Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-17T20:51:00.359Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Living Wage: An Economic Geography Based Explanation for a Policy for Equality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2015

Carlo J. Morelli  and
Paul T. Seaman
Carlo J. Morelli
Affiliation:
Economic Studies, University of Dundee E-mail: c.j.morelli@dundee.ac.uk
Paul T. Seaman
Affiliation:
Economic Studies, University of Dundee E-mail: p.t.seaman@dundee.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the theoretical underpinning of living wage campaigns. The article uses evidence, derived from the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey from 2005 to 2008, to examine the extent to which a living wage will address low pay within the labour force. We highlight the greater incidence of low pay within the private sector and then focus upon the public sector where the living wage demand has had most impact. The article builds upon the results from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey with analysis of the British Household Panel Survey in 2007 in order to examine the impact that the introduction of a living wage, within the public sector, would have in reducing household inequality.

Keywords

Living wagelow payinequalitypublic sectorBHPSgenderyoung workers
Type
Articles
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 589 - 605
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akerlof, G. A. (1970) ‘The market for “lemons”: quality uncertainty and the market mechanism’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84, 3, 488–500.Google Scholar
Beatty, C., Fothergill, S., Houston, D., Powell, R. and Sissons, P. (2009) ‘A gendered theory of employment, unemployment and sickness’, Environment and Planning C, 27, 6, 958–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanchflower, D. G. and Oswald, A. J. (1996) The Wages Curve, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Brenner, R. (2006) The Economics of Global Turbulence, London: Verso.Google Scholar
Begg, D., Fischer, S. and Dornbusch, R. (2000) Economics, 6th edn, London: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Daly, K. and Broadbent, B. (2009) The Savings Glut: the Return on Capital and the Rise of Risk Aversion, Global Economic Paper 185, New York: Goldman Sachs Global Economics, Commodities and Strategy Research.Google Scholar
Flinn, C. J. (2006) ‘Minimum wage effects on labor market outcomes under search, matching, and endogenous contact rates’, Econometrica, 74, 4, 1013–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, R. H. (1994) Microeconomics and Behaviour, 2nd edn, New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Glasgow City Council (2009) Living Wage, http://www.glasgowlivingwage.co.uk/Glasgow_living_wage_employers/ [accessed 16.12.2009].Google Scholar
Glickman, L. B. (1997) A Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of Consumer Society, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Harman, C. (2009) Zombie Capitalism: Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx, London: Bookmarks.Google Scholar
Harvey, D. (2006) Spaces of Global Capitalism, London: Verso.Google Scholar
Hirsch, D. (2001) A Minimum Income Standard for the UK in 2011, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.Google Scholar
Hirsch, D. and Moore, R. (2012) The Living Wage in the United Kingdom: Building on Success, Loughborough: Centre for Research in Social Policy.Google Scholar
Houston, D. and Lindsay, C. (2010) ‘Fit for work? Health, employability and challenges for the UK welfare reform agenda’, Policy Studies, 31, 2, 133–42.Google Scholar
Johnstone, C. and McWilliams, C. (2005) ‘Urban Policy and the city in the “new” Scotland’, in Mooney, G. and Scott, G. (eds.), Exploring Social Policy in the ‘New’ Scotland, Bristol: The Policy Press, pp. 157–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Killingsworth, M. R. and Heckman, J. J. (1986) ‘Female labor supply: a survey’, in Ashenfelter, O. C. and Layard, R. (eds.), Handbook of Labour Economics, volume I, London: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Lee, N., Sissons, P. and Jones, K. (2013) Wage Inequality and Employment Polarisation in British Cities, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.Google Scholar
MacLachlan, P. and Trentmann, F. (2004) ‘Civilizing markets: traditions of consumer politics in twentieth-century Britain, Japan and the United States’, in Bevir, M. and Trentmann, F. (eds.), Markets in Historical Contexts: Ideas and Politics in the Modern World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 170–201.Google Scholar
Mason, P. (2007) Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global, London: Harvill Secker.Google Scholar
Queen Mary College (2009a) Living Wage Chronology, http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/livingwage/chronology.html [accessed 24.02.2010].Google Scholar
Queen Mary College (2009b) ‘Clean living: new report shows economic and ethical benefits to paying cleaning staff “Living Wage” at Queen Mary’, press release, 18 December, http://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/items/8457.html [accessed 16.01.2010].Google Scholar
Sawyer, M. C. (1979) Theories of the Firm, London: Weidenfield & Nicholson.Google Scholar
Sloane, P., Latreille, P. and O’Leary, N. (2013) Modern Labour Economics, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Stable, D. R. (2008) The Living Wage: Lessons from the History of Economic Thought, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, J. E. (2002) Globalisation and Its Discontents, London: Penguin.Google Scholar
The Herald (2013) ‘MSPs vote down Living Wage plan’, 13 May, http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/msps-vote-down-living-wage-plan.1399993787.Google Scholar
Turner, G. (2008) The Credit Crunch: Housing Bubbles, Globalization and the Worldwide Economic Crisis, London: Pluto Books.Google Scholar
Valadez, L. and Hirsch, D. (2014) Comparative Analysis of Minimum Income Standards – Ireland and the United Kingdom, Loughborough: Centre for Research in Social Policy.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K. (2009) The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Wills, J. (2001) Mapping Low Pay in East London, London: UNISON.Google Scholar
Wills, J. (2007) A Global Workforce in a Global City: The Skills, Experiences and Aspirations of a Group of Contract Cleaners in London, Working paper, London: Department of Geography, Queen Mary University.Google Scholar
Wills, J. (2009) ‘Subcontracted employment and its challenge to labor’, Labor Studies Journal, 34, 4, 441–60.Google Scholar
UNISON (2013) The Living Wage, http://www.unison.org.uk/our-campaigns/unison-campaigns/a-living-wage/home/ [accessed 14.10.2014].Google Scholar