A recent international report suggests men need to increase their time spent doing unpaid care work by a minimum of 50 minutes per day in order to do 50 per cent of the work. The report calls for bold measures to help all men do their fair share of this work by 2030 and thus promote…
Author: Chris Garrington
Job prospects: does it matter where we live when we are young?
What are the influences on our employment prospects across our working lives? Could where we live when we’re young be important when we’re older – regardless of our social class or level of education? A new study by Emily Murray and colleagues from UCL, King’s College, London and Queen Mary, University of London, finds if…
Retirement: good or bad for your heart?
Across the globe, more people are spending more time in retirement than ever before. So staying healthy in later life is critical. Yet political debates on ageing tend to ignore a growing body of research on how retirement can affect our health. Baowen Xue and colleagues from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at…
Is working flexibly good for your health?
Flexible working is considered good practice – and in England, most workers have the right to apply to work flexibly after they’ve been in their job six months. But what do we know about the benefits? A new study by Tarani Chandola and colleagues used biological measures to look at differences in stress markers among…
Anti-social working hours: Are they making women depressed?
The rise of globalisation and the 24/7 economy are fuelling demands for people to work long hours and weekends. But what’s the evidence about how these ways of working link with depression? Gill Weston and colleagues from the International Centre for Lifecourse Studies in Society and Health at UCL and Queen Mary University of London found such working conditions are linked to poorer mental health in women. Across the globe, the effects of overwork are becoming…
Can ‘nudge’ theory help extend working lives?
Government policy in the UK and other industrialised countries aims to increase the numbers of people staying on in work for longer – but there are significant differences between different groups. Can social and economic factors explain them? Or is there truth in the suggestion that some groups of workers are ‘resistant’ to staying in…
Work-Life conflict. Is it different for men and women?
For some people, working life comes to an end because the job is causing problems at home. Others may decide to leave – or be forced to leave – because family responsibilities are interfering with their ability to do their job. But what are the gender differences in these scenarios? Baowen Xue and colleagues from…
Would reducing social inequality lead to more years of healthy life?
Across Europe, there’s good news for older people – life expectancy is on the rise and levels of disability among older people are falling. But there are concerns that a longer life may not be a better life for all. So who benefits from increased life expectancy? Jenny Head and colleagues from the IDEAR network…
Early retirement – can welfare systems help ease the transition?
The post-war ‘baby boom’ generation in developed countries is reaching retirement age – and this is placing strain on welfare systems. Sol Richardson and colleagues from the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies at UCL find the type of welfare system under which we live can affect our prospects of having a happy and fulfilled…
Working with a long-term illness – does employment status make a difference?
Across the developed world, a growing share of the population suffers from chronic disease such as diabetes, arthritis or heart problems – in the EU, around 45 per cent of those aged 55-64 had such a disease in 2015. And that affects their ability to work: just half of those with chronic illnesses are employed,…