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The purpose of this paper is to describe how the voluntary living wage (LW) in the UK is set. It examines how this calculation relates to contemporary approaches to setting wage floors, both in relation to their goal of supporting adequate living standards and in relation to the place of wage floors in the labour mark.

The paper examines how compulsory and voluntary wage floors are being determined, in the UK and in particular the role of public consensus in contributing to the calculation and adoption of a LW. It then reflects on the future sustainability of a system of wage floors in which the concept of the LW plays a significant role.

The central finding is that widespread support for wages delivering socially acceptable minimum living standards has transformed the context in which low pay is being addressed in the UK. The LW idea has stimulated more decisive efforts to do so; however, if a compulsory version of a LW were to reach a level shown to be harming jobs, this could seriously undermine such efforts. Moreover, the extent to which adequate wages are compatible with high employment levels can also be influenced by state support for households, especially tax credits and Universal Credit.

The paper clarifies how the setting of the UK LW contributes to objectives related both to living standards and to labour markets, and critically addresses some key issues raised.

This paper presents an account of the UK campaign for the voluntary Living Wage, an example of civil regulation. The purpose of this paper is to identify and characterize the actors involved in the campaign, describe methods used and examine direct and indirect consequences of the campaign.

A mixed-method design is employed, reflecting the broadly framed purpose of the research. The research used semi-structured interviews with campaigners, union representatives and employers, observation of campaign activities and the creation of a database of Living Wage employers.

The campaign originated in the community organizing movement, but has involved a broad range of labor market actors, both “new” and “old.” A continuum of campaigning methods has been used, stretching from community mobilization to appeals to employer self-interest and corporate social responsibility. The campaign has recruited 3,000 employers, led to wage increases for thousands of workers and registered indirect effects by shaping the policies of governments, employers and unions.

The research presents a novel account of the UK’s distinctive Living Wage campaign, a notable example of the civil regulation of the labor market.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the value that UK trade unions now place on the living wage.

The author is the TUC’s Pay Policy Officer and examines the issue from a practitioner’s perspective.

The living wage now has a well-established place within the hierarchy of pay demands adopted by UK trade unions. This continues a tradition of unions supporting norms and regulations as an adjunct to collective bargaining. However, support had to be achieved through a process of negotiation with the broader UK living wage campaign.

The paper concludes that there are good prospects for the living wage, and thus for the continued trade union support.

The living wage standard is seen as having a strong moral basis, which often helps to win agreement with good employers. This results in a steady stream of workers out of in-work poverty. The credit for such pay increases is often shared between employers and trade unions.

The paper is written by a practitioner with inside knowledge and experience of the entire course of the living wage campaign in the UK and how it has been adopted and integrated by trade unions.

This article conceptualises how the economic well-being of an entrepreneurial household affects its members' mental accounting process to establish its affordable loss for a plunge decision.

The article used research literature to analyze the resources available for entrepreneurial endeavours against a household's ability to maintain acceptable minimum material living standards, juxtaposing income and wealth against competing consumption and investment opportunities.

Mentally accounting for whether household resources can meet minimum material living standards is central to entrepreneurs' ability to raise affordable loss and decide to invest in a new venture. The article proposes that entrepreneurial households establish affordable loss by availing their money exceeding that required to maintain acceptable minimum material living standards. In low-income households, the author assumes that members are not employed and can thus avail their time (versus money) towards affordable loss.

Economic well-being introduces mental accounts of income and wealth and a hedonic reference outcome in the material living standards of households required to meet basic needs. The article introduces the tension entrepreneurial households face between using their income and wealth towards investing in a new business and maintaining their material living standards. It introduces the idea that a loss can be “affordable” according to an entrepreneurial household's ability to remain above its acceptable minimum material living standard. This view prompts scholars to consider a household unit of analysis and avoid assuming an entrepreneur makes the plunge decision in isolation.

Debates over the definition, processes and outcomes of minimum and “living” wages are heated and often politically contentious in garment-producing countries. Internationally, there have been various initiatives to promote and support the implementation of a living wage for workers in labour-intensive manufacturing, ranging from corporate-driven social responsibility and multi-stakeholder initiatives to the long-standing living wage campaign of the global unions. One prominent regional initiative is the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA). The purpose of this paper is to assess its reach and effect in Southeast Asia.

A living wage campaign is assessed with reference to Indonesia and Cambodia, two important garment manufacturing countries in Southeast Asia. The paper draws on data collected in interviews with garment manufacturers, brand representatives, trade unionists and labour NGO activists, including members of the AFWA Steering Committee in Indonesia and Cambodia, complemented by a systematic review of documents and reports produced by the AFWA.

