IER News & blogs

Working class women have borne the brunt of the cuts to working hours as employers struggle to ride out the pandemic, according to new findings published today by social inequality researchers from the University of Nottingham and Warwick's Institute for Employment Research. Working class women were the worst affected by spring’s UK-wide lockdown, with 40% reporting psychological distress in April.

Today’s briefing paper – 'Carrying the work burden of the COVID-19 pandemic: working class women in the UK: Employment and Mental Health' focuses on patterns of employment and mental health in the first three months of lockdown, as revealed by data from the monthly Understanding Society COVID-19 UK survey, and explores to what extent the experience of working class women differs from middle class women and from men.

Professor Clare Lyonette from IER said: "Many working class areas in the north are included in the higher tier groups of the government's new 3-tier system of local restrictions in England. The effects of any future lockdowns, either local or national, could be far-reaching and extremely damaging for working class women who provide vital work, both paid and unpaid'.

Read the press release here.

New research is being conducted by Professor Tracey Warren at the University of Nottingham and Professor Clare Lyonette at IER, with the Women’s Budget Group. Latest findings, reported in the Telegraph, suggest that the cumulative burden of housework, childcare, home-schooling and paid employment during the pandemic is having a disproportionate impact on women’s psychological wellbeing.

During lockdown, 70% of employed women living in couples reported bearing the main responsibility for washing/ironing (13% of men). Far more working mothers than fathers had main responsibility for childcare and 59% of employed mothers reported having main responsibility for additional home-schooling (9% of men). Women’s paid work has also been affected. More women than men are keyworkers, highest among working-class women, and a much higher proportion of female keyworkers are in frontline roles involving face-to-face interaction, putting both themselves and their families at risk, e.g. Health and social care; Education and child-care. Other women, especially working class women, have been furloughed, raising the risk of later job losses. Perhaps unsurprisingly, women's psychological wellbeing has been badly impacted, with working class women most likely to be psychologically distressed.

The Job Support Scheme announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 24^th September is a form of short-time working subsidy found in countries such as Germany and France. If an employee’s working hours are reduced and thereby their pay, the state will make up a third of the lost earnings and the employer a further third. In summary, the scheme is designed to distribute available work over a larger group of workers than would be the case otherwise thereby helping to offset any increase in unemployment resulting from the pandemic.

Warwick IER was commissioned by Skills Development Scotland (SDS) to advise on how incentives can support employer apprenticeships during and beyond the Covid-19 crisis.

The study involved an international review of evidence on the financial and other incentives countries use to stimulate employer investment in apprenticeships. It explored: (a) where employer incentives have worked best; (b) how they were targeted; (c) which instruments were used; and (d) the risks and opportunities of different incentives.

The report provided an assessment of how incentive best practice might be applied in Scotland the short-, medium- and longer term, based on an analysis of Scottish apprenticeship data and consultations with international Vocational Education and Training (VET) experts.

Based on research from the Beyond 4.0 project examining the future of work and welfare, Chris Warhurst was invited to deliver a talk in September on ‘The challenges and opportunities in the digitalisation of production’.

The talk, co-presented with Steven Dhondt of the Dutch TNO, centred on making Industrie 4.0 work for all in an inclusive Europe. It was delivered to the Oesterreichische Nationalbank/European Money & Finance Forum event ‘25 years of EU Northern Enlargement’ held virtually in Vienna in September. The talk was based on a chapter in a report of the same name also published at the same time.