THE AGEING WORKFORCE IN IRELAND: WORKING CONDITIONS, HEALTH AND EXTENDING WORKING LIVES. ESRI RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 92 OCTOBER 2019

Extending working lives is a central element of active ageing policy in Ireland and Europe, and is seen as promoting active lifestyles and sustaining social protection systems in the context of an ageing population. However, efforts to extend working life must consider the reasons why workers leave employment early. Simply raising the minimum retirement age will not build sustainable jobs. A central element of this picture is the health and working conditions faced by older workers. This project explores the retention of older workers in Ireland, drawing on several sources of data to describe their experience in the Irish labour market. While there is no official age threshold to classify a worker as an older worker, the literature on ageing workforce often focuses on workers aged 55 and over.1 In Ireland, according to the 2018 Labour Force Survey, there are currently 396,060 workers in this age category, accounting for 18 per cent of the employed population. We set out to explore the following questions: • How do the working conditions and the health of older workers compare to those of younger workers? • What types of jobs and working conditions are associated with perceived ability to work longer? • Which sectors and occupations are best able to retain older workers? • Among those who exit early (aged 55–59 years), what are their reasons for leaving work? • Are older workers more vulnerable to fatal injury in the workforce? Are they embedded in sectors prone to injury

Access to Childcare and Home Care Services across Europe. An Analysis of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU SILC), 2016. Social Inclusion Report No 8. September 2019

This report uses EU-SILC data for 2016 to examine differences by social risk group and social class in access to care services – specifically, childcare and home care for people with an illness or disability. We focus on 11 countries and four welfare regimes across Europe. We also examine the association between access to these services and both poverty and employment. There are three main findings. First, countries with universal services, or a strong welfare state, provide greater access to care overall, and greater access for vulnerable social risk and social class groups. Countries with means tested services offer lower coverage which results in a greater chance of unmet need for care. Second, certain social-risk groups have a higher chance of experiencing unmet need for childcare and home care. Social class or household composition differences within such groups cannot fully explain their likelihood of reporting unmet need. This suggests that social-risk groups are particularly vulnerable to unmet need. Third, unmet need for childcare and home care is associated with deprivation and, in the case of childcare, non-employment. In this way, unmet need for childcare in particular may act as a barrier to labour market participation. Although our analysis cannot establish a causal link between the two, unmet care need and non-employment are related, and could be a significant force for social exclusion. Policy efforts should limit the experience of unmet care needs

COVID-19 and non-Irish nationals in Ireland. ESRI Report December 2020.

In this report we examine the impact of COVID‐19 on the labour force outcomes of non‐Irish nationals compared to their Irish peers using Labour Force Survey data. In addition, we examine the proportion of non‐Irish nationals who are likely to be ‘key workers’ using Labour Force Survey data collected prior to the pandemic. We also briefly compare statistics on COVID‐19 cases and deaths by nationality (whether or not someone is an Irish citizen) and ethnicity (their self‐defined ethnic group)

Social Transfers and Deprivation in Ireland: A study of cash and non-cash payments tied to housing, childcare, and primary health care services. ESRI Report November 2020.

A new ESRI study commissioned by the Department of Social Protection found that tied cash and non-cash transfers are associated with lower deprivation, especially among vulnerable families. The authors considered benefits tied to housing, childcare, and medical services using 2017 data

Caring and Unpaid Work in Ireland. ESRI Research Series, 2019

Care and other unpaid work provides an important contribution to the welfare of individuals, families and society. Yet in contrast to paid work, participation in these activities and the time people spend on them is rarely measured. While the need for care is universal, labour market trends and demographic trends have changed the shape of these demands. For example, increased life expectancy increases the need for care of older people, while growing female participation in employment over the last two decades in Ireland has altered the availability of someone in the home to provide care. The division of paid and unpaid work is strongly gendered, but comparative analysis shows how the extent of gender equality in unpaid work varies across countries and is influenced, in part, by the policy configuration in place. Comparative studies suggest that Ireland is closest to the ‘modified male breadwinner’ policy regime, where there has been a shift from the traditional male breadwinner approach, particularly in terms of women’s increased participation in paid work. However supports for caring are comparatively low; combining paid work and caring remains challenging; and policies to encourage men to take on caring responsibilities are underdeveloped

