Half of local governments in England use planning policy to promote a healthier environment. In 2015, Gateshead Council in the North-East of England was the first local authority to ban planning permission for any new fast-food outlet. We explore if this policy is associated with changes in...

Single mothers have experienced increasing work requirements both in the UK and in other developed countries. Little is known how increasing working hours may have affected their mental health. We investigate the impact of increasing working hours on mental health of single mothers, and compare...

There has been much informal speculation on how changes in economic circumstances contribute to partnership dissolution; however there has been little empirical work testing these speculations. This paper aims to shed light on how micro level factors such as receiving a financial windfall and...

We investigate the role of employment in explaining changes in the mental health of single mothers compared to partnered mothers and single childless women during the period of welfare reform in the UK. We employ a time allocation framework to explore if reductions in benefit income led to a...

Introduction: The UK social security system is being transformed by the implementation of Universal Credit (UC), which combines six existing benefits and tax credits into a single payment for low-income households. Despite extensive reports of hardship associated with the introduction of UC, no...

Our findings suggest the existence of a gender reservation wage gap. The presence of children, particularly pre-school age children, plays an important role in determining the proportion of this gap that can be explained by individual characteristics. For individuals without children, the...

While the job search literature has increasingly recognised the importance of the spatial distribution of employment opportunities, local labour market conditions have been a notable omission from much of the empirical literature on commuting outcomes. This study of the commute times of dual...

During the 1980s and 1990s there was a steep rise in disability benefit claims in the UK, especially among older male workers, and the debate centred on the relative generosity of these benefits as well as the effects of deindustrialisation and job destruction. Since that time the disability...

Both health and income inequalities have been shown to be much greater in Britain than in Germany. One of the main reasons seems to be the difference in the relative position of the retired, who, in Britain, are much more concentrated in the lower income groups. Inequality analysis reveals that...

Childhood circumstances and behaviours have been shown to have important persistent effects in later life. One aspect of childhood that has changed dramatically in the past decade, and is causing concern among policy makers and other bodies responsible for safeguarding children, is the advent of...