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Regional unemployment rates in Great Britain have narrowed dramatically in recent years. However, significant differences still remain in terms of both employment and economic inactivity rates, which may now better reflect relative labour market performance. This paper examines these differences in labour market outcomes using a unified empirical framework that decomposes regional differences in employment, economic inactivity and unemployment into components due to either structural or composition effects. The analysis highlights the important role that ill health and structural deficits currently play in accounting for regional differences in both employment and economic inactivity rates.

In October 1999, the British government enacted the Working Families� Tax Credit, a generous tax credit aimed at encouraging work among low-income families with children. This paper uses longitudinal data collected between 1991 and 2001 to evaluate the effect of this reform on single mothers. We identify this impact by comparing changes in behavior of lone mothers to changes for single women without children. Our results show that the financial incentives of the reform had powerful effects on a wide range of lone mothers� decisions. The reform led to a substantial increase in employment rates of about 7 percentage points, which was driven by both higher rates at which lone mothers remained in the labor force and higher rates at which they entered it. Women�s responses were highly heterogeneous, with larger effects for mothers with one pre-school aged child, and virtually no effect for mothers with multiple older children. The reform also led to significant reductions in single mothers� subsequent fertility and in the rate at which they married. Our findings suggest that the generous childcare tax credit component of the reform played a key role in explaining the estimated employment responses. Finally, we find relatively large behavioral effects in anticipation of the actual reform, which emphasizes the importance of allowing for such effects in future evaluation research.

We use linked data for 1,460 workplaces and 19,853 employees from the Workplace Employee Relations Survey 1998 to analyse the incidence and duration of employee training in Britain. We find training to be positively associated with having a recognised vocational qualification and current union membership. Whilst being non-white, shorter current job tenure, and part-time or fixed-term employment statuses are all associated with less training. Furthermore, in line with recent non-competitive training models, higher levels of wage compression (measured in absolute or relative terms) are positively related to training.

This paper studies the effect of unemployment benefits on the unemployment and subsequent employment duration using individual data from the European Community Household Panel, for France, Germany, and the UK. The empirical analysis is based on a two-state mixed proportional hazard model allowing for flexible duration dependence and state specific unobserved heterogeneity. We find that recipients, relative to non-recipients, face lower exit rates from unemployment, while an additional month in unemployment increases their subsequent employment stability. This positive correlation between previous unemployment and subsequent employment duration for the recipients is statistically significant for the short-term unemployed in France and Germany. The results indicate that in these two countries, which provide more generous benefits relative to the UK, recipients who search for a longer period within the first year in unemployment obtain higher employment stability.

This study compares wage mobility in Portugal and the UK, replicating the work by Dickens (2000) and progressing to discuss the impact of differences in the institutional framework, which is more regulated and centralized in Portugal, with minimum wages, employment protection, and collective bargaining widely applied. Results indicate that both countries became more unequal and less mobile labour markets, having departed from similar levels in mid-80s. The evidence does not support the idea that a more regulated institutional framework reduces individual mobility within the wage distribution.

This paper investigates whether the acquisition of a domestic establishment by a foreign owner has any effects on the survival prospects and employment growth of that plant. The analysis uses plant level data for the UK electronics and food industries for the period 1980 to 1993. We control for possible endogeneity using a matched sample of firms and instrumental variables. Estimating a standard hazard model yields the result that foreign takeover reduces the liftetime of the acquired plant in both the electronics and food sectors. Estimations of the determinants of employment growth in domestic plants provide some evidence that the incidence of takeover reduces employment growth, in particular for unskilled labour in the electronics industry. There is no significant effect for the food sector, however.

Perhaps no other country in recent years has witnessed greater change in its collective bargaining framework than the UK. This paper describes the dramatic developments and their consequences. Like Gaul, it is in three parts. The first part charts the six major pieces of legislation � conventionally described as �anti-union� � that were enacted by successive Conservative administrations between 1980 and 1993, and links them to the subsequent decline in unionism and to improvements in firm performance and that of the macro economy. The second part examines the accession of �New Labour� and reviews its domestic reform agenda, today largely in place. That agenda comprises two general pieces of employment and employment relations law plus a new national minimum wage. At first (and second) blush these changes do not return Britain to the mid-1970s even if they do imply an increase in union membership and rising costs for business. For evidence of more profound change one has to turn to the third part of our story: the social policy agenda of the European Union. Almost immediately upon taking office, New Labour signed up to the social chapter. This means that a slew of new legislation seeking to regulate the employment relation (mostly decided by qualified majority) is now in immediate prospect. Europe is therefore set to impact the theory and practice of British industrial relations. We provide a brief review of recent and prospective legislation.

