Penelope Fitzgerald, late careers and low pensions

For my book group (all-male  - apparently book groups are powerful examples of our homophiliac tendencies, even more so for women than men) last night we had read Penelope Fitzgerald's The Beginning of Spring.  Everyone had enjoyed it, laughed at it, and marvelled at Fitzgerald's apparent capacity to get under the skin of Russian society without ever having been there.  (None of us knew much about Russia, but the descriptions were thoroughly convincing to us and to the critics who put the novel on the Booker shortlist.) Fitzgerald had a remarkable personal history.  She was the granddaughter of the Bishop of Lincoln and grew up surrounded by uncles and aunts of diverse talents. She…
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Needed: a new vocabulary of time

  I've just read Guy Standing's The Precariat, which came out a couple of years ago.  Standing, a former ILO official, documents the global growth in the numbers  of people working in insecure conditions, with few or no contractual rights.    He builds a very powerful argument, though to my mind he throws slightly too many babies into the bathwater, and it becomes difficult to see where the boundaries are that divide the precariat from the rest.  Women, of course, form the bulk of those who work in these conditions, especially in poorer countries but also in wealthier ones.  They have always been part of what used to be called the…
Read More

Overqualification, underutilisation

I've just been at a session of the Skills Commission.  Alan Felstead, whose work on how the skills picture has evolved over time has been so valuable, gave evidence before me, drawing on data which goes back twenty years or more.  Alan showed how the incidence of training declined before the recession but, surprisingly, not during or since.  However the duration of training has shrunk - i.e. the time people spend in training is going down. The focus of the Commission's discussion was on how well skills are being used.  Here the picture is complex and the evidence often quite tricky to interpret.   Alan's general points are: 1.  The…
Read More

Claudia Goldin and ‘grand convergence’

Claudia Goldin's presidential address to the American Economic Association - don't go away - is a stunner. It really should help to shift the whole focus of two important debates: the role and use of skills; and questions of gender equality at work. So it's hugely PP-relevant. There are large chunks of sophisticated number-crunching which are well over my head, but Goldin does a great job of summarising the key points, and how they fit into the historical narrative of what she calls the 'grand convergence' of male and female roles. She traces out the previous chapters of this narrative, which include greater female participation at work and, especially, changes in…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More

Penelope Fitzgerald, late careers and low pensions

For my book group (all-male  - apparently book groups are powerful examples of our homophiliac tendencies, even more so for women than men) last night we had read Penelope Fitzgerald's The Beginning of Spring.  Everyone had enjoyed it, laughed at it, and marvelled at Fitzgerald's apparent capacity to get under the skin of Russian society without ever having been there.  (None of us knew much about Russia, but the descriptions were thoroughly convincing to us and to the critics who put the novel on the Booker shortlist.) Fitzgerald had a remarkable personal history.  She was the granddaughter of the Bishop of Lincoln and grew up surrounded by uncles and aunts of diverse talents. She…
Read More

Needed: a new vocabulary of time

  I've just read Guy Standing's The Precariat, which came out a couple of years ago.  Standing, a former ILO official, documents the global growth in the numbers  of people working in insecure conditions, with few or no contractual rights.    He builds a very powerful argument, though to my mind he throws slightly too many babies into the bathwater, and it becomes difficult to see where the boundaries are that divide the precariat from the rest.  Women, of course, form the bulk of those who work in these conditions, especially in poorer countries but also in wealthier ones.  They have always been part of what used to be called the…
Read More

Overqualification, underutilisation

I've just been at a session of the Skills Commission.  Alan Felstead, whose work on how the skills picture has evolved over time has been so valuable, gave evidence before me, drawing on data which goes back twenty years or more.  Alan showed how the incidence of training declined before the recession but, surprisingly, not during or since.  However the duration of training has shrunk - i.e. the time people spend in training is going down. The focus of the Commission's discussion was on how well skills are being used.  Here the picture is complex and the evidence often quite tricky to interpret.   Alan's general points are: 1.  The…
Read More

