The Making Bad Jobs Better seminar series, funded by the ESRC, will bring together academics, policy makers and practitioners to discuss existing research on bad jobs, generate policy proposals and identify new research agendas.
The labour market is increasingly polarised into good and bad jobs. Even prior to the recession, low skill, low wage jobs were expanding and becoming entrenched. Moreover, research reveals a ‘bad jobs trap’ that restricts mobility out of such jobs. The UK Government has recently made ‘making bad jobs better’ a policy priority and international research indicates that bad jobs can indeed be made better. However, this research needs to be marshalled, evaluated and applied to the UK context.
Over 2010-11, an ESRC-funded seminar series will bring together academics, policy-makers and practitioners to discuss existing research on bad jobs, generate policy proposals and identify new research agendas. The four seminars’ topics centre on key academic and policy questions:
Seminar 1: What makes jobs ‘bad’?
Seminar 2: How can bad jobs be made more bearable?
Seminar 3: How can exit routes from bad jobs be created?
Seminar 4: What policy interventions might make bad jobs better?
The first seminar will discuss different disciplinary perspectives on job quality (economic, psychological and sociological) and will be held in Glasgow on 5th March 2010. Speakers are Prof. Richard B. Freeman (Harvard), Dr David Holman (Sheffield), Dr Sian Moore (London Metropolitan), Dr Caroline Lloyd (Cardiff) and Prof. Chris Warhurst (Strathclyde).
Key international speakers at subsequent seminars will be Prof. Paul Osterman of MIT, Prof. Barbara Pocock of the University of South Australia and Prof. Gerhard Bosch of the University of Duisburg-Essen. The seminars will be held in Glasgow, Oxford, Cardiff and London and will conclude with the launch of a public interest report based on the seminars’ contributions.
The seminar series is organised by Chris Warhurst and Jo Commander from SCER at Strathclyde University, Patricia Findlay from Edinburgh University and Caroline Lloyd and Ewart Keep from SKOPE based at Oxford and Cardiff Universities.
Registration: Participation at the seminars will be limited; to register please contact Debbie Campbell d.campbell@strath.ac.uk.
Further information is available from chris.warhurst@strath.ac.uk.
Awards for doctoral students:
The seminars will provide doctoral students with the opportunity to hear and engage with the latest research in the field, to examine how to disseminate research findings, to network with key academics and policy makers and to participate in an exciting agenda to shift policy in the area of low quality jobs. Places at the seminar will be limited to 40 and will be primarily by invitation. Success in obtaining an award ensures a place will be available for you at each seminar. As well as participating in the seminars, each successful PhD student will have the opportunity to interview one of the key international speakers. These interviews will be filmed and available on our website.
Five awards of up to £300 are available to current PhD students. The awards will be used to contribute towards travel and subsistence costs for attendance at four seminars beginning in March 2010 and ending in September 2011. These awards are funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and will be used to reimburse award winners for actual costs incurred of up to £300 each. Expense claims must be submitted with receipts to Strathclyde University.
Priority will be given to:
i) those students who are able to attend all four seminars
ii) those students whose research topic is most relevant to the seminar theme.
To apply, submit a one page email attachment (word or pdf) to skope@cardiff.ac.uk by Friday 29th January 2010, including the following:
- Name and contact details
- PhD title, department and institution, Year of study, PhD supervisor(s)
- A short description of your PhD research and its relevance to the seminar series.
