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There is ongoing debate amongst in-work poverty researchers as to how to answer the question “who is counted as in-work poor?” and how to define the minimum size of work that should be used to determine a “working threshold”. The purpose of this paper aims to contribute to this debate by testing five different definitions of a “working threshold” and discussing their implications when testing the different measurement outcomes.

The authors use data from Statistics Sweden (SCB), including the total population registered as living in Sweden for each year from 1987 to 2017. All calculations are on a yearly basis and in fixed prices (2017). The data set used is based on linked administrative data retrieved from Statistics Sweden and the software used is SAS 9.4.

Results show how in-work poverty trends differ by measurement approach. The two definitions with the lowest income thresholds are found to include a very heterogenic group of individuals. The development of in-work poverty in Sweden over 30 years show decreasing in-work poverty during the first decade followed by an increase to almost the same levels at the end of the period. In-work poverty in Sweden has transformed from being female-dominated in 1987 and the typical person in in-work poverty 2017 is a male immigrant, aged 26–55 years.

This methodological discussion might lead to a new definition of who is a worker amongst the in-work poor, which could consequently affect who is counted as being in in-work poverty and lead to new social policy measures.

This is, to the authors' knowledge, the first time different definitions of work requirement used to define in-work poverty have been tested on a data set including the total population and over a period of 30 years.

In-work transfers are often seen as a good trade-off between redistribution and efficiency as they alleviate poverty among low-wage households, while increasing financial incentives to work. In the context of the recent economic downturn, they have been advocated to offset the disincentive effect of wage cuts and to cushion the negative redistributive impact of earnings losses and cuts in the minimum wage. We study this double effect for Ireland, a country deeply affected by the economic crisis, and for which existing in-work support policies are of limited scope. The employment and poverty effects of alternative policies are analysed thanks to counterfactual simulations built using a micro-simulation model, the Living in Ireland Survey 2001 and labour supply estimations. We focus on an extension of the existing scheme, the Family Income Supplement and its replacement by the refundable tax credit in force in the United Kingdom.

The study’s first aim is to estimate the scale of working poverty using a nationwide household survey. The second aim is to answer the following research questions: is working enough to escape poverty, and what are the determinants of working poverty?

The focus is on working people in Indonesia who have per capita household expenditure below the provincial poverty line. The determinant analysis used logistic regression on the first quarter of 2013 Susenas microdata.

The study found that the scale of the working poverty problem is equivalent to the scale of the poverty, although the in-work poverty rate is lower than the poverty rate in all provinces. The logistic regression results conclude that the three factors, namely individual-level, employment-related and household-level variables, have significant contributions to the incidence of the working poor in Indonesia.

Some practical implications for reducing the incidence of working poverty are increasing labor earnings through productivity growth and improving workers' skills, encouraging the labor participation of the poor and reducing precarious work. This study also suggests the need to continue assisting the working poor, particularly by increasing access to financial credit.

Research aimed at studying working poverty in Indonesia in the peer-reviewed literature is rare until now based on the authors' search. This study will fill the gap and provoke further research on working poverty in Indonesia.

The authors’ aim is to establish the variance of youth welfare citizenship regimes in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and to revisit the applicability of the regime approach to the emerging welfare regimes (EWRs).

The empirical analysis follows the descriptive case study strategy aiming to discover diversity of youth welfare citizenship patterns. The case selection is made within the CEE country group, which includes countries in Central Europe, the Baltics, Eastern Europe and Southeast Europe, all sharing the communist past. The subdivision of these countries in reference to the welfare states can be made via the European Union (EU) membership based on the assumption that EU social policy frameworks and recommendations have an important effect on domestic policies. We included countries which are in the EU, i.e., with a similar political and economic transition path. There were three waves of accession to the EU in CEE countries. In the first wave (2004), all the Baltic countries, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Slovenia joined. In the second wave (2007), Romania and Bulgaria joined. Finally, Croatia joined the EU in 2013. Altogether 11 CEE countries are the EU members today, the remaining CEE countries are non-EU members and thus are excluded from the current research. Those countries which are part of the EU share similarities in social and economic reforms during the pre-accession period and after in order to reach a comparatively similar system with other member states. So, in terms of casing strategy these six countries can be named as emerging welfare regimes (EWRs) evolving transformations across different public policy areas. Handpicking of six countries out of 11 relies on the assumption that the Anglo-Saxon welfare system characteristics are more evident in the Baltic countries (Aidukaite, 2019; Aidukaite et al., 2020; Ainsaar et al., 2020; Rajevska and Rajevska, 2020) and Slovenia, while in Bulgaria and Croatia certain outcomes reflect the Bismarckian principles of social security (Hrast and Rakar, 2020; Stoilova and Krasteva, 2020; Dobrotić, 2020). This brings important variety into our analysis logic. Last but not least, we juxtapose six CEE EWR countries under analysis with six mature welfare regime countries representing different welfare regime types. Those mature welfare regime countries (Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, Italy, UK) are not an explicit object of the study but help to put analysed CEE EWR cases into larger context and thus, reflect upon theoretical claims of the welfare regime literature.

