IER News & blogs

The Futuretrack Stage 5 survey, a key part of the fieldwork for the fifth wave of the Futuretrack longitudinal study into the careers of UK graduates, has just gone live. The research team sent out an email invitation to existing Futuretrackers via Qualtrics to participate in the online survey. We have been working hard designing and testing the survey, and are now looking forward to receiving the responses.

The unique Futuretrack study is run by the IER and funded by the Nuffield Foundation. Futuretrack follows a large sample of students who applied to university in 2005/2006 and aims to gather detailed insights into the kinds of jobs graduates are doing in the longer-term, how they got them, whether higher education has contributed to social mobility, and how the experiences of the Futuretrack cohort compares with earlier graduate cohorts.

In Stage 5, we have placed an increased focus on the varied ways of navigating the labour market, as 'non-standard' forms of employment (anything short of a 9-5 permanent job) are becoming more common. We also place more emphasis on people's personal circumstances, housing situation and family life, as these issues start to become more pertinent. We hope to explore some of these issues in more detail through interviews with respondents.

The last time we were in touch with the Futuretrack participants was back in 2011/12, when we looked at what kinds of jobs recent graduates were doing around two years after their graduation. The subsequent report presented the main findings, including graduates' views about their jobs, choices about higher education, and outlooks for the future.

The new fifth stage, Degrees of Advantage, provides a timely opportunity to catch up with the Futuretrackers to see how they have navigated the labour market over the longer term. The fieldwork will comprise an online survey that should take around 20 minutes to complete, hosted by Qualtrics surveys. New to Stage 5 is the collection and analysis of qualitative data to shed more light on participants' experiences since graduating to date.

The Futuretrack study is the latest in a series of national graduate labour market studies carried out at the IER, including Moving On and Seven Years On (1995 graduates) and Class of '99 (1999 graduates), as part of IER's research area on higher education and the graduate labour market.

The new fifth stage research team is led by Dr Daria Luchinskaya, with Professor Chris Warhurst and Professor Peter Elias, and Gaby Atfield, Dr Wil Hunt, Rosie Day and Stef Poole at the Warwick Institute for Employment Research. The research team can be contacted with any questions at Futuretrack2006@warwick.ac.uk.

As part of his second IAS funded visit IER visit, Professor Philip Taylor, Federation University Australia, will give a workshop on Challenges of the contrarian: Lessons from studies on workforce ageing. It will be held on 14 March, 12.30 - 13.30 in room B0.41/43, ground floor, Social Sciences building. Although primarily targeted at early career scholars and researchers across the University, it is also open to anyone with an interest in the topic.

If you are interested in attending this free event please contact Lynne Marston at L.Marston@warwick.ac.uk by Tuesday, 12 March 4pm for the sandwich order.

Dr Michael Orton co-authored a journal article titled An agenda for fixing the social security/welfare benefits system that has been among the ten most read articles in the Journal of Poverty and Social Justice (JPSJ) in 2018. For free access until 28 February 2019 click here.

Batty, S. and Orton, M. (2018) ‘An agenda for fixing the social security/welfare benefits system’ Journal of Poverty and Social Justice 26 (2), 291-295.

IER has been awarded two new ESRC-funded PhD studentships from the Midlands Graduate School Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP).

(1) The Collaborative Studentship with the Living Wage Foundation on ‘Understanding employer delivery of good work in the UK’ will be supervised by Professor Chris Warhurst and Sally Wright. For full details about the scholarship click here and for information on how to apply here. The application deadline is Monday, 11th March at 5pm.

(2) The Joint Studentship 'Social inequalities entering civvy street: researching the importance of class and gender in determining labour market outcomes of military veterans,' will be supervised by Professor Clare Lyonette (IER) and Professor Tracey Warren (University of Nottingham). Further details are available here. The application deadline is Friday, 15th March at 5pm.

As part of IER’s ESRC-funded Impact Accelerator NGO data fund, Puja Marwaha, CEO of Child’s Rights and You (CRY), India, will be talking about ‘Malnutrition: the Grave Reality in India that Can be Changed’ at a workshop on 7th March, 11am to 3pm. The event will be held in room B0.41 Social Sciences building, University of Warwick. A sandwich lunch will be provided.

The workshop aims to bring together people from academia and outside of academia working in the development sector towards improving the lives of children. It will engage in discussions focusing on issues such as malnutrition among children in India, childhood poverty, child labour, child marriage, education, and children’s rights.

For further details please contact Sudipa Sarkar (S.Sarakar.2@warwick.ac.uk) and for registration Lynne Marston (L.Marston@warwick.ac.uk) by 4th of March.