Why are women more likely than men to extend paid work? : The impact of work-family history on a decision to extend working life

Extending working life, and enabling and encouraging people to work longer, is a key policy area. That women are more likely than men to work beyond state pension age indicates that factors other than the state pension age play a role in extending working life. Financial factors are likely to be a key reason why women, and especially divorced women, are more likely than men to extend working life. It is well documented that women are less able to build a pension income due to their role as carer within the family, with their marital and fertility histories impacting upon work history. It therefore follows that gender inequalities over the life course continue into older age to influence need, capacity and desire to undertake paid work after state pension age. This paper explores how work, marital and fertility history impact upon the likelihood of working beyond state pension age, focusing upon differences between men and women. It uses the British Household Panel Survey’s retrospective data from the first 14 waves to summarise work-family histories, and logistic regression to understand the impact of work and family histories on working beyond state pension age. Findings show that, for women, family history is important for explaining a greater propensity to work beyond state pension age, with short breaks due to caring, lengthy marriages, and late divorce and remaining single with children all being important. However, lengthy dis-attachment (due to caring) from the labour market, and thus lowered negotiating power, makes working longer more difficult. For men, even short periods out of the labour market reduce their odds of working longer. This indicates that, on the one hand, policy needs to focus upon reducing the financial need to work longer by tackling gender inequalities in the labour market. On the other, to enable those most in financial need to work longer, more help needs to be given to increase their negotiating power in the labour market

Inclusive citizenship and degenderization : A comparison of state support in 22 European countries

This paper argues that welfare state progress needs to be based upon support for “inclusive citizenship” – the right to care, work and earn. Comparative analyses of welfare have often focused on defamilization to capture these dimensions. But inclusive citizenship requires challenging gender roles in both work (public sphere) and care (private sphere), and thus the paper argues that the concept of degenderization is a more suitable analytical tool. This paper adds to our understanding by operationalizing the concept of degenderization to compare how (far) 22 European countries degenderize. Indeed, it goes further to examine not just how much welfare states degenderize but how – whether they focus on degendering both work and care, crucial for “inclusive citizenship”. To examine how states degenderize, it uses a new way of classifying welfare states by examining policy packages using radar charts. It examines how much they degenderize against a yardstick, using the Surface Measure of Overall Performance approach. Seven welfare types were identified, but none fully supported inclusive citizenship. Indeed, the country clusters identified in this study differ from those found by previous studies, challenging commonly held views about which countries ought to be seen as key exemplars. This reflects the paper's distinctive focus on inclusive citizenship – capturing support for degendering care and work – and that it compares countries on the basis of their policy packages. It also examines how approach to and generosity of degenderization are related to gender equality outcomes

Working beyond state pension age : the impact of income and work-family life history

Preliminary report examing the impact of income and work and family history upon working upon state pension age

Working Beyond State Pension Age: Does Work History Matter?

Work history is likely to influence a decision to work beyond state pension age (SPA), since income in old age is influenced by years worked, level of earnings, occupation and timing of career. Thus, you would expect those with broken work histories to be more likely to work beyond SPA with the view to supplement their income, and build up greater pension provision for the future. However, there is evidence that having a low income does not always lead to high propensity to work beyond SPA: Those with the lowest financial resources are less likely to work longer, even controlling for other factors. This may be a reflection of careers in lower-skilled positions, with fewer labour market opportunities in old age. Thus, it may be that work life histories interact with income levels to influence extending working life. This paper attempts to examine quantitatively how work history influences the likelihood of working beyond SPA. It undertakes secondary longitudinal data analysis using retrospective work history data for the first 14 waves of the British Household Panel Survey to summarise work histories, including labour market attachment. Logistic regression is used to understand the impact of work histories on working beyond SPA, holding income and other factors constant. It finds that high personal income reduces the odds of working longer, even after controlling for other factors, but that work history is important even after income (and other factors) have been accounted for. Moreover, whilst lengthy years in employment increase the likelihood of working longer, periods of inactivity reduce the likelihood. This indicates that those with broken work histories, and seemingly in the most financial need, are less likely to undertake work beyond SPA, perhaps due to reduced negotiating power in the labour market

Why the UK Complied with COVID-19 Law

In March 2020, the UK introduced a set of rules to ‘lockdown’ the country in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The lockdown constituted a key feature of governmental efforts to manage the early stages of the pandemic. Evidence suggests that the lockdown attracted high levels of compliance. Yet, a question remains about exactly why the UK public complied. Based on a major empirical study, this article explores what drove legal compliance during the UK’s first lockdown. We find that legal compliance was dominated by normative concerns with the legitimacy of law. Yet, the public’s attachment to the legitimacy of law in general was undermined by concerns about the legitimacy of lockdown law specifically. Such specific legitimacy assessments were informed by people’s rights consciousness, their sense of obligation to others, perceptions of personal health vulnerability and assessments of the rules’ effectiveness in preventing virus transmission. The prospect of peer disapproval for beaching lockdown also proved significant, with the perceived risk of sanctions imposed by the police predicting fear of peer disapproval. The article concludes by considering what lessons might be learned about the use of legal rules to rapidly shape public behaviour in times of crisis

Undermining Loyalty to Legality? : An Empirical Analysis of Perceptions of 'Lockdown' Law and Guidance During COVID-19

This article substantially extends the existing constitutional and legal critiques of the use of soft law public health guidance in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing upon the findings of a national survey undertaken during the first wave of the pandemic in June 2020, it shows how the perceived legal status of lockdown rules made a significant difference as to whether the UK public complied with them and that this effect is a product of the legitimacy that law itself enjoys within UK society. Based on this analysis, it argues that the problems with the government’s approach to guidance, that have been subjected to criticism in constitutional and legal terms, may also be open to critique on the basis that they risk undermining the public’s loyalty to the law itself