IER News & blogs

Work by IER's Dr Clare Lyonette has been featured in an article on the University of Warwick's Knowledge Centre. The article reports on findings from recent research on the differences in couples' decisions to work while children are still young.

The article reflects findings from research undertaken for Dr Lyonette's prizewinning BSA Sage Prize for Excellence paper - ‘We both need to work’: maternal employment, childcare and health care in Britain and the USA - co-authored by Gayle Kaufman and Rosemary Crompton, which was published in Work, Employment and Society 25: 34-50.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has today published three reports on Apprenticeships, co-authored by IER and IFF Research.

The reports detail findings from research undertake by IER and IFF using the Apprentice Learner Survey of 5,000 apprentices and provide evidence of the real value of apprenticeships.

• Employer investment in apprenticeships and workplace learning: the fifth net benefits of training to employers study

• Evaluation of apprenticeships: employers

• Evaluation of apprenticeships: learners

Dr Deirdre Hughes OBE, IER Associate Fellow, has been appointed Chair of the new National Council for Careers by the Skills Minister John Hayes. The aim of the Council is to provide a forum in which experts from business and the careers sector can discuss the operation and development of the National Careers Service in England, and provide advice to Government.

Today sees the publication of a report of findings from research undertaken by a team at the Warwick Institute for Employment Research and the Institute of Fiscal Studies. The project considered the impact of changes in the structure of employment and pay on income inequality and poverty. It combined employment projections with a tax and benefit model to simulate the distribution of household income, poverty and inequality.

The research found that changes in the labour market, combined with changes to the tax and benefit system, over the next decade are likely to increase relative poverty rates across the UK. It also found that changes that might be expected to lead to lower poverty, such as reducing the gender pay gap or rebalancing regional growth, are (by themselves) unlikely to do so.

The full report is available on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website.

IER's Anne Green has been announced as a member of the Lead Expert Group of the Foresight Project on the Future of Manufacturing.

The project calls on industry and academic expertise from the UK and abroad to explore how the UK can maximise key opportunities and mitigate risks. In doing so, it will provide a robust evidence base to help ensure that policy decisions taken today are resilient in an uncertain future.

The Lead Expert Group of eminent academic and private sector experts from a range of disciplines works alongside the Foresight team. The project’s fresh thinking, innovative evidence base and futures analysis will help inform policy makers.

Details of the project are available on the Future of Manufacturing website.