Health, Education and Welfare Economics

Governments worldwide assume that national competitiveness can be improved by developing workforce skills. This book critically examines this 'high skills' vision at both policy and practice levels. It challenges an oversimplified policy rhetoric that underestimates the complexity of the processes involved in developing a skilled workforce.

The credit crunch continues to threaten publicly-funded health care. In this timely and accessible book, Cam Donaldson considers value for money in the NHS and what can be achieved through reform and priority setting.

This report examines links between parents' employment patterns while raising children and what happens when those children become young adults. Some of its findings carry important implications for public policy and for further research. A number are likely to prove controversial, arousing public debate concerning their meaning and relevance.

Student fees have saddled graduates with enormous debt, satisfaction rates are low, a high proportion of graduates are in non-graduate jobs, and public debt from unpaid loans is rocketing. This timely and challenging analysis gives robust new policy proposals to encourage excellence and ultimately benefit society.

Rajiv Prabhakar brings together the typically exclusive views of supporters and critics to present a nuanced, critical analysis of ‘financial inclusion’. Addressing issues including the ‘poverty premium’, financial capability and housing, this dialogue advances crucial public, academic and policy debates and proposes alternative paths forward.

This revised edition uses extensive updated research and survey evidence to challenge the view of 'skivers versus strivers', showing how much our lives vary not just as we age, but from week-to-week and year-to-year.

Much of the recent policy debate surrounding poverty in Britain focuses on income as a measure of living standards. In this report we consider one alternative to income for measuring poverty that has been largely overlooked in the mainstream poverty debate in the UK: namely household expenditure. Free PDF version available at www.jrf.org.uk

Inequality has at last taken centre stage in the political discourse, but there is very little to explain the inequality debates and to offer solutions for the UK. This introductory book provides a comprehensive survey of all the available evidence, looking at both sides of the inequality argument.

The help we give to others can be more effective and more just if we cultivate greater levels of compassion. Jason Wood reviews the research and talks to experts from across the world to make the moving case for greater compassion in public life.

This book offers Ireland’s introduction of a welfare-to-work market as a case study that speaks to wider international debates in social and public policy about the role of market governance in intensifying the turn towards more regulatory and conditional welfare models on the ground.

This much-needed book analyses the social, economic and labour market advantages of a Citizen's Income in the UK. It also contains international comparisons and links with broader issues around the meaning of poverty and inequality, making a valuable contribution to the debate around benefits.

The recent focus on reducing child poverty stems mainly from worries about the future consequences of poverty on children's later achievement. This report explores the link between childhood poverty and poverty later in life, and asks whether this link has grown stronger or weaker in recent decades. Free PDF available at www.jrf.org.uk