Event Details

Professor Vanessa Beck from Bristol University will present in this OWT research seminar.

It is well established that significant numbers of people in the UK are economically inactive due to ill health, which is one aspect of the major health challenges facing society. Quantitative and qualitative data from a three-year project on underemployment suggests that there are additional, large groups of workers within the workforce who suffer with significant physical and mental health issues. For some, their health means that full time and/or pressured or fast paced work is not possible whereas for others poor health is (also) a consequence of their poor employment and working conditions. Although the interrelationship between work and health has been explored in the literature, there has not been a systematic focus on health as a cause and consequence of underemployment. This is important because it has implications for underemployed workers’ ability to work as many hours as they would ideally like to; for their ability to earn well and be independent from social security payments; and to put their qualifications, skills and experiences to use. Our focus on the stable underemployed (Allan et al., 2024) suggests that a longitudinal assessment is important, given that, while employment situations can change quickly, this is not the case for health, especially not in a positive direction. We therefore argue for the need to consider longer-term employment situations and employment histories to fully understand the relationship between health and employment. Given the number of people underemployed, this has significant implications for the UK workforce, the levels of productivity - a key policy objective-, and for social security budgets.