Quantity over quality: a political economy of ‘active labour market policy’ in the UK

This article offers a critical evaluation of recent ‘active labour market policy’ (ALMP) initiatives in the UK, focusing on the coalition government's Work Programme and its immediate antecedents. ALMP exemplifies a supply-side employment strategy, reorienting the state away from supporting labour demand and towards promoting the ‘employability’ of individuals within existing labour market structures. The article locates the rationale for this policy agenda within the wider politics of economic growth. Belying its status as a pioneer of ALMP, the UK spends very little on supply-side labour market interventions relative to other European countries. This can be explained with reference to the type of ALMP interventions prioritised in the UK, which in turn is explained by the growth model that ALMP is designed to sustain. The UK's growth model requires an abundance of low-paid jobs in the labour-intense and volatile services sector. Ostensibly, ALMP fulfils this requirement by ensuring that individuals are immediately available for work, marginalising concerns about pay and job quality. Moreover, ALMP also serves to inculcate the desirability of certain behaviours at the individual level. The coalition government's approach demonstrates an intensification rather than transformation of previous practice, indicative of its support for resurrecting the UK's pre-crisis growth model

Exclusionary employment in Britain’s broken labour market

There is growing evidence of the problematic nature of the UK’s ‘flexible labour market’ with rising levels of in-work poverty and insecurity. Yet successive Governments have stressed that paid work is the route to inclusion, focussing attention on the divide between employed and unemployed. Past efforts to measure social exclusion have tended to make the same distinction. The aim of this paper is to apply Levitas et al’s (2007) framework to assess levels of exclusionary employment, i.e. exclusion arising directly from an individual’s labour market situation. Using data from the Poverty and Social Exclusion UK survey, results show that one in three adults in paid work is in poverty, or in insecure or poor quality employment. One third of this group have not seen any progression in their labour market situation in the last five years. The policy focus needs to shift from ‘Broken Britain’ to Britain’s broken labour market

Labour markets and wages in Australia: 2008

The Australian economy in 2008 was one of contrasts: the resource based states continued to grow at relatively higher rates than the remainder; wage and employment outcomes varied widely for different groups in the labour force; and domestic climate change policies achieved prominence just as a global economic downturn lead to rapidly changing macroeconomic conditions. Within this rapidly changing context, ongoing concerns with labour utilization, wage equity and issues of compliance appear likely to grow in significance

Exploring disparities in acute myocardial infarction events between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians: roles of age, gender, geography and area-level disadvantage

We investigated disparities in rates of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in the 199 Statistical Local Areas (SLAs) in New South Wales, Australia. Using routinely collected and linked hospital and mortality data from 2002 to 2007, we developed multilevel Poisson regression models to estimate the relative rates of first AMI events in the study period accounting for area of residence. Rates of AMI in Aboriginal people were more than two times that in non-Aboriginal people, with the disparity greatest in more disadvantaged and remote areas. AMI rates in Aboriginal people varied significantly by SLA, as did the Aboriginal to non-Aboriginal rate ratio. We identified almost 30 priority areas for universal and targeted preventive interventions that had both high rates of AMI for Aboriginal people and large disparities in rates

Environmental impacts of food retail: A framework method and case application

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. The food retail sector is the gatekeeper between consumers and producers and has substantial influence on consumption and production choices via procurement and provision decisions. Food provision and consumption systems embody huge environmental impacts worldwide. Food retailers as gatekeepers have a key role to play to enable sustainable consumption and provision to become common practice. In this paper, a framework to attribute emissions and water use to individual and all food retail businesses and their products by geographical area and postcode of cities is presented. As far as the current authors are aware, such a framework has not been generated for food retail sector businesses before, primarily due to barriers to input-output modelling of the sector. The scientific value added is that a novel approach to overcome barriers is presented as well as the required framework. The framework is illustrated for Southampton, but can be applied in other regions of the world where similar data exist. The value of a business's product emissions estimates (generated by the framework) is they can be a first step in informing product prioritisation for focussing information searches or more detailed life cycle analysis to make sustainable procurement and choice editing decisions. The approach has value to government, businesses and non-government organisations (NGOs) in developing strategy and planning sustainable provision and procurement; by helping benchmark sustainable shopping provision, prioritisation of retail businesses and product categories for sustainable procurement/choice editing

Long-term care cost drivers and expenditure projection to 2036 in Hong Kong

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hong Kong's rapidly ageing population, characterised by one of the longest life expectancies and the lowest fertility rate in the world, is likely to drive long-term care (LTC) expenditure higher. This study aims to identify key cost drivers and derive quantitative estimates of Hong Kong's LTC expenditure to 2036.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We parameterised a macro actuarial simulation with data from official demographic projections, Thematic Household Survey 2004, Hong Kong's Domestic Health Accounts and other routine data from relevant government departments, Hospital Authority and other LTC service providers. Base case results were tested against a wide range of sensitivity assumptions.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Total projected LTC expenditure as a proportion of GDP reflected secular trends in the elderly dependency ratio, showing a shallow dip between 2004 and 2011, but thereafter yielding a monotonic rise to reach 3.0% by 2036. Demographic changes would have a larger impact than changes in unit costs on overall spending. Different sensitivity scenarios resulted in a wide range of spending estimates from 2.2% to 4.9% of GDP. The availability of informal care and the setting of formal care as well as associated unit costs were important drivers of expenditure.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The "demographic window" between the present and 2011 is critical in developing policies to cope with the anticipated burgeoning LTC burden, in concert with the related issues of health care financing and retirement planning.</p

Tenure, mobility and retention of nurses in Queensland, Australia: 2001 and 2004

[Abstract]: Aim: Data were collected on tenure, mobility and retention of the nursing workforce in Queensland to aid strategic planning by the Queensland Nurses’ Union. Background: Shortages of nurses negatively affect the health outcomes of patients. Population rise is increasing the demand for nurses in Queensland. The supply of nurses is affected by recruitment of new and returning nurses, retention of the existing workforce and mobility within institutions. Methods: A self-reporting, postal survey was undertaken of Queensland Nurses Union members from the major employment sectors of aged care, public acute and community health and private acute and community health. Results: Only 60% of nurses had been with their current employer more than five years. In contrast 90% had been nursing for five years or more and most (80%) expected to remain in nursing for at least another five years. Breaks from nursing were common and part-time positions in the private and aged care sectors offered flexibility. Conclusion: The study demonstrated a mobile nursing workforce in Queensland although data on tenure and future time in nursing suggested that retention in the industry was high. Concern is expressed for replacement of an aging nursing population

Evaluating quality of contraceptive counseling: An analysis of the method information index

The Method Information Index (MII) is calculated from contraceptive users\u27 responses to questions regarding counseling content-whether they were informed about methods other than the one they received, told about method-specific side effects, and advised what to do if they experienced side effects. The MII is increasingly reported in national surveys and used to track program performance, but little is known about its properties. Using additional questions, we assessed the consistency between responses and the method received in a prospective, multicountry study. We employed two definitions of consistency: (1) presence of any concordant response, and (2) absence of discordant responses. Consistency was high when asking whether users were informed about other methods and what to do about side effects. Responses were least consistent when asking whether side effects were mentioned. Adjusting for inconsistency, scores were up to 50 percent and 30 percent lower in Pakistan and Uganda, respectively, compared to unadjusted MII scores. Additional questions facilitated better understanding of counseling quality