Work and labour markets

"Beyond the workfare state" explores equality, discrimination and human rights in relation to employability and 'welfare-to-work' policies bringing together a wide and distinctive range of illustrative studies that gives voice to a variety of potentially marginalised groups.

This book provides the first critically informed discussion of work and workers in the UK welfare sector under New Labour. It examines the changing nature of work and explores the context of industrial relations across the welfare industry.

This study examines the relationship between poverty and informal work. Exploring the experiences of people in low-paid informal work, it contends that unless government seeks to include the informal economy in its strategies, it will never be able to reach its employment or anti-poverty targets.

Free pdf version available at www.jrf.org.uk

This is the last of three reports in a longitudinal study that has followed the journey of a group of young people from less advantaged families through Higher Education and into the labour market. This report focuses on the young people's progress from full-time study into the graduate labour market. Free PDF available at www.jrf.org.uk

Governments worldwide assume that national competitiveness can be improved by developing workforce skills. This book critically examines this 'high skills' vision at both policy and practice levels. It challenges an oversimplified policy rhetoric that underestimates the complexity of the processes involved in developing a skilled workforce.

Any attempt by governments to stem the tide of early retirement will need to focus as much on employers' management of human resources as on the impacts of social policy. This report focuses on this previously neglected area: employers' policies and practice as a dynamic force in retirement decisions.

This book explores some of the diverse ways in which work helps to structure the relations between social policy and personal lives. Drawing on a wealth of theory, the authors explore questions that are central to our understanding of how the personal is not only shaped in and through work, but also contributes to social relations at work.

This report looks at the role of finances in decisions about early moves out of work. Drawing on in-depth interviews with people who make an early retirement, it makes a distinctive contribution to understanding their experiences, looking at the importance of money alongside other influences, including health and domestic circumstances.

This report draws together the findings from 12 individual Joseph Rowntree Foundation research projects, published in the Transitions after 50 series.

With the increase in mothers' employment both the government and many employers are promoting flexible working policies to improve work-life 'balance'. This report considers the effects of these changes on the lives of both women and men. It examines three employment sectors in detail - banking, grocery retail and local authorities.

Throughout the European Union, rates of unemployment among young people tend to be higher than among the general population and there is a serious risk of marginalisation and exclusion. This important new book presents the findings of the first comparative study of unemployed youth in Europe using a large and original data set.

This report explores the possibilities of more flexible forms of work that bridge the gap between a steady career job and retirement. It examines such jobs in the wider context of the types of transition that are being made by people leaving work early.