Dynamic Outcomes: Effects of Job Mobility in Germany and the UK

The concept of job mobility is useful to sociologists who see inequality as stemming from positions in a social structure, instead of the characteristics of those holding the positions. Yet, authors more often explore the causes of job mobility than its consequences. An important but rarely tested assumption in the labour market literature is that job mobility leads to better positions. This research explores the assumption, asking “what do workers get from mobility?” It considers three aims. First, it explores the relationship between mobility types and subjective and objective outcomes. Second, it explores differences between labour market insiders and outsiders in the relationship between mobility and outcomes. Third, it compares institutional differences between liberal and coordinated economies in the mobility-outcomes relationship. The thesis uses two longitudinal panels to analyse the outcomes of different forms of job mobility in the UK and Germany during the precrisis years of 2000-2008. The three aims act as configurations of the mobility-outcomes relationship, shedding light on how it shapes worker action. Regarding mobility types, inter-firm mobility leads to subjective gains, but does not result in objective ones. Intra-firm mobility leads to objective gains, but has minor effects on subjective outcomes. Differences between workers rely strongly on the institutional context. British women appear to gain more from mobility than men; yet the gains are subjective or tied to hours. German women are unaffected by mobility, whereas men make subjective bargains using changes. Education differences suggest non-tertiary groups gain the most from mobility when outcomes are subjective but the least when outcomes are objective. Institutional comparison shows separate opportunity structures and separate meanings to mobility in both countries. German institutions internalise workers with high promotion premiums, which are smaller in the UK. The UK has a wide variance in working conditions which may explain large subjective premiums tied to inter-firm change. In Germany, quits may be fuelled by a want for more interesting or satisfactory work, at the compromise of other outcomes. In the UK, quits may be fuelled by a need to improve one’s immediate environment or responsibilities. The thesis concludes that the promises of mobile markets should be treated with scepticism

Origin and integration: a study of migrants in the 2016 Irish Census. ESRI Report June 2020.

Many migrant groups have higher educational attainment but higher unemployment levels, according to a new ESRI study

Monitoring decent work in Ireland. ESRI Research Series June 2021.

Work is core to people’s livelihood, their identity, and their well-being. Having a decent job gives workers adequate financial resources and contributes to their physical and mental health, their personal control and sense of purpose. Being unemployed or in poor quality work can have a damaging impact on other areas of life, including health, housing, or income. There has been extensive scholarship on labour market inequalities in Ireland, and while these studies offer significant insight into understanding the nature of work, they do not adopt a rights-based approach. This report considers decent work in Ireland in the context of international obligations about core minimum standards of work and nondiscrimination. It applies social science methods to monitoring international commitments on economic and social rights. This report develops a set of indicators for monitoring and then provides baseline figures on access to, and experience of, decent work across different groups in Ireland. Monitoring can provide evidence for policymakers, highlighting at-risk groups; it can inform the assessment of Ireland by UN international treaty monitoring; it can help to highlight data gaps and measurement limitations; and will also ideally inform public debate. The purpose is to highlight deficits or challenges in realising the right to decent work, rather than explaining the processes underlying these outcomes. Following a review of international measurement frameworks and consultation with stakeholders in Ireland, the report identifies six key dimensions of work and corresponding indicators: access to work; adequate earnings; employee voice; security and stability of work; equality of opportunity and treatment in employment; and health and safety. These are then applied to available survey data collected on the eve of the pandemic. Any assessment of the equality impact of the pandemic will be informed by understanding the situation prior to the pandemic. As is usual for a monitor, results for each indicator are presented as rates or scores for different groups and are not modelled. Therefore, the analysis does not allow us to identify the causes of group differences

Poverty, income inequality and living standards in Ireland. ESRI Report May 2021.

This report – funded by the Community Foundation for Ireland – brings together data from household surveys collected by the ESRI and the Central Statistics Office to create the first harmonised set of indicators on incomes, income inequality and poverty covering the period 1987 to 2019. These will be published on the ESRI website and can be used by policymakers, academics, journalists and the wider public to inform discussions around income inequality, poverty and deprivation

Monitoring report on integration 2020. ESRI Report December 2020.

Integration not only allows immigrants to contribute to the economic, social, cultural and political life of their host country, but is also important for social cohesion and inclusive growth. This report considers how non-Irish nationals are integrating into Irish society. Specifically, it considers how non-Irish nationals compare to the Irish population in terms of employment rates, educational qualifications, income and poverty rates, health outcomes, housing and participation in Irish political life