IER News & blogs
World Mental Health Day: Highlighting the role of job quality - Blog by Rebeka Balogh
The 10th of October is World Mental Health Day and this year’s theme stresses that good mental health should be a human right for all. Currently, this is sadly far from reality.
Mental health conditions may be a barrier to work. And it is increasingly clear that mental health inequalities are also present amongst those in work. The quality of jobs and employment have implications for workers’ mental health and wellbeing.
Observing World Youth Skills Day: Reflections from research in Sierra Leone - Blog by Jamelia Harris
World Youth Skills Day recognises the strategic importance of providing young people around the world with the necessary skills for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship. July 15th was first declared World Youth Skills Day by the United Nations General Assembly in 2014 and has been celebrated each year since. This year, the theme centres on “Skilling teachers, trainers and youth for a transformative future.”
Declining real wages and why we need to think about the income-health relationship
In this blog Dr Jamelia Harris gives a preview of her thinking so far on creating a future of healthy jobs, based on a paper she is currently working on.
The paper is for ReWAGE, the work and employment expert group hosted by Warwick IER and co-chaired by Warwick and Leeds Universities, and has been commissioned and funded by Deloitte.
Skills for the future of work
IER's Dr Sally Wright co-wrote a blog with Dr Michael Kohlgrüber from Dortmund TU University on skills for the future of work, drawing on insights from the BEYOND 4.0 project.
Find out more about future (digital) skills requirements on the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung Athens' Future of Work project website.
Caste differences in the acquisition of soft skills among disadvantaged young people in India
Blog by Clare Lyonette, Sudipa Sarkar, Gaby Atfield, Beate Baldauf, Bhaskar Chakravorty and Erika Kispeter
‘Soft’ skills are important labour market skills and include social aptitudes, language and communication capability, friendliness and ability to work in a team. Using survey data collected at two time points from a large sample of disadvantaged young people enrolled on a skills training programme in India, we examine whether caste affects initial levels of soft skills, and whether or not these skills can be learned during a relatively short period, providing young people with longer-term opportunities within the labour market.