Claudia Goldin and ‘grand convergence’

Claudia Goldin's presidential address to the American Economic Association - don't go away - is a stunner. It really should help to shift the whole focus of two important debates: the role and use of skills; and questions of gender equality at work. So it's hugely PP-relevant. There are large chunks of sophisticated number-crunching which are well over my head, but Goldin does a great job of summarising the key points, and how they fit into the historical narrative of what she calls the 'grand convergence' of male and female roles. She traces out the previous chapters of this narrative, which include greater female participation at work and, especially, changes in…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More

Penelope Fitzgerald, late careers and low pensions

For my book group (all-male  - apparently book groups are powerful examples of our homophiliac tendencies, even more so for women than men) last night we had read Penelope Fitzgerald's The Beginning of Spring.  Everyone had enjoyed it, laughed at it, and marvelled at Fitzgerald's apparent capacity to get under the skin of Russian society without ever having been there.  (None of us knew much about Russia, but the descriptions were thoroughly convincing to us and to the critics who put the novel on the Booker shortlist.) Fitzgerald had a remarkable personal history.  She was the granddaughter of the Bishop of Lincoln and grew up surrounded by uncles and aunts of diverse talents. She…
Read More

Needed: a new vocabulary of time

  I've just read Guy Standing's The Precariat, which came out a couple of years ago.  Standing, a former ILO official, documents the global growth in the numbers  of people working in insecure conditions, with few or no contractual rights.    He builds a very powerful argument, though to my mind he throws slightly too many babies into the bathwater, and it becomes difficult to see where the boundaries are that divide the precariat from the rest.  Women, of course, form the bulk of those who work in these conditions, especially in poorer countries but also in wealthier ones.  They have always been part of what used to be called the…
Read More

Overqualification, underutilisation

I've just been at a session of the Skills Commission.  Alan Felstead, whose work on how the skills picture has evolved over time has been so valuable, gave evidence before me, drawing on data which goes back twenty years or more.  Alan showed how the incidence of training declined before the recession but, surprisingly, not during or since.  However the duration of training has shrunk - i.e. the time people spend in training is going down. The focus of the Commission's discussion was on how well skills are being used.  Here the picture is complex and the evidence often quite tricky to interpret.   Alan's general points are: 1.  The…
Read More

Claudia Goldin and ‘grand convergence’

Claudia Goldin's presidential address to the American Economic Association - don't go away - is a stunner. It really should help to shift the whole focus of two important debates: the role and use of skills; and questions of gender equality at work. So it's hugely PP-relevant. There are large chunks of sophisticated number-crunching which are well over my head, but Goldin does a great job of summarising the key points, and how they fit into the historical narrative of what she calls the 'grand convergence' of male and female roles. She traces out the previous chapters of this narrative, which include greater female participation at work and, especially, changes in…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More

Penelope Fitzgerald, late careers and low pensions

For my book group (all-male  - apparently book groups are powerful examples of our homophiliac tendencies, even more so for women than men) last night we had read Penelope Fitzgerald's The Beginning of Spring.  Everyone had enjoyed it, laughed at it, and marvelled at Fitzgerald's apparent capacity to get under the skin of Russian society without ever having been there.  (None of us knew much about Russia, but the descriptions were thoroughly convincing to us and to the critics who put the novel on the Booker shortlist.) Fitzgerald had a remarkable personal history.  She was the granddaughter of the Bishop of Lincoln and grew up surrounded by uncles and aunts of diverse talents. She…
Read More

Needed: a new vocabulary of time

  I've just read Guy Standing's The Precariat, which came out a couple of years ago.  Standing, a former ILO official, documents the global growth in the numbers  of people working in insecure conditions, with few or no contractual rights.    He builds a very powerful argument, though to my mind he throws slightly too many babies into the bathwater, and it becomes difficult to see where the boundaries are that divide the precariat from the rest.  Women, of course, form the bulk of those who work in these conditions, especially in poorer countries but also in wealthier ones.  They have always been part of what used to be called the…
Read More

