Archive for category: Employment & Benefits

IFF’s Pregnancy and Maternity-Related Discrimination and Disadvantage report made a huge impact when it was published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and BIS (now BEIS) back in 2015, drawing attention to a number of key issues faced by mothers in the workplace. It was exciting, and a testament to the significance of this work, to be asked to present the research in Brussels last month.

The seminar was co-hosted by the European Commission, and Equinet, in partnership with the European Economic and Social Committee entitled ‘Tackling discrimination and ensuring dismissal protection for carers in Europe’. The seminar aimed to bring together and strengthen links between National Equality Bodies and Labour Inspectorates across different European Countries, to explore how to tackle discrimination related to pregnancy, parenthood and caring.

Our research

Our large scale, mixed-method, research programme captured the experiences of both mothers and employers on a range of issues related to managing pregnancy, maternity leave and mothers returning to work.

It was an important programme of work that I was proud to be part of, highlighting the prevalence of possible discrimination with 11% of mothers reporting that they were unfairly dismissed or forced to leave their job and one in five experiencing harassment. Follow the link for further details Click here

The study has personal resonance for me: the 2015 study was completing as I was about to take maternity leave with my second child. And now, three years later, I travelled to Brussels to present it pregnant with my third child. I was aware of how I am in the minority of women who have had a broadly positive experience of navigating work-life balance post-parenthood (a shocking 77% of mothers in our research reported some form of negative or possibly discriminatory experience).

The UK in Europe

I was also acutely aware of myself as a representative of the UK at the event, on the same day that Theresa May arrived in Brussels for a Brexit Summit, which was dominating the news. While the Seminar highlighted some of the current disparities across EU Member States in terms of maternity, paternity and parental leave legislation and practice, the dominant sense was one of collaboration and knowledge sharing, and a strong sense of common interest in working together towards the common goal of gender equality.

Action is being taken at EU level in this area: A key element of the Work Life Balance Package 2017, presented by the European Commission, is an ambitious Directive which sets several minimum standards for parental, paternity and carer’s leave. For the UK, key features would be new entitlement to paid carers’ leave (up to 5 days per year) and a new category of paid parental leave (4 months of non-transferable leave for mothers and fathers which can be taken until the child is 12 years old).

However, the Directive is unlikely to be in place until after March 2019, the likely date of the UK’s exit from the EU. It is currently unclear whether there will be a transitional period where some EU legislation apply in the UK beyond March 2019. while a new UK-EU trading relationship is established.

Collaborative learning

It was clear from the sharing of research findings and case studies at the seminar that the UK and other EU states have much to learn from each other on promoting work-life balance and protecting parents from unfair dismissal.

A key theme of the day was intersectionality, which came out of IFF’s research as well as that presented by the Belgian Institute on Equality between Women and Men and the Danish Institute of Human Rights. The particularly vulnerable position of women with a long-term health condition or disability and/or from an ethnic minority on becoming pregnant was highlighted as a key area for further action.

This seminar provided a platform for comparing progress towards equality in the UK vs other European Countries. The UK tends to sit around the EU average on many measures including the gender gap in employment (the headline indicator of the European Pillar of Social Rights’ social scoreboard for gender equality). The best performers on this measure are Finland, Latvia and Lithuania.

Findings from a Danish survey on Discrimination Against Parents also gave us useful clues to challenges that may lie in the future. In Denmark, where there has been a government campaign to encourage fathers to use their right to parental leave schemes, research findings also show that men are now increasingly experiencing questions about parental planning in job interviews and are increasingly ‘sharing the risk’ of discrimination when they become parents with their female counterparts. The path to increasing female participation in the workforce and reducing the earnings gap will be rocky, and it is useful to learn from the experiences of those EU states that are making better progress on this than the UK.

Research in action: going beyond findings

It is always rewarding as a researcher to see findings being used by those working ‘on the ground’. There was a real spirit of collaboration and commitment to action during the Seminar, as representatives from Equality Bodies and Labour Inspectorates came together in partnership in the breakout groups, using research findings and case studies as stimulus to generate practical ideas of how to tackle discrimination cases in their respective countries.

It was a reminder that there is much opportunity for progress when different bodies with different powers, knowledge and expertise come together. Enhanced co-operation – whether within countries or across EU states – feels essential to bring about the profound structural change needed to labour markets that is necessary for true gender equality.

An evaluation of perinatal pilots for the delivery of relationship advice has been published by the Department for Work and Pensions following research from IFF.

The study aimed to assess whether the provision of relationship advice helped couples cope better with the strain placed on relationships around the birth of a child.

The main conclusions from the study were:

• Rolling relationship support into existing antenatal provision is effective for reaching parents.
• Cementing the provision might need more direct contact with practitioners.
• The results from the pilot point to a small positive impact on the quality of relationships rather than the slight decline that would normally be expected in new parenthood.

The full evaluation, findings and report summary can be found on the gov.uk website here.

Post-election welfare policy: a robust guiding principle in a turbulent time?

Following the recent General Election, the UK appears to be entering a period of political upheaval, one in which the orthodoxies of recent years are being re-examined. Some commentators have interpreted the election outcome as a signal from a part of the electorate regarding their preferred type of Brexit, or their views on austerity.

Amidst this grand drama, the specifics of the benefits systems were not mentioned in any great detail (though it remains to be seen how the issue of the triple-lock on pensions will play out as a bargaining chip in Conservative-DUP negotiations). Beyond bringing a new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, David Gauke, what else will this new era mean for welfare and employment policy?

