Labour Markets in Wales

Labour markets are integral to the efficient functioning of local, regional and national economies.  Therefore, when analysing labour markets within Wales, it is important to recognise many of the elements that have been found to be important when considering labour markets in general.  This means that when examining the Welsh labour market there is a need to conduct fairly conventional studies of key issues such as the gender pay gap, the relative performance of migrants and returns to education.  However, in addition there a number of interesting labour market features that are particular to Wales.  As a result, this research grouping intends to carry out a range of other studies, focusing on aspects of the labour market that are fairly specific to Wales.  These include:

1. The Public Sector: Wales has a high percentage of public sector workers, second only to Northern Ireland amongst UK regions (James, 2009).  This research strand will investigate several aspects connected to the public sector in Wales including the relative dependence on public sector employment in comparison to other regions and the public-private pay gap.

2. Trade Unionism: Wales has a history of trade union activity and continues to record the highest levels of union density of any UK region.  The grouping intends to investigate the reasons behind the continued strength of unionism in Wales using a mixed methods approach, combining quantitative analysis with more nuanced qualitative methods.

3. The Welsh language: Previous research has found that Welsh speakers have an advantage over non-Welsh speakers both in terms of experiencing lower unemployment rates (Drinkwater and O’Leary, 1997) and higher earnings (Henley and Jones, 2004).  Research in this area will focus on issues that have previously not received much attention and which may be able to explain such differentials. These include the role played by the public sector and educational factors.

4. Ill-health and the labour market: The rates of long term illness in Wales are well above the national average across virtually the whole of the age distribution.  This produces several interesting areas for investigation including the impact of ill-health on labour market outcomes and the relationship between caring activities and labour market participation.

Each of these research strands will analyse existing sources of large scale micro data, using both descriptive and advanced statistical/econometric techniques.  In particular, the data sets to be analysed include the Labour Force Survey, British Household Panel Survey, the Living in Wales survey as well as the Census. A recent example of the use of these types of data by WISERD researchers across several institutions and a range of disciplines was the report on An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in Wales that WISERD produced for the Wales Equalities and Human Rights Commission. This report received widespread media attention in Wales and featured on many news outlets such as on the BBC (here). In addition, the grouping also intends to combine data sets together, especially in relation to the ill-health strand, as well as collecting primary data on issues where information from existing sources on particular aspects is limited such as on migration.

The researchers involved in this project are Huw Beynon, David Blackaby, Rhys Davies, Stephen Drinkwater, Melanie Jones, Ronan Lyons, Philip Murphy and Nigel O’Leary.

Related WISERD Publications

Davies R, Max Munday, Mark Winterbotham, Gareth Williams, 2010, ‘Survey of ESF Leavers’ (A report to the Welsh European Funding Office, Merthyr) (Available here)

Murphy P, Blackaby D, O’Leary N, Jones M, 2010, ‘An Economic Analysis of the Implications of introducing a ‘Living Wage’ in Wales’ (A report to the Welsh Government) (Available here)

Davies R, et al, 2011, ‘Correlates of work related ill-health within the Labour Force Survey’ (Report to the Health and Safety Executive)

Drinkwater S, Blackaby D, Murphy P, 2011, ‘The Welsh Labour Market Following the Great Recession’ WISERD/PBS 002 (Available here)

Drinkwater S, Garapich M, 2011, ‘Using Survey Data to Identify Migration Patterns’ WISERD/MBS 001 (Available here)

Davies R, et al., 2011, ‘The 2009 European Social Fund Leavers Survey’ WISERD/RRS 003 (Available here)

Felstead A, 2009, ‘Getting fitter for the job: Improving the quality of labour market information using individual level surveys’ WISERD/WDR 001 (Available here)

Davies R, Jones S, 2011, ‘Quantitative research resources within the social sciences’ WISERD/WDR 002 (Available here)

Mackay R, Davies L, Davies R, 2011, ‘Devolution and Supporting the Poorest He’ WISERD/WPS 002 (Available here)

Drinkwater S, 2011, ‘Informal Caring and Labour Market Outcomes Within England and Wales’ WISERD/WPS 004 (Available here)

Bristow G et. al., 2011, ‘Stay, Leave or Return? Understanding Welsh Graduate Mobility’ WISERD/WPS 005 (Available here)

For further details, contact Stephen Drinkwater: s.j.drinkwater@swan.ac.uk