The pattern of employment among men and women has changed remarkably over the past decades. While the employment rate of women has risen, that of men has continued to decline. Disproportionate growth in the participation in the labor market of women with highincome husbands has heightened concerns that wives� earnings may increase income inequality among married couples. Questions about the implications for income distribution have also been raised, especially in countries like Italy, the UK, and the US, where more noticeable growth of income inequality during the last decade has accompanied changes in employment levels. In this paper we attempt to measure the impact of the changes of women and men�s employment patterns on the distribution of income among Italian households. Using microdata from the Historical Archive of the Bank of Italy Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW), a repeated cross-sectional survey that covers the period 1977-1998, we examine the impact of employment changes on inequality in family income distribution and how this relationship has changed over time and across regions. Our preliminary results show that the increase in the employment of women during the period of observation had the effect of reducing inequality in family incomes, while the decline in men's employment had the opposite effect. The equalizing impact of wives' work on income inequality has become increasingly important over time and has been greater among Northern households. Especially since the mid-nineties, wives' earnings have reduced inequality in as much as the distribution of income would have been less equal in their absence. More conclusive results could be achieved by analyzing a more structural approach where the labor supply of husbands and that of wives are determined simultaneously.

An interesting aspect of British research on unions based on the Workplace Industrial/ Employment Relations Surveys has been the apparent shift in union impact on establishment performance in the decade of the 1990s compared with the 1980s � and the recent scramble to explain the phenomenon. In this contribution, we chart these changes along the dimensions of financial performance, labor productivity, employment, quits, absenteeism, industrial relations climate, and plant closings. Using the most recent workplace survey, we also investigate the controversial notion that union influence is positive where unions are strong and is negative where unions are weak. This notion, encountered in recent research in Britain (and Germany), emphasizes the benefits of the collective voice of unions, arguing that this voice is only 'heard' when the union is strong or a credible agent. We examine this contention for a fuller array of definitions of union influence and workplace performance measures. Overall, our discussion reveals some evidence that is consistent with reduced bargaining power in the wake of anti-union reform measures and heightened product market competition. On the other hand, there is little support for the recherch� notion that stronger unions have a beneficial impact, yet weaker ones do not.

This study examines individuals� unemployment experiences from the age of 18 up to the age of 35 using a large panel of administrative records on unemployment related benefit claims of men in the United Kingdom over the past two decades. The main focus is on the extent to which individuals� unemployment experiences are affected by regional and skill differences, i.e. individual heterogeneity, and the business cycle. In particular this study analyses the extent to which repeated unemployment is experienced by individuals who are not able to get stable employment and individuals who hold several jobs interrupted with spells of unemployment before obtaining stable employment. The results provide new insights into the long-term benefits of a labour market program aimed at increasing the employability of the unemployed and getting them into work, such as the New Deal in the UK.

This paper explores the relationship between non-standard types of employment and mental health. The analysis uses data on workers from the first seven waves of the British Household Panel Study, 1991-97. Four different types of non-standard employment (non-standard ontracts, places, times, and weekly hours of work) are analysed and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) index is used as the measure of mental health. We find evidence of only a modest effect of all types of flexible employment on the GHQ scores of men and women. Although the workers� non-standard employment behaviour does not significantly vary with their endowments and unobserved inputs, population health heterogeneity may still have a critical effect on the observed changes in labour market behaviour. Finally, we find some significant effect of non-standard employment on mental health when the sample is stratified by age and education.

In Britain about 7% of male employees and 10% of female employees are in temporary jobs. In contrast to much of continental Europe, this proportion has been relatively stable over the 1990s. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, we find that temporary workers report lower levels of job satisfaction, receive less work-related training, and are less well-paid than their counterparts in permanent employment. However, there is evidence that fixed-term contracts are a stepping stone to permanent work. Women (but not men) who start in fixed-term employment and move to permanent jobs fully catch up to those who start in permanent jobs.

This review of UK economic policy responses to the Covid-19 crisis identifies serious problems with existing measures. We describe alternative policies which could alleviate hardship, protect business from destruction in the growing depression, facilitate recovery with full employment in a Green New Deal, and redistribute income and power with economic democracy in the workplace. Only such policies can ensure high quality work for all, the natural rights of self-determination at work, and equitable sharing of the surplus that is produced by all employees as intentional agents. The proposed reforms are opposed by the strong vested interests which currently hold most power, so mobilising popular support and achieving real change will require a long struggle, just as attaining political democracy a century ago did.