Health and wellbeing
There is a well-established relationship between work and health and wellbeing. Good work promotes health, providing a good standard of living, sense of dignity and autonomy, the opportunity to grow and flourish, along with social networks and support. Bad work can do the opposite, locking people into working poverty and reducing their sense of security, purpose, and control.
Regional and demographic inequalities of income and job security in the UK have trickled through to become inequalities in health and wellbeing.
The Pissarides Review has explored the relationship between labour market change and work, health, and wellbeing outcomes, with regard to differential impacts on demographic groups across local labour markets.
Research relevant to this theme includes:
What impact does exposure to workplace technologies have on workers’ quality of life?
Based on a survey of nearly 5000 UK workers, this work has, for the first time, been done with reference to the most widely accepted, multidimensional measure of health-related quality of life and wellbeing, EuroQol EQ-5D-3L. The full Working Paper on which this Briefing is based can be found here.
What impact does exposure to workplace technologies have on the quality of people’s jobs?
This Briefing provides a more nuanced understanding of the mechanisms by which exposures to workplace technologies may be connected to quality of life – of which job quality is a main contributor.
What is found is that the feelings of persistent job insecurity that new technologies bring cancel out many of the potential job quality gains, unless such downsides are consciously managed. The full Working Paper on which this briefing is based can be accessed here.
What do we know about automation at work and workers’ wellbeing?
Literature Review
Addressing labour market challenges from a human-centred perspective: a review of the literature on work and the Capability Approach
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Worker skills and resilience
Understanding how to support individual worker capabilities and resilience through technological transformation.
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Public institutions
Designing new policies and strategies to address disadvantages and alleviate the risks of automation.
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Place and inequalities
Exploring how technological disruption in work is affecting inequalities and disparities between groups and communities across the country.