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The UK deals with India, USA and the EU are symbolic
No full textThe Labour Government is on a trade deal spree. After signing a free trade agreement with India, the UK made a pact with the US to remove some of the tariffs on UK car and aerospace exports, and finally a new agreement with the EU was also signed. Significant as these deals are politically, Adam Butlin writes, their economic return will remain rather limited, primarily because of the absence of a significant services deal
Cracking down on care worker visas will not solve the care crisis
No full textThe Government claims that putting an end to care worker visas will end the abuse and exploitation of overseas care workers, and will lead to employers investing in the UK workforce. But Isabel Shutes argues while ending the care work visa scheme might reduce international recruitment, there is little reason to believe it will improve employment conditions for care workers
The point is to change it
No full textThis piece is part of a series of brief interventions based on a roundtable discussion held at the LSE Sociology departmental conference in November 2024. The conference organisers posed the question: Should sociology remain descriptive, or is engaging with normative questions essential to understand social life? The intention was to spark a conversation that would invite a shared reflection on one of sociology’s most enduring and urgent debates. Here, Sara Salem answers
Free to move, bound to be exploited? The political economy of gender inequality in EU care migration
No full textThe provision of long-term care for the elderly is a pressing policy problem for the aging populations of European countries but also a challenge for comparative and European political economy. Using Nancy Fraser’s engaging political economy analysis of care in capitalism, we can see that the 2022 European Care Strategy (ECS) adopted in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic raises fundamental political economy questions about prevailing perceptions of productive work, the commercialisation of care, and regressive distributive effects of free movement by care workers in the EU. However, we also try to understand what stabilises this situation. We argue that social reproduction is shaped by enduring social norms and political agency, which may be at odds with imperatives of capitalist production. The concept of the ‘moral economy of care workers’ can explain how they resist exploitation while the EU’s rights-based approach in the ECS is of limited use to them
New-build homes’ exposure to flooding: a comparative analysis between France and the UK
No full textIn many parts of the world the costs of flooding are projected to rise sharply due to climate change and urbanization in flood-prone areas. This study compares the rate of construction in high-risk zones across France and the UK, and discusses the impact of insurance and urban planning policies. In both France and the UK, the housing stock in flood-prone areas keeps growing substantially every year, and new construction in flood risk areas has not shown any sizeable sign of slowing down in recent years. In France, second homes are overrepresented in flood-risk zones, contrasting with the UK. Both countries show higher rates in low-income neighbourhoods, raising concerns about the emergence of socially deprived areas at high risk of flooding that may not have access to insurance, sometimes called “flood ghettos”. While insurance is subsidized in both countries, a key distinction is that new build homes at risk do not benefit from subsidized rates in the UK, whereas they do in France. However, this difference does not appear to substantially deter construction in risky areas in the UK compared to France. These findings highlight challenges in balancing risk reduction, affordability, and sustainable development
Towards an understanding of care poverty
No full textThis chapter draws together the key lessons on care poverty from the theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions in the volume. It concludes that the theoretical idea of care poverty – distinct from unmet need – is a useful development in trying to make sense of the work of care, both from a structural and socioeconomic perspective, and from an individual relational and socio-emotional perspective. Care poverty is both a political and theoretical lens that can add nuance and a deeper understanding to the complexities of care in welfare states. The chapters of the book advance the measurement and understanding of care poverty forward, and the empirical findings show how the problem manifests itself in different population groups and in different cultural and societal contexts. In terms of policy lessons, the book shows that access to and navigation of complex care and support systems needs to be made easier. Existing support also needs to be better matched to existing needs, particularly where these needs are variable and change over time
A comparison of the costs and patterns of expenditure for care for severe mental illness in five countries with different levels of economic development
No full textAims: The aim of the article is to undertake the first economic analysis exploring the costs of illness (COIs) and factors affecting COIs in people living with mental disorders using individual patient-level data across five countries with different national income levels. This is done by investigating diagnosis-related and sociodemographic factors for country-specific medical and psychosocial service use in these high, lower-middle and low-income countries. Methods: Using data from the Using Peer Support In Developing Empowering Mental Health Services (UPSIDES) study, a pragmatic randomized controlled trial, costs for medical and psychosocial services have been estimated over 6 months in 615 people with severe mental illness from Germany (n = 171), Uganda (n = 138), Tanzania (n = 110), India (n = 93) and Israel (n = 103). The primary economic analysis included (1) total COI expressed in 2021 international dollars and (2) proportional cost-type expenditures. Generalized linear regression models were also used to estimate the impact of psychiatric diagnosis, social disability, age and gender on the total COI. Results: Of the 615 participants (mean [SD] age 38.3 [11.2] years; 335 [54.5%] women), the total 6-month COI ranged from 10,493.19 [±13324.10] in Germany. High-income Germany and low-income Uganda both concentrated >70% of COIs on inpatient care. High-income Israel had the most balanced COI, with the lowest mean share (15.40%) on inpatient care, compared with community (35.12%) and primary care (33.01%). Female gender was associated with lower COI (eb = 0.215; p = 0.000) in Tanzania, while in India diagnosis of depression was associated with lower costs than schizophrenia (eb = 0.363; p = 0.017). Health of the Nation Outcome Scale scores (social disability) were not significantly associated with COIs in any country. In Tanzania, the total mean COI increased by 3.6% for every additional year of age. Compared to Germany, mean COIs were significantly lower by 90%, 99% and 86% in Uganda, Tanzania and India, respectively, and by 50% in Israel, although this difference was not significant. Conclusions: National income is correlated with the total COI in people living with mental disorders but is a poor predictor of the sector-specific distribution of these expenditures
Against post-liberalism: why ‘family, faith and flag’ is a dead end for the liberal left
No full textReactions and attitudes towards the August 2021 ‘snap lockdown’ in Aotearoa New Zealand
No full textThe CARUL Collective is an interdisciplinary team of academics whose research explores the impacts of pandemic control measures on social life in Aotearoa New Zealand and the UK. Our work is based on a mixture of quantitative and qualitative survey research and semi-structured interviews. Having conducted four surveys during 2020, we distributed a follow-up survey in August 2021, just as a new lockdown occasioned by the detection of the Delta variant was being introduced
