From Working Tax Credit to Universal Credit: is the older workforce ready? Perspectives from employees and employers in Northern Ireland

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ciara Fitzpatrick ◽  
Alexandra Chapman
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Tax Credit ◽  
Work Related ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Working Age ◽  
Part Time

Universal Credit (UC) entails an unprecedented expansion of welfare conditionality to those in work. Working-age adults (16–66) in the United Kingdom who are working part-time and on a low income will be subject to work related requirements until they earn the equivalent of 35 hours per week at national living wage. It is estimated that workers aged 50 to 66 will account for nearly a quarter of those claimants subject to in-work conditionality. A small-scale qualitative study was carried out with workers aged over 50 in receipt of Working Tax Credit (WTC) who are set to be migrated to UC. The researchers also interviewed employers who have people over 50 in their workforce. The findings show that there was limited awareness of UC and little support for in-work conditionality.

scholarly journals Being a Former Carer: Impacts on Health and Well-Being

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 330-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline H. Watts ◽  
Joyce Cavaye
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Significant Issue ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Need For Support ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Health And Well Being

In the United Kingdom, policy has formalized the role of carers through the introduction of new rights and entitlements to support. However, this support is directed only at current carers with the needs of former carers being unacknowledged. Yet, when caregiving comes to an end, the transition to a life as a “former” carer can be challenging. This article reports findings from a small-scale qualitative study about the experiences of former carers conducted in the United Kingdom. Findings highlight the impact of caregiving on the health and well-being of former carers with feelings of loss and distress associated with the end of caregiving. The need for support in the post-caregiving phase emerges as a significant issue with former carers feeling abandoned, lacking purpose and motivation to move forward in their lives. Findings suggest that the needs of former carers are not being met.

Don’t forget your oxygen mask! Caring for ourselves so that we can better care for our clients

2021 ◽  
pp. 135945752199779
Author(s):  
Ali Rowley
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Music Therapy ◽  
Self Care ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Occupational Stressors ◽  
Music Therapists ◽  
Work Related ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Work Related Stressors

Music Therapists face significant stressors at work which, if not adequately addressed, could lead to stress and burnout. Against the background of a final-year dissertation, this article discusses how Music Therapists use self-care to manage occupational stressors. While the small-scale qualitative research project focussed on how Music Therapists working in hospices in the United Kingdom manage work-related stressors, analysis of the data revealed themes which, it is suggested, seem to apply to the wider music therapy community. Findings indicate that Music Therapists would be well-advised to develop and use self-care strategies to mitigate work-related stressors and thus reduce the potential for ill-health. The article seeks to inform the practice of Music Therapists and concludes with the author’s recommendations.

scholarly journals The impact of COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions on the lived experience of people living in Thailand, Malaysia, Italy and the United Kingdom: a cross-country qualitative study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mira Leonie Schneiders ◽  
Bhensri Naemiratch ◽  
Phaik Kin Cheah ◽  
Giulia Cuman ◽  
Tassawan Poomchaichote ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Poor Mental Health ◽  
Income Loss ◽  
Work Related ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Pharmaceutical Interventions

This qualitative study explores the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on lived experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on people's lives in Thailand, Malaysia, Italy and the United Kingdom. A total of 86 interviews were conducted with members of the public, including healthcare workers. Participants across countries held strong views on NPIs, with many feeling measures lacked clarity. Most participants reported primarily negative impacts of NPIs on their lives, including through separation, isolation and grief over missed milestones; work-related challenges and income loss; and poor mental health and wellbeing. Nonetheless, many also experienced inadvertent positive consequences, including more time at home to focus on what they most valued in life; a greater sense of connectedness; and benefits to working life. Commonly employed coping strategies focused on financial coping; psycho-emotional coping; social coping and connectedness; reducing and mitigating risks; and limiting exposure to the news. Importantly, the extent to which participants' lived experiences were positive or negative, and their ability to cope was underpinned by individual, social and economic factors. In order to mitigate negative and unequal impacts of NPIs, COVID-19 policies will benefit from paying closer attention to the social, cultural and psychological, not just biological vulnerabilities to, and consequences of public health measures.

Poverty and education in Northern Ireland: the legacy of division and conflict

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-64
Author(s):  
Ruth Leitch ◽  
Erik Cownie
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Statistical Correlation ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Educational Challenges

This chapter examines the issue of poverty and education in Northern Ireland (NI) and how the particular economic, social, political, and educational challenges associated with NI following the Troubles (1968-1998) are viewed as inextricably entangled in this region of the United Kingdom. After briefly outlining the relatively recent and current political and policy landscapes, it goes on to consider patterns of demography, poverty and deprivation and educational achievement and how these link to segregation and issues of difference. The chapter then draws on a major, largely qualitative study that was undertaken in NI, Investigating Links in Achievement and Deprivation (ILiAD), in order to illustrate how any simple statistical correlation of deprivation and educational achievement plays out here in a much more complex nuanced manner.

Universal Credit, gender and unpaid childcare: Mothers’ accounts of the new welfare conditionality regime

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 430-449
Author(s):  
Kate Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Social Assistance ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Lone Parents ◽  
Working Age ◽  
Benefit Sanctions ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Significant Intensification

The introduction of Universal Credit, a new social assistance benefit for working age people in the UK, constitutes radical welfare reform and entails a significant intensification and expansion of welfare conditionality. Numerically, women are disproportionately affected by the conditionality regime for main carers of children within Universal Credit. Under this new benefit, couples have to nominate as ‘responsible carer’ the person in the household primarily responsible for the care of dependent children. Lone parents are automatically designated as the ‘responsible carer’. The responsible carer is subject to varying levels of conditionality (depending on the youngest child’s age) and faces benefit sanctions for non-compliance. To investigate the gendered implications of conditionality for responsible carers within Universal Credit, a small-scale qualitative study was carried out. The study’s findings show that the conditionality within Universal Credit devalues unpaid childcare and subjects mothers to conflicting responsibilities of mandatory work-related requirements and unpaid childcare.

Declaration of Succession to the Geneva Conventions by the Kingdom of Tonga

1978 ◽  
Vol 18 (206) ◽  
pp. 285-285
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Swiss Confederation ◽  
War Victims

In a letter which reached the President of the Swiss Confederation on 13 April 1978, the Kingdom of Tonga declared that it considered itself bound by the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 for the protection of war victims, by virtue of the prior ratification of the Conventions by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Risk Privatisation and Social Investment – Self-Employment in the United Kingdom

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-283
Author(s):  
Kevin Caraher ◽  
Enrico Reuter
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Private Insurance ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
The One

Abstract With increasing numbers of self-employed persons in the United Kingdom (UK) struggling to protect themselves via personal savings or private insurance against work-related social risks (an issue that has gained further importance in light of the Covid-19 pandemic), this article first discusses self-employment as a type of work that implies intrinsically privatised forms of risk management. Secondly, current social policy interventions towards vulnerable self-employed persons in the United Kingdom (UK) are analysed to identify the mix of instruments used for, on the one hand, investment and support and, on the other hand, conditionality, coercion and activation. Finally, we explore how responsibilities for risk management manifest themselves and argue that the expansion of activation and conditionality increases pressures upon self-employed workers with insufficient incomes and thus indicates a far-reaching risk privatisation, while undermining the idea of a meaningful social investment approach.

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