenditures - standard proxies for material living standards - and we find little or no impacts. This is primarily due to two particular forms of insurance: the UK tax and transfer system and, even more importantly on average, the incomes of parents, with whom many young adults live in the years after leaving education. The interplay between heterogeneity in labour market scarring and insurance is key to understanding why parental incomes insure so much of the shock: lower-educated young adults experience the worst labour market scarring effects, but they are also highly likely to live with their parents in the years after labour market entry (irrespective of economic conditions), and the negative labour market effects are not so persistent as to outlast the typical period of co-residence. However, young adults not living with parents do see negative and persistent scarring effects feed through to their net incomes and expenditures. It may therefore be useful for future research on scarring to focus on this group, as well as the degree to which resources are shared within households between parents and their co-resident adult children.

Published abstract. Show less

As in all advanced economies, the public sector is a sizeable employer in the UK. At its most recent high-point in 2010, the public sector employed about 6.1 million workers, or 20 per cent of all UK workers. The public sector pay bill also makes up a large element of public spending, accounting for well over half of current or day-to-day spending at the latest count. With the government in the process of making significant cuts in departmental spending as part of a fiscal consolidation aimed at helping to bring the public finances back on to a sustainable path, cuts to the total pay bill and workforce are essentially unavoidable. Indeed, the [Office for Budget Responsibility] OBR forecast is that the level of general government employment will fall by 1.1 million as a result of expected cuts to public spending between 2010-11 and 2018-19. With schools and [National Health Service] NHS spending relatively protected from spending cuts, these workforce cuts are likely to be focused on other areas of spending, changing the shape of both public spending and the public workforce.

In this briefing note, [the authors] combine various data sources to provide for the first time a consistent picture on how the size and composition of the public sector workforce has changed over the past 50 years. This initial descriptive piece forms part of a larger project that will provide further detailed analysis of the differences in the remuneration packages of public and private sector workers, as well as the mobility of workers between sectors and different areas of the country.

Abstract from publisher's website. Show less

Longer working lives offer many benefits, but achieving these can pose challenges for individuals, employers and policymakers. In order to support people in their 50s and 60s to remain in paid work for longer, it is imperative that we have a good picture of what paid work looks like at older ages, and how that might evolve in future. The desired working patterns of older workers - in terms of their hours of work, the form of their employment or the tasks they undertake at work - may be quite different from those of middle-aged or younger adults. An ageing population and higher employment rates for people in their 50s and 60s mean that patterns of work of older workers are an increasingly important issue for the country as a whole. Indeed, in 2019, around 10 million or 61 per cent of 50- to 69-year-olds were in paid work, meaning that this age group comprises almost a third (31 per cent) of the workforce in the UK, up from just 21 per cent in 1992.

In this report, we provide fresh evidence on the nature of paid work at older ages, how employment patterns differ for people in different circumstances and how the situation is changing over time. In particular, we examine in depth the transitions that older workers make, both into and out of work and between different types of employment in the run-up to retirement. Having provided a comprehensive picture of working life for people in their 50s and 60s, we then examine the implications of our findings for some key issues facing older workers in the labour market in the coming years, including which groups might be of particular concern in the wake of the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic. These issues are important not only for the individuals themselves, but for policymakers who are seeking to encourage people into longer and more fulfilling working lives, for employers who would benefit from employing them, and for civil society organisations and government agencies interested in assisting older people in finding productive work that allows them to balance their work and personal lives.

Edited excerpts from publication and publisher's website. Show less

This study is part of the [Institute for Fiscal Studies] IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities, chaired by Angus Deaton, which aims to assemble the evidence on the causes and consequences of different forms of inequalities in the UK and the ways that they can best be reduced or mitigated. There will be two phases of work: commissioned studies and commentaries on a large number of key themes; the development of comprehensive and practical policy guidance.

This report seeks to set out the potential effects of the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic on inequalities in the UK. The pandemic has affected inequalities in education, training, wages, employment and health, including how these vary by gender, ethnicity, and across generations. It has also opened up new gaps along dimensions that were not previously widely considered, such as the ability to work at home. In this briefing note, we focus on two types of inequalities: first, inequalities in education and skills; second, inequalities in the labour market and household incomes. For each of these broad areas we highlight the challenges posed by inequalities between different groups and the opportunity for an integrated policy response. We examine inequalities in education and skills by gender, ethnicity, region and between people from different socio-economic backgrounds. In our analysis of inequality in labour markets and household incomes, we examine inequality across the income distribution, and again consider inequalities between the aforementioned groups.

We find evidence that three particular inequalities are likely to have risen because of the crisis: (1) income inequalities between richer and poorer households; (2) socio-economic inequalities in education and skills; and (3) intergenerational inequalities between older and younger people. The key drivers of these are the fall in employment resulting from the pandemic, which fall harder on younger and less well-educated people, and the massive decline in face-to-face learning that school children have faced. We discuss opportunities for an integrated policy response to these interrelated problems.

Edited excerpts from publication and publisher's website. Show less

This pre-released chapter from the forthcoming 'IFS green budget 2017', which examines the issues and challenges facing the upcoming UK Government Budget, focuses on the new apprenticeship levy and apprenticeship policy. The 2015 Conservative general election manifesto contained a commitment to 'support three million new apprenticeships, so young people acquire the skills to succeed'. To help deliver this pledge, a new system of apprenticeship funding was announced.

This chapter: (1) evaluates the rationale for the proposed expansion of funding for apprenticeships in England; (2) describes the key details of the new policy and sets it in a longer-term policy context, including how numbers and types of apprentices have evolved to date; and (3) analyses the likely effects of the new system of apprenticeship funding on employers' and individual workers' incentives to invest in training and on employment, skills, productivity and wages, and the impact of new targets for employing apprentices in the public sector.

Edited excerpts from publication and publisher's website. Show less