Intergenerational worklessness in an international context: the role of labour markets, welfare systems and education

Intergenerational worklessness, the association in workless spells across generations, is a new and important topic of increasing interest in academia, political circles and the public domain. The research fits well with one of the ESRCs main strategic priorities under the heading of 'A Fair and Vibrant Society', specifically asking 'How mobile is our society?'. Intergenerational worklessness captures a particularly severe type of deprivation that is passed across generations. By providing the first evidence for a wide range of countries, this proposal will enable us to measure how much of a problem a lack of mobility for those stuck at the bottom of the labour market is in an international context.

The first strand of this project will present the first international comparison of intergenerational worklessness across Europe, the USA, Australia and Canada. The work will have a particular focus on labour market entrants in the second generation to assess whether intergenerational factors might be driving the recent surge in youth unemployment rates. The second strand of this research will build on this, considering the role of local labour markets, welfare systems and education systems in the transmission of workless spells. More specifically it will aim to:
1) Ask whether intergenerational associations arise because some countries have more work (lower unemployment) than other countries or whether there is an additional penalty of living in a country with no work and having a workless father.
2) Assess whether there is any association between countries with more generous welfare systems for labour market entrants and high persistence in workless spells across generations.
3) Examine how education systems prepare young people for employment across countries and how this is associated with patterns in intergenerational worklessness.
The project will aim to deal with the obvious methodological challenges faced in identifying the effect of these factors on intergenerational worklessness by exploiting variation across countries and time where possible.

Along with producing new and valuable research, I will use this grant to learn a variety of new skills that will enable me to become a research leader. I will build on my existing international networks with planned trips to Harvard University, the University of Melbourne and the Swedish Institute of Social Research, all supported by international experts based at these institutions. I will expand my knowledge of methodologies and welfare and education systems beyond my current UK focus, attending training courses and learning from my new networks. I will also gain management skills by leading a grant for the first time, managing a budget and managing a junior researcher. Finally, I will improve on my communication skills by working with the communications team in my department to create maximum exposure for my work.

I have a proven record in writing high-impact research and will use this experience and contacts to ensure this new work is widely disseminated. I believe that the topical nature of the research will make this of interest to a wide range of audiences, including academics, policy makers and practitioners. I will aim to publish this research in leading peer-reviewed academic journals such as the Journal of European Social Policy, Demography and the Journal of European Economic Association and present my work at a number of international conferences including the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, the Annual European Network for Social Policy Analysis (ESPAnet) conference and the European Association of Labour Economists Conference. I will also organise an international conference at the end of the grant bringing together leading academics in the field of life chances and youth unemployment, policy makers and users from non-government agencies.

Intergenerational worklessness is a topic of increased interest both within academic circles but also in the public sector, the third sector and in the public domain. This is evidenced by frequent references made to the topic by politicians and newspaper editorials on the subject. This proposal aims to provide the first evidence on how large a problem intergenerational worklessness is in the UK by presenting the new findings in a comparative perspective. By focusing on labour market entrants, it will provide evidence on whether intergenerational factors are associated with youth unemployment for the first time. It will also seek to explore the association between this relationship and labour markets, welfare and education systems which will substantially improve our understanding of potential drivers of the association in workless spells across generations. While recognising the methodological challenges of making causal statements, the proposal aims to use advanced quantitative methods to exploit variation across countries and time to improve our understanding on these issues.

This substantial contribution to the current literature will be of interest to politicians, government departments and third sector organisations with an interest in the subject area. This includes the Cabinet Office, the Deputy Prime Minister's Office, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Education, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, the Sutton Trust, the Russell Sage Foundation, Tomorrow's People and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Given the focus on labour market entrants and the current youth unemployment crisis in Europe, I expect this research to have wider impact beyond the UK from the European Union as they attempt to deal with rising youth unemployment rates. I will use my networks and proposed collaborations in the USA and Australia to attempt to expand the impact within these countries.

I also anticipate this work to be of interest to the general public including parents and young people who are entering into the labour market at an uncertain time. Previous experience of writing in this area has indicated that there is a concern in the public domain about the way that intergenerational worklessness is sometimes discussed by politicians without the required empirical evidence to support their claims (see http://inequalitiesblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/justifying-never-working-families/). This new research would seek to clarify the facts from a wide range of data sources, building an increasing evidence base to ensure that the public is properly informed on the issue.

It is therefore anticipated that this Future Research Leaders proposal will be of interest to a number of key stakeholders. I am well placed to deliver to a wide range of potential beneficiaries as I have a proven track record in engaging with politicians, Government departments, third sector organisations and the wider public through previous ESRC Festival of Social Science events. Alongside the expected high-ranking journal publications, this work will be disseminated in accessible ways through working papers with executive summaries, interest articles and blogs. I aim to host an event as part of the Festival of Social Sciences, engaging local schools, university students and members of the public alongside public and third sector workers. I will regularly engage with the media, working with the communications team in my department to ensure a press release is made for each working paper release. I will also ensure that the end of grant conference is accompanied by a larger press release, detailing the findings across the entire project.