As the paper shows, despite a series of initiatives, the Asia Floor Wage has failed to gain traction in Cambodia or Indonesia. This is so, the paper argues, because national economic, political and institutional contexts are the primary drivers of the strategies and priorities of constituent organisations, governments and industry stakeholders. In the absence of robust local and regional coalitions of trade unions, efforts towards a common and coordinated regional approach to living wages are thus unlikely to gain traction.

To a large extent, the literature on the concepts and practices associated with the living wage has focussed on developed rather than developing countries. This paper extends the literature by providing a systematic examination of a transnational wage campaign in developing Asian countries.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of living wages on organisational pay systems.

The research draws on 23 semi-structured interviews with HR managers, trade union representatives, and politicians at four UK local government case study sites.

The findings suggest that living wages can have a positive impact on directly employed workers in cleaning, catering and care services, but the research also finds that the localised adoption of living wages can lead to significant wage compression, resulting in a broad band of “low skill-low wage jobs”.

The theoretical contribution is twofold. In-line with earlier research the “first-order” effects of living wages are clear: hourly wages for a large number of women in part-time roles increased sharply. However, this is only part of the story as “second-order” effects such as ripples and spill-overs are less extensive than suggested by other studies. This is due to the limited scope for trade unions to restore wage differentials through collective bargaining, the slow progress in extending the living wage to contracted staff, and parallel processes of downsizing and outsourcing.

“The world needs science, science needs women” is the message given by UNESCO in the program for the development of women in science” (UNESCO, 2017). In Vietnam, women’s participation and achievements in scientific research is considered a great and important resource for industrialization and modernization. Even so, are there gender differences in scientific achievement in the social science research institutes in Vietnam? What factors influence the scientific achievement of female social researchers? The answers will be based on data from a 2017 survey with a sample of 756 researchers, of which 77.6% were female. The survey was conducted by the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, a leading, ministry-level national center for the social sciences in Vietnam. This chapter analyzed the scientific achievements of researchers through their position as principal investigators of research projects and their publications, and factors that may impact this. Bivariate and multivariate analyses of factors that may affect the scientific achievement of researchers found that gender differences in academic achievement in the social sciences in Vietnam was still prevalent. Female researchers’ scientific achievements were lower than those of their male counterparts. The contribution to science of Vietnamese female researchers was limited by many different factors; the most important were the academic rank of the researchers and gender stereotype that considered housework the responsibility of women.

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.

Firefighters are daily confronted with adverse, unpredictable and demanding situations. It is a dangerous profession that puts firefighters at risk of developing burnout. Although the literature has already identified personal and work-related factors of burnout, the examination of specific factors explaining burnout among volunteer and career firefighters is still needed. The purpose of this study is to investigate the explaining role of personal and work-related factors on volunteer and career firefighters’ burnout.

A nonrandom convenience sample of 250 firefighters (67% volunteer; M_age = 31.88) completed a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory, the Proactive Coping Scale and a standard of living subscale item. Hierarchical multiple linear regression models were tested. Fisher’s criterion was considered, with p-values lower than 0.05 interpreted as statistically significant.

Personal and work-related factors accounted for 18% of volunteer and 31% of career firefighters’ variations in burnout. Personal factors offered a greater contribution explaining volunteer and career firefighters’ burnout. Still, variations in the role played by age, family responsibilities, proactive coping and satisfaction with standard of living on burnout were found among volunteer and career firefighters. Taking the work-related factors into account, working in rotative shifts constituted a risk factor for career firefighters’ burnout.

This study advances the understanding about the role of personal and work-related factors in volunteer and career firefighters’ burnout.

This study adds information about specific factors explaining burnout among voluntary and career firefighters. It deepens existing knowledge on variations in the role played by age, family responsibilities, work conditions, proactive coping and satisfaction with standard of living on the burnout of volunteer and career firefighters.

This paper places what has happened to income inequality in rich countries over recent decades alongside trends in median and low incomes in real terms, taken as incomplete but valuable indicators of the evolution of living standards for “ordinary working families” and the poor. The findings demonstrate first just how varied country experiences have been, with some much more successful than others in generating rising real incomes around the middle and toward the bottom of the distribution. This variation is seen to be only modestly related to the extent to which income inequality rose, which itself is more varied across the rich countries than is often appreciated. The extent to which economic growth is transmitted to the middle and lower parts of the distribution is seen to depend on a range of factors of which inequality is only one. Sources of real income growth around the middle have also varied across countries, though transfers are consistently key toward the bottom. The diversity of rich country experiences should serve as an important corrective to a now-common “grand narrative” about inequality and stagnation based on the experience of the USA.