Child poverty in Britain fell in Labour's first term, though by much less than micro-simulation exercises suggested. Nonetheless, the decline is statistically significant, and is greater if measured just in the last 6 months of 2000/1, rather than the whole year. The decline also proves robust...

Significant change was made to both tax and benefits systems during the period 1997--2001. The impact of the changes which directly affect households is highly progressive, reflecting a significant increase in means-tested benefit levels. But the underlying distribution of income has moved such...

In 1997, the Labour Party was elected in the UK with few explicitly articulated ideas about social security reforms. This paper reviews the large number of subsequent reforms to social security, and argues that some consistent themes have emerged. A commitment to keep to the tight spending plans...

The UK's Labour Government has expanded means-testing of social security but attempted to do so while minimising the disincentive effects typically associated with such an approach. We test whether it has succeeded by reviewing the effect of 5 years of reforms on a range of incentives across the...

The current Labour Government was elected in 1997 with few specific social security proposals. This paper argues that after five years, consistent trends in social security policy have emerged: there is a willingness to increase benefits; a “work-first” focus; increasing centrality for...

Abstract This paper explores some of the implications for qualitative researchers within sociology, of developments in Grid technology and thereby aim to contribute to the debate on the future of sociological research in an increasingly digitised world. The well-established field of humanities...

In 1974 Britain elected a Labour government pledged to expand public spending significantly. Labour followed its programme for two years, but after that began to cut both government spending and taxation, anticipating the post-1979 Conservative agenda. This paper examines the history of this...

Microsimulation methods are used to identify the contribution of tax and benefit reforms to the significant growth in UK income inequality since 1979. The total effect turns out to depend crucially on the counterfactual against which the reforms are assessed: compared with the alternative of...