The current guiding principles of the Department for Work and Pensions include:

• Helping people to work for longer: In the context of an ageing population, by removing the barriers to older people working;
• Simplification: Joining-up the various strands of benefits and tax credits so that working more always pays and there are fewer ‘cliff edges’ that deter returning to, or increasing engagement in, work;
• Adopting a joined-up approach to tackling employment and health issues, that recognises the inter-relation of the two: health conditions may become a barrier to work and periods out of work exacerbate health issues, especially mental health ones and, conversely, the enhanced status, structures and income attached to work can have beneficial wellbeing effects. A key ambition of this approach is to barrow the disability employment gap, to bring the levels of individuals with disabilities and limiting health conditions in employment closer to those of the population in general.

Measuring success through research:

Underpinning all of this is an increased commitment to robust experimental evaluation to determine which interventions succeed, with whom, and why.

The Conservative manifesto promised continuity – that the roll-out of Universal Credit will continue and the welfare system will continue to be run “system in accordance with our belief that work is the best route out of poverty, that work should always pay, and that the system should be fair both to the people in need of support and those who pay for it”. With the delicate equilibrium of the current House of Commons, radical revisions to welfare policy seem still more unlikely.

More than this, there is a degree of cross-party consensus regarding some of the very broad underlying principles underpinning the current welfare system approach – particularly UC’s drive to deliver increased simplicity and to make work pay, and the goal of reducing the disability employment gap (even if the approach to implementation is much more hotly debated).

Circumstances also point towards maintaining some aspects of the status quo: even if the tide turns against austerity, the UK still faces an ageing population and likely economic turbulence as we renegotiate fundamental trade relationships with our near neighbours.

All this means that the guiding principle of welfare and employment policy seems likely to be surprisingly durable: continuing to use robust evidence to determine how to target interventions more smartly, to incentivise work, and to achieve more with less.

That quote came into my mind last week for two reasons. Firstly I attended the launch of the first wave of findings from the ESRC-funded research project ‘Welfare Conditionality: sanctions, support and behaviour change’. Secondly I read the report of the Work and Pensions Select Committee (WPSC) enquiry ‘In-work progression in Universal Credit’.

These reports covered some similar ground, albeit from different angles. The ESRC project will seek to follow over 400 welfare service users (including Universal Credit claimants) over three years to explore their experiences of conditionality and whether it leads to the intended behaviour change. The WPSC enquiry brings together evidence on how to deliver fair and effective support for in-work progression.

Both reports consider conditionality for Universal Credit (UC) claimants who are already in work. Both note that this group have demonstrated their willingness to work by already being in paid employment. Thus, they suggest, we must carefully consider what kind of conditionality is appropriate for this group and how it could be applied. DWP has not yet set out clear policy in this area, pending results of a 3-year pilot.

One thing that is clear though is that to legitimately apply conditionality there must also be sufficient support for claimants to meet those conditions. The ESRC project highlights that there is currently an imbalance between support and conditionality for welfare service users. DWP is currently developing plans for its ‘in-work service’ but we know that Jobcentre Plus Work Coaches will play a core role.

There was much discussion at the launch (as there is in the Select Committee report) about the expanded skillset that Work Coaches will need to create a different type of relationship with customers and their employers. Arguably it will be very different to how they support unemployed claimants. In-work support may not be the typical face-to-face interview, but rather engaging busy people via email, over the phone or through skype.

One critical skill I think Work Coaches will need is the ability to engage in-work claimants with the benefits of progression in work. The benefit of being off Universal Credit. We know that because of conditionality in-work UC claimants will have to look to increase their income above the threshold. But there’s not much about why they should want to progress.

The incentives for Government are clear. Moving people up the earnings scale is expected to increase labour productivity and cut the benefits bill. For the claimants themselves DWP say that “enabling progression in work is central to transforming people’s lives”.

The thing is that people may not necessarily want their lives transforming. A DWP survey of UC claimants found that most were looking to increase their hours and income but it’s worth noting those were largely single claimants. As some of the Select Committee evidence makes clear, many claimants will have a ‘tightly arranged jigsaw’ of support networks, caring arrangements, working patterns. So while a higher income may be attractive it may not seem realistic or worth the additional responsibilities.

Which is where the Steve Jobs quote sprang to mind. What that quote says to me is that Apple is selling a lifestyle, an aspiration. A desire for something more. While Jobcentre Plus isn’t Apple and buying an iPhone isn’t transforming your life, I think there’s something in that idea that could shape how effective Work Coaches can be.

Coaching, as opposed to advising, is about working towards a goal – a goal that the coachee is bought into. You don’t see many Olympians on the podium who are there because someone told them they had to. Their coaches gave them the tools and the encouragement but as individuals they had to have the drive and ambition to get there.

We’ve seen this in practice in the DWP in-work progression advice trial which found very few differences between groups of people who did and did not take job progression advice (including their personal circumstances). The main differences they saw related to individuals’ attitudes to in-work progression and the extent to which they saw their barriers as surmountable.

For me, this goes to the very core of successful in-work support. Currently Work Coaches are starting from ‘this is something you must do so how can I help you to do it?’ But there is a step before that which is about creating the desire and the confidence to progress in work. I think that will be more powerful driver than conditionality.

IFF Research is evaluating one of the externally-led DWP trials, run by Goals UK which will inform the business case for a full in-work service. Goals UK is trialling in-work support for 150 people who are working part-time.