Employment Policies (SP0018)

? Credit Points : 20 ? SCQF Level : 10 ? Acronym : SPS-3-SPEMP

This course focuses on policies for improving job opportunities, in the light of unemployment, economic inactivity and earnings inequality. We begin by reviewing the problems, and explanations for unemployment and changes in the nature of the jobs. Then we look at the pursuit of 'flexibility' on American lines and the Swedish model of regulated wage bargaining and active employment policies, which offers a very different route to flexibility. Three weeks will be devoted to the British version of active labour market policy, the New Deal, including welfare to work policies for single parents and the arguments for job creation projects in areas of deprivation. We will examine perhaps the most advocated 'supply-side' policy, skill upgrading. We will look at redistributing work, for the sake of household needs or job creation. Finally the course looks at access to work for one large group of labour market disadvantaged, disabled people. The course aims to introduce students to the analysis of labour markets and the evaluation of policies which impact upon them. There will be attention to the interpretation of evidence, statistical or otherwise, and the issues raised by international comparisons.