Projects

At any one time, ISER is involved in a wide range of cutting edge social and economic research across many disciplines

Sustainable Welfare: Rethinking the roles of Family, Market and State (SUSTAINWELL)

SUSTAINWELL addresses the long-term socio-economic impact of population ageing on European society.

Evaluating a ‘Minimum Income Guarantee’ and modelling major income supplementation policies: A development award

Economic conditions are well-recognised as key drivers of health and wellbeing inequalities. There is considerable interest in using major income supplementation policies (MISPs) such as Universal Basic Income to reduce such inequalities.

UKMOD: Fostering an inclusive and informed public debate of UK fiscal policies

The project aims to maintain UKMOD – an open-source tax-benefit model – as a free resource, and support its transition to long-term sustainability by fostering use of the model by third sector financial advisory and advocacy organisations.

Caring Over the Lifecycle: the Roles of Families and Welfare States Today and Into the Future (WELLCARE)

Economic development in parallel to demographic changes over the past decades have altered family structures and the way care is given and received along the lifecycle.

Fiscal INCentives for Health improvement: repurposing consumption taxes on food (FINCH)

The central research question in FINCH is whether indirect taxes on food and non-alcoholic beverages
(FNABs) can be repurposed and restructured to create incentives for healthy food consumption,
without increasing the tax burden on households and without adverse distributional impacts relative to
the current taxation system.

Study on ‘Poverty and Income Inequality in the Context of the Digital Transformation’

The objective of this study is to estimate the impact of digital transformation on employment, earnings, poverty and income inequality in the last decade, as well as provide an indication of what this impact could be in the coming decade, across all EU Member States and in the EU as a whole.

Gender equality and gender mainstreaming in national Recovery and Resilience Plans – Economic case

This project provides a quantitative assessment of the gendered impacts of the pandemic and the related policy response on earnings and disposable incomes across the EU-27.

The impacts of Universal Free School Meals in England

Investigating the impact of Universal Free School Meal (UFSM) programmes run in several local authorities in England since 2004 on children’s educational attainment, absences and bodyweight.

COhort cOmmunity Research and Development Infrastructure Network for Access Throughout Europe – COORDINATE

COORDINATE is the next phase of the GUIDE project funded by the Horizon 2020 programme in recognition that policymakers across Europe are currently unable to draw upon consistent, comparable and high quality data on child wellbeing to inform policy.

Evaluation of the health impacts of Universal Credit: a mixed methods study

A project focusing on a mixed methods study comprising five closely related work packages (WPs) to answer the question: what is the impact of the introduction of UC on mental health and wellbeing, what are the implications for health inequalities, and how these effects are moderated by variation in implementation across Great Britain?

Understanding the impacts of income and welfare policy responses to COVID-19 on inequalities in mental health: A microsimulation model

A study that will develop a new mathematical model which will simulate the potential impact of the economic changes on mental health of the British population.

Health Equity of Economic Determinants (HEED)

Government policies on taxation and social security are important determinants of population health outcomes and health inequalities. However, there is a shortage of evidence to inform policymakers of the health consequences of such policies.

Improvement of EUROMOD Advanced Statistics Calculator

Expanding the scope of the results provided by the current EUROMOD Statistic Presenter, allowing more comprehensive and flexible policy analyses.

Mind the Gap: Educational Inequalities during Covid-19

Looking at the impact of Covid-related school closures on student achievements, inequalities in assessed exam grades and how confusion over A-level grading made a difference to university participation

Covid-19 and school availability: impact on parental labour supply and wellbeing

Assessing the impact of school closures related to Covid-19 on employment and family wellbeing for parents, especially mothers

Event-triggered data collection

Developing new methods to collect data about life events throughout the year

An investigation of the impact of the National Living Wage on earnings, with a focus on pay differentials

Investigating to what extent the recent hikes in the minimum wage have impacted on wage progression and pay differentials.

Understanding and improving data linkage consent in surveys

Maximising informed consent by investigating what influences the decision of survey respondents to allow their data to be linked to administrative records.

European Cohort Development Project (ECDP)

Building a case for a European Research Infrastructure that will provide comparative longitudinal survey data on child and young adult well-being over the next 25 years.