The authors can confirm that the EWR countries can be rather well explained by the welfare citizenship typology and complement the existing knowledge on youth welfare regime typology clusters in the Western Europe. Estonia is clustered close to the Nordic countries, whereas Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia and Slovenia are close to the Bismarckian welfare model despite rather flexible, non-restricted educational path, universal child and student support. Bulgaria is an outlier; however, it is clustered together with mature Mediterranean welfare regimes. Former intact welfare regime clusters are becoming more diverse. The authors’ findings confirm that there is no any intact cluster of the “post-communist” welfare regime and Eastern European countries are today “on move”.

Altogether 11 CEE countries are the EU members today. The remaining CEE countries are non-EU members and thus are excluded from the current research. Those countries which are part of the EU share similarities in social and economic reforms during the pre-accession period and after in order to reach a comparatively similar system with other member states. At least one CEE country was chosen based on existing theoretical knowledge on the welfare regime typology (Anglo Saxon, Beveridgean, Bismarckian) for the Post-communist country groups.

In the social citizenship dimension we dropped social assistance schemes and tax-relief indices and included poverty risk and housing measures. Youth poverty together with housing showed rather clear distinction between familialized and individualised countries and thus, made the typology stronger. In the economic dimension the preliminary picture was much fuzzier, mainly due to the comprehensive education in the region and intervention of the EU in domestic ALMPs (and VET) reforms. The authors added a new indicator (pro-youth orientation of ALMP) in order better to capture youth-sensitivity of policy.

The authors included a working poverty measure (in-work poverty rate) in order to reflect labour market insecurity as an increasing concern. Yet, the analysis results were still mixed and new indicators did not help locating the regime types.

In order to improve the validity of the youth welfare citizenship regime economic dimension, Chevalier's (2020) model may also be worth revisiting. The authors argue that this dichotomy is not sufficient, because inclusive type can have orientation towards general skills or occupational skills (i.e. monitored or enabling citizenship clusters), which is currently ignored. Chevalier (2020) furthermore associates inclusive economic citizenship with “coordinated market economies” (referring to Hall and Soskice, 2001), which seems hardly hold validity in the Nordic and at least some CEE countries.

European Union (EU) as a whole has made modest short-term progress toward sustainable development goals (SDG). Only in one goal (ensuring healthy lives and promotion of well-being) out of 17, the progress was substantial. The most problematic goals, which show movements away from sustainable development objectives, are goals that are focused on building resilient infrastructure, promotion of inclusive, sustainable industrialization, fostering innovation, and the goal that takes urgent action to combat climate changes. The analysis between old and new EU members revealed that median new EU member has made bigger progress in the last five years. For 11 SDGs, the average score is lover for median new EU member compared to median old EU member. However, the last available level of the indicator is in general still more favorable for median old EU member compared to median new EU member.

What matters most for improving work quality and who can make a difference are perennial topics in employee relations research. The literature on work quality provides answers to these with regard to various constructs on a continuum from “soft” to “hard” variables and stakeholders seeking to influence employers who fall short of reasonable expectations with regard to these. A construct of “decent work” with both soft and hard variables was adopted for research and methods which were collaborative and participative with stakeholders in one national context.

The “decent work” construct was operationalised from the literature and refined by collaborative and participative research. Exploring the relative importance of the constituent parts of decent work involved research with a range of stakeholders; employees, employers and advocates. The study involved most prominently low-paid workers, with employers and advocates also engaged through interviews.

Primarily hard “decent work” variables were identified among employees, primarily soft variables among employers and a mix of hard and soft among advocates. There are some common priorities across these stakeholders.

The main implication is that to engage a range of stakeholders requires a combination of soft and hard variables to be included in research and policy development. However, generalisation about what matters most and who makes a difference to work quality is intrinsically limited in context and time. In this research, the extent of employer engagement in the collaboration initiated by advocates and concerned most with the experiences of low-paid workers is a limitation.

What matters most are a set of soft and hard priorities to engage across stakeholders. Pay is an abiding priority among these and the priority most prominent for many advocates seeking to make a difference through influencing low-paying employers to provide a living wage. While the living wage is a significant focus for work quality, it is not in itself sufficient, as other soft and hard variables in the workplace matter as well. Those who can make a difference are the employers falling short of benchmark standards. Influence on these may emerge through decent work knowledge and skills in management and professional development programmes as well as in initiatives advocating wider adoption of the living wage.