Overqualification, underutilisation

I've just been at a session of the Skills Commission.  Alan Felstead, whose work on how the skills picture has evolved over time has been so valuable, gave evidence before me, drawing on data which goes back twenty years or more.  Alan showed how the incidence of training declined before the recession but, surprisingly, not during or since.  However the duration of training has shrunk - i.e. the time people spend in training is going down. The focus of the Commission's discussion was on how well skills are being used.  Here the picture is complex and the evidence often quite tricky to interpret.   Alan's general points are: 1.  The…
Read More

Claudia Goldin and ‘grand convergence’

Claudia Goldin's presidential address to the American Economic Association - don't go away - is a stunner. It really should help to shift the whole focus of two important debates: the role and use of skills; and questions of gender equality at work. So it's hugely PP-relevant. There are large chunks of sophisticated number-crunching which are well over my head, but Goldin does a great job of summarising the key points, and how they fit into the historical narrative of what she calls the 'grand convergence' of male and female roles. She traces out the previous chapters of this narrative, which include greater female participation at work and, especially, changes in…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More

Penelope Fitzgerald, late careers and low pensions

For my book group (all-male  - apparently book groups are powerful examples of our homophiliac tendencies, even more so for women than men) last night we had read Penelope Fitzgerald's The Beginning of Spring.  Everyone had enjoyed it, laughed at it, and marvelled at Fitzgerald's apparent capacity to get under the skin of Russian society without ever having been there.  (None of us knew much about Russia, but the descriptions were thoroughly convincing to us and to the critics who put the novel on the Booker shortlist.) Fitzgerald had a remarkable personal history.  She was the granddaughter of the Bishop of Lincoln and grew up surrounded by uncles and aunts of diverse talents. She…
Read More

Needed: a new vocabulary of time

  I've just read Guy Standing's The Precariat, which came out a couple of years ago.  Standing, a former ILO official, documents the global growth in the numbers  of people working in insecure conditions, with few or no contractual rights.    He builds a very powerful argument, though to my mind he throws slightly too many babies into the bathwater, and it becomes difficult to see where the boundaries are that divide the precariat from the rest.  Women, of course, form the bulk of those who work in these conditions, especially in poorer countries but also in wealthier ones.  They have always been part of what used to be called the…
Read More

Overqualification, underutilisation

I've just been at a session of the Skills Commission.  Alan Felstead, whose work on how the skills picture has evolved over time has been so valuable, gave evidence before me, drawing on data which goes back twenty years or more.  Alan showed how the incidence of training declined before the recession but, surprisingly, not during or since.  However the duration of training has shrunk - i.e. the time people spend in training is going down. The focus of the Commission's discussion was on how well skills are being used.  Here the picture is complex and the evidence often quite tricky to interpret.   Alan's general points are: 1.  The…
Read More

Claudia Goldin and ‘grand convergence’

Claudia Goldin's presidential address to the American Economic Association - don't go away - is a stunner. It really should help to shift the whole focus of two important debates: the role and use of skills; and questions of gender equality at work. So it's hugely PP-relevant. There are large chunks of sophisticated number-crunching which are well over my head, but Goldin does a great job of summarising the key points, and how they fit into the historical narrative of what she calls the 'grand convergence' of male and female roles. She traces out the previous chapters of this narrative, which include greater female participation at work and, especially, changes in…
Read More

Self-employment: another area we need to understand

I've just been to a stimulating meeting at the Resolution Foundation, which always provides food for thought on employment issues.  This one was on self-employment, which now counts for over 15% of the workforce - some 4.5 million people. As Gavin Kelly, the FR's CEO, observed, when you have numbers of that kind routinely left out of most labour market analysis, it makes one query how robust the conclusions can be. Add to that the absurdity of using 16-64 as the age frame; and then pile on the limitations of the simplistic binary division between full-timers and part-timers and you reality begin to think that we need a radical rebuild…
Read More