Work
Paid work is fundamental to most people’s lives and to society. We spend a large part of our lives working or preparing to enter the labour force.
Work generates the majority of most households’ income and the taxation needed to fund public services. And the way we feel about working, and the job we do, is strongly associated with the way we feel and our status in society. When it’s taken away from us we suffer.
At the UCL Social Research Institute, we adopt a multidisciplinary approach to the study of work – both paid and unpaid – drawing on economics, sociology and psychology. It is a central theme in all three of our undergraduate degrees and is taught in our core modules (Social Change Within Contemporary Society). It is also a special optional module in Year Two called Work and Employment Relations and is central to the Year Two module Economics of Public Policy and the Year Three module Gender Families and Work.
At UCL we teach the Connected Curriculum which means SRI staff teach topics which they actively research. Work Themes which feature in current or recent funded research projects at SRI include the following.
- Transitions across labour market states: what affects individuals’ working patterns and earnings growth? Research study: Wage and Employment Dynamics.
- The relationship between health and labour market participation: how do physical and mental health impact individuals’ labour market prospects? And what is the impact of labour market activity on worker wellbeing and health? Research study: The economic and social value of health from childhood to later life.
- Inequalities at work and in the labour market: Research study: The gender wage gap: evidence from the cohort studies.
- The organization of work and firm performance: why do employers design work in the way they do and how has this changed over time with the advent of new technologies and new managerial thinking? Research study: Power, Structure and Technology: Opportunities and Challenges for the Labour Market.
- Worker voice and representation at work: what role do trade unions and other forms of worker representation play in the workplace and what are their effects on workers and firms? Research study: Collective Organizations, Support and Sustainability: employer organizations, trade unions and collective agreements.
- Evaluation of public policy interventions in the labour market: how does government use policy to impact labour market outcomes? Research Study: The Effects of Teacher Pay Reforms on Teacher Pay, Teacher Careers and Student Attainment.
- Predicting recession using the ‘economics of walking about’. Research Study: How the Economics of Walking About Helps Predict Unemployment.
- Wage stagnation since the Great Recession. Research Study: The Wage Curve after the Great Recession.
- Productivity and management practices. Research Study: Human Resources Management and Productivity Diffusion.
- Comparative employment relations. Research Study: Comparative Workplace Employment Relations: An Analysis of Practice in Britain and France.
We collaborate with academics and policy analysts around the world including colleagues at the:
- Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD)
- Paris School of Economics
- École normale supérieure in Paris
- Institute for Social Research in Norway
- Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics in Finland
- Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations
- Erasmus University’s Centre for Applied Sports Economics
- Department of Economics at Dartmouth College, and
- Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of Berkeley in California.
