Steve Fothergill

A Gendered Theory of Employment, Unemployment and Sickness

The high level of receipt of disability benefits in the UK was until the 1990s a problem predominantly affecting men. However, the number of women claiming—1.1 million—is now on a similar scale. The decline of heavy industry produced large numbers of men with ill health and limited alternative employment prospects who claimed disability benefits. However, this explanation is problematic for women, who have seen an expansion in employment. We set out a framework that reconciles the central importance of the level of labour demand in explaining worklessness with the paradoxical simultaneous rise of womens employment and receipt of disability benefits. Women claiming disability benefits are overwhelmingly located alongside male claimants in areas where heavy industry has declined, pointing towards linkages between the ‘male’ and ‘female’ sides of the labour market. Additionally, there may be raised knowledge and local acceptance of disability benefits in these locations.

Geographical Variation in the Labour-Market Adjustment Process: The UK Coalfields 1981–91

During the 1980s and early 1990s the UK coal industry shed more than 90% of its workforce. In this paper we explore the consequences for different coalfields and individual districts by means of comprehensive ‘labour-market accounts’. The impact of job loss on recorded unemployment shows remarkably little variation, but this disguises considerably greater diversity in other labour-market flows. There is evidence that much unemployment has become ‘hidden’ and that the disparities between areas are much larger than official figures suggest.

Bringing Incapacity Benefit numbers down: to what extent do women need a different approach?

The dominant narrative used to explain the big rise in Incapacity Benefit (IB) numbers across Britain is essentially about men. The collapse of male employment in older industries, mostly in the North, Scotland and Wales, led to the emergence of a cohort of mainly older, less healthy men who accessed IB instead of unemployment benefits. What this overlooks is that among the under-60s the number of women claiming IB now almost equals the number of men. In view of the long-term increase in employment opportunities for women, the similarity in IB numbers is at first sight surprising. Does this mean that bringing down the number of women on IB requires a different approach? The article draws on evidence from a survey of men and women claiming IB, in-depth interviews with claimants and professional stakeholders and secondary data analysis. The identical geography of male and female IB claimants suggests that a weak aggregate demand for labour is through time transmitted, via labour market sorting processes, to exclude from employment the most disadvantaged in terms of skills and health, irrespective of gender. The article highlights important similarities between the men and women claiming IB but also a number of distinctive issues affecting women, including the roles of increased labour market participation, lone parenthood and the impact of benefit rules. It is concluded that a package of economic regeneration and supply-side interventions will bring down the number of both men and women claiming IB.

The impact of the UK’s disability benefit reforms

Between 2006 and 2010 the UK government initiated major reforms to disability benefits. By 2011 the impacts were only beginning to be felt, but from 2012 onwards the reforms are scheduled to hit hard and in rapid succession.

The impact on welfare and public finances of job loss in industrial Britain

Abstract It is important to take a long view of many economic problems. This article explains how the large-scale loss of industrial jobs in parts of Britain during the 1980s and 1990s still inflates the contemporary budget deficit in the United Kingdom. Drawing on the findings of several empirical studies by the authors, the article shows that although there has been progress in regeneration the consequences of job loss in Britain’s older industrial areas have been near-permanently higher levels of worklessness, especially incapacity benefits, low pay, and a major claim on present-day public finances to pay for both in-work and out-of-work benefits. Furthermore, as the UK government implements reductions in welfare spending the poorest places are being hit hardest. In effect, communities in older industrial Britain now face punishment in the form of welfare cuts for the destruction previously wrought to their industrial base.

Disability Benefits in the UK: An Issue of Health or Jobs?

The UK has 2.6 million men and women of working age out-of-work on disability benefits, far more than the number on unemployment benefits even in the wake of recession. While not unique in this respect, the 7% of the working age population out-of-work on disability benefits places the UK well towards the upper end of the range in Europe (Kemp, 2006).