The European Social Dialogue (ESD) has served as the platform for European social partners to negotiate parental leave policies at the European Union (EU) level since 1995.

The partners’ efforts to revise the regulations in 2015, in response to the European Commission’s broader approach toward European work–life balance policies, failed, however, and the reasons for and implications of this failure remain insufficiently explored.

This new report investigates the current state of Functional Skills Qualifications (FSQs) in English and maths in the UK following their reform in 2019.

Conducted by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) and The University of Warwick Institute of Employment Research (IER), and supported by the Gatsby Foundation and the Edge Foundation, the study explores whether FSQs are still serving their intended purpose as practical, real world alternatives to GCSEs that focus on developing essential life and work skills.

Effective management and leadership in social care are essential for effective care worker performance, which, in turn, enables high-quality care.

This research report, commissioned by the Australian Association of Gerontology and written by IER's Professor Philip Taylor, highlights the critical need to understand better the nature and challenges of care management and leadership against a backdrop of growing demand for care and predicted shortfalls in the supply of workers to the sector.

IER’s Dr Sangwoo Lee presented one of his recent research papers at the London School of Economics CEP Well-being Seminar on 22 Feb 2024.

This paper, co-authored with Prof Francis Green at UCL, introduces a new well-being related threshold for bad jobs. The conceptualisation of bad jobs often entails low job quality, typically associated with job insecurity or low pay. These conceptualisations often adopt a simplistic framework, focusing on a single dimension of job quality, thereby leading to a potential misclassification of bad jobs.

The 42^nd International Working Party on Labour Market Segmentation (IWPLMS) conference aims to explore the challenges and opportunities arising from transformations in the world of work with a specific focus on the multifaceted dimensions of labour market segmentation.

The conference will take place at Copenhagen Business School on September 5-6, 2024, with IER’s Professor Trine Larsen being one of the local organisers. Abstract submission deadline is March 15, 2024. For more information please visit the conference website.