Problem areas of work quality, and problem employers, can be influenced by strategies shaping “hard” factors, including legislation. This needs to be complemented and integrated with strategies on “soft” factors, including identifying positive role models on themes of well-being, work–life balance and precarious forms of employment, as well as pay.

The identification of what matters and who can make a difference is based on an original, collaborative, research project, in one national context, offering analytical generalisability about “decent work” and an experience of collaborative research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors influencing the food insecurity status of the working poor households in south west Nigeria.

International Labour Organisation poverty line, Household Food Insecurity Access Scale as well as the Ordered Logit model were used to identify the factors influencing the food insecurity status of the working poor households in south west Nigeria.

The study revealed that more than half of the respondents were working poor households, with more than four-fifths of them being food insecure. Income irregularity, savings and level of education had major roles to play in the food insecurity status of working poor households.

Employment has always been considered as a route out of poverty and food insecurity. However, the intensity of poverty among working households should be considered in the design and development of policy and programmes, targeted towards workers. Laws should protect the right of workers against non-payment of salaries, advantages of family planning should be emphasised, social security allowance should be provided to serve as an alternative source of income during emergencies and more investment made in education.

This paper attempts to bridge the knowledge gap in the empirical link between employment, poverty and food insecurity. Particularly, its application to the working households.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2019-0589

This study aims to explore whether employer action may contribute towards reducing in-work poverty. Essentially, the study examines the extent to which small firm owners accept as being among their core responsibilities the support of the working poor both from an ethical and financial perspective. It further explores the impact of employee-friendly policies to support the working poor on the organizational performance of small enterprises.

A qualitative approach was adopted consisting of 60 responses from 30 small firm owners and 30 employees. More specifically, the study draws on the empirical data collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews with the firm owners of 30 low-paying enterprises operating in Greece and 30 employees working in those firms.

The findings reveal that employer measures to reduce in-work poverty such as systematic training, travel allowance, provision of free meals and retail vouchers, bonus schemes and other indirect financial rewards do enhance overall employee well-being, which, in turn, makes employees more engaged with their work and motivate them to “go the extra mile” for their employer. As a result, organizations appear to enjoy several benefits including less absenteeism and staff turnover, reduced errors in production and increased productivity.

The present analysis argues that a narrow focus by policymakers on both direct and indirect governmental measures (e.g. an increase of the minimum wage, childcare and housing support) to reduce in work-poverty could be problematic as there are employer instruments that could also have a direct and indirect impact on employee income that could be useful when thinking about how in-work poverty can best be addressed. The empirical work showed that the above-mentioned measures have the potential to bring various organizational benefits including increased staff loyalty, less absenteeism, improved customer service and increased productivity. Such findings indicate that there is a strong business case for employers to combat in-work poverty and provide “better” jobs to individuals.

The emphasis of research around in-work poverty has been placed predominantly on welfare state measures to support the working poor, whereas the contribution of employers has been ignored. The present study fills this knowledge gap by leading to a better understanding of whether there is a business case for employers to fight in-work poverty.

Background: Rising food bank usage in the UK suggests a growing prevalence of food insecurity. However, a formalised, representative measure of food insecurity was not collected in the UK until 2019, over a decade after the initial proliferation of food bank demand. In the absence of a direct measure of food insecurity, this article identifies and summarises longitudinal proxy indicators of UK food insecurity to gain insight into the growth of insecure access to food in the 21st century.

Methods: A rapid evidence synthesis of academic and grey literature (2005–present) identified candidate proxy longitudinal markers of food insecurity. These were assessed to gain insight into the prevalence of, or conditions associated with, food insecurity.

Results: Food bank data clearly demonstrates increased food insecurity. However, this data reflects an unrepresentative, fractional proportion of the food insecure population without accounting for mild/moderate insecurity, or those in need not accessing provision. Economic indicators demonstrate that a period of poor overall UK growth since 2005 has disproportionately impacted the poorest households, likely increasing vulnerability and incidence of food insecurity. This vulnerability has been exacerbated by welfare reform for some households. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically intensified vulnerabilities and food insecurity. Diet-related health outcomes suggest a reduction in diet quantity/quality. The causes of diet-related disease are complex and diverse; however, evidence of socio-economic inequalities in their incidence suggests poverty, and by extension, food insecurity, as key determinants.

Conclusion: Proxy measures of food insecurity suggest a significant increase since 2005, particularly for severe food insecurity. Proxy measures are inadequate to robustly assess the prevalence of food insecurity in the UK. Failure to collect standardised, representative data at the point at which food bank usage increased significantly impairs attempts to determine the full prevalence of food insecurity, understand the causes, and identify those most at risk.