Low employment quality and precarious employment have been associated with adverse mental health outcomes, yet the extent to which this association may be explained by the experience of unemployment “scarring” has not yet been explored. Drawing on UK data the article, assessed the links between individuals’ employment quality, unemployment history, and mental well-being and psychological distress. The results help further understanding of employment quality as a social determinant of health and highlight the need for both life course and gender-sensitive research in this area.

A new paper co-authored by IER’s Trine P. Larsen, Anna Ilsøe (University of Copenhagen), Chris Mathieu (University of Lund) and Bertil Rolandsson (University of Gothenburg) explores social partner responses to increased usage of AI-based technologies in Denmark and Sweden.

IER, together with Copenhagen Business School and FAOS, University of Copenhagen, organised the 42nd conference of the International Working Party on Labour Market Segmentation (IWPLMS), which took place at Copenhagen Business School on 5-6 September. The conference was well attended and both international academic scholars and practitioners took part in the conference.

IER’s Trine P. Larsen and Anna Ilsøe (FAOS, University of Copenhagen, Denmark), have edited a special issue for the European Journal of Industrial Relations. It consists of contributions from a range of leading European scholars and looks at the role of social dialogue and collective bargaining to creating, maintaining or reducing the risks associated with employment contracts of few hours, such as marginal part-time work, temporary agency work and zero-hour contracts.

Building on extensive work on sustainable public procurement over the past years, IER's Dr Eva Katharina Sarter presented a paper entitled "Hidden Debates: Public Procurement as a Venue for Negotiation", which examined the political dimension of debates on the strategic use of public procurement to foster (social) policy goals.