Inequality, early adult life courses and economic outcomes at mid-life in comparative context (EQUALLIVES)

A cross-country investigation into how education, labour market and family choices create inequality across the life-course.

Access to health care, health outcomes and hospital performance in Brazilian cities

Assessing the impact of recent innovations within Brazil’s national health system on mortality and hospitalization rates, and on the efficiency of the health system.

The impact of a personalised blood pressure warning on health behaviour

Assessing to what extent clinical information on an individual’s health status could influence their behaviours.

Developing a longitudinal study of indebtedness

Charting people’s experience of debt and utilisation of debt advice.

Risk aversion, earnings uncertainty and labour supply

Examining the relationship between the growth in insecure and unstable forms of employment and peoples’ behaviour in relation to seeking and remaining in work.

Exploiting the existing biomarker data available in CLOSER: social position, age and allostatic load

Cataloguing the biomarker data available in the Cohort & Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resource (CLOSER) and other significant longitudinal studies, to develop a gold standard for allostatic load measurement, while informing the scientific community of the availability of biomarkers for research in the social- biological agenda.

Respondent-targeted survey design features

Targeting design features to reduce survey costs and improve survey participation.

The prevalence and persistence of ethnic and racial harassment and its impact on health: a longitudinal analysis

Groundbreaking research into the prevalence and persistence of ethnic and racial harassment and its impact on health.

Income and fertility: evidence from Norway in the last two centuries

Investigating how the timing of births varies across the business cycle.

Understanding household finance through better measurement

Transforming our understanding of the dynamics of living standards.

BOOST2018, the ground-breaking study of student life

BOOST2018 is a study undertaken by researchers at the University of Essex to better understand students’ life at university, the issues they may face in their daily life, their aspirations, expectations, attitudes, and their outcomes.

How can biomarkers and genetics improve our understanding of society and health?

A ground-breaking £1.4 million ESRC-funded study is gathering evidence to help policy makers understand how behaviours and socio-economic factors impact on the nation’s health

Information, expectations and transition to higher education

Examining which expectations and perceptions are held by students that may make them stay on in full-time post-compulsory schooling and apply to university.

Income and poverty dynamics: measuring instability, volatility and persistence

Providing new evidence for Britain earnings instability and improving the measurement of household living standards

Projects

Sustainable Welfare: Rethinking the roles of Family, Market and State (SUSTAINWELL)

Evaluating a ‘Minimum Income Guarantee’ and modelling major income supplementation policies: A development award

UKMOD: Fostering an inclusive and informed public debate of UK fiscal policies

Caring Over the Lifecycle: the Roles of Families and Welfare States Today and Into the Future (WELLCARE)

Fiscal INCentives for Health improvement: repurposing consumption taxes on food (FINCH)

Study on ‘Poverty and Income Inequality in the Context of the Digital Transformation’

Gender equality and gender mainstreaming in national Recovery and Resilience Plans – Economic case

The impacts of Universal Free School Meals in England

COhort cOmmunity Research and Development Infrastructure Network for Access Throughout Europe – COORDINATE

Evaluation of the health impacts of Universal Credit: a mixed methods study

Understanding the impacts of income and welfare policy responses to COVID-19 on inequalities in mental health: A microsimulation model

Health Equity of Economic Determinants (HEED)

Improvement of EUROMOD Advanced Statistics Calculator

Mind the Gap: Educational Inequalities during Covid-19

Covid-19 and school availability: impact on parental labour supply and wellbeing

Event-triggered data collection

An investigation of the impact of the National Living Wage on earnings, with a focus on pay differentials

Understanding and improving data linkage consent in surveys

Access to health care, health outcomes and hospital performance in Brazilian cities

The impact of a personalised blood pressure warning on health behaviour

Developing a longitudinal study of indebtedness

Risk aversion, earnings uncertainty and labour supply

Exploiting the existing biomarker data available in CLOSER: social position, age and allostatic load

Respondent-targeted survey design features

The prevalence and persistence of ethnic and racial harassment and its impact on health: a longitudinal analysis

Income and fertility: evidence from Norway in the last two centuries

Understanding household finance through better measurement

BOOST2018, the ground-breaking study of student life

How can biomarkers and genetics improve our understanding of society and health?

Income and poverty dynamics: measuring instability, volatility and persistence

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