Work, Pensions and Labour Economics Study Group (WPEG)

WPEG Annual conference programme 2024

Our next WPEG Annual conference will be held in Sheffield on Tuesday 16th July 2024. This will be a hybrid conference, held at The Royal Victoria Crowne Plaza Hotel, Sheffield.

Register here.

Academics and Presenters please register either as "External in-person" ticket OR "Online ticket".

2024 Conference Programme

Previous WPEG events

WPEG Conference programme 2023

Time	Session details	Location
09:30 - 10:00	Registration & Coffee	The Royal Victoria Crowne Plaza Hotel
10:00 - 10:15	Event Introduction Pamela Lenton (Sheffield, WPEG Organiser) Welcome and General Information Tom Younger (DWP Joint Chief Economist) Opening remarks	Main Ballroom
10:15 - 11:00	Plenary Professor Rebecca Riley (King’s College London) "Data Innovation for Labour Market Policy: Examples from Minimum Wages”	Main Ballroom
11:00 - 11:15	Tea/Coffee	Main Ballroom
11:15 - 12:45	Session A1: Pay Gaps and Earnings Yu Zhu (Dundee) What Explains the White-Minority Gaps in Returns to Academic Credentials in the UK? Yannis Galanakis (KCL) Mind the (Gender Pay) Gap: Firm productivity and board gender composition. Weijian Zou (IFS) Ethnic earnings gaps among university-educated men. Noemi Mantovan (Liverpool) The Effects of Mental Health on Female Earnings, Marriage and Fertility: a Dynamic Study Discussion Chair: Andrew Ward Session A2: Employment and Benefits Tom Waters (IFS/UCL) Do work search requirements work? Evidence from a UK reform targeting single parents. Ian Burn (Liverpool) Help really wanted? The impact of age stereotypes in job ads on applications from older workers. Edward Martyn (DWP) Very long term outcomes of employment programmes. Richard Ward (DWP) Results of the Benefit Cap evaluation. Discussion Chair: Tom Stewart	Waverley Room Main Ballroom
12:45 - 13:45	Lunch	Dining Rooms
13:45 - 15:00	Roundtable: Low Pay/Progression John Forth (City) Moving On Up? The Experience of Minimum Wage Adult Workers in Britain, 2004-21 Nye Cominetti (Resolution Foundation) Low Pay Britain 2023: Improving low-paid work through higher minimum standards Discussion Chair: Nicola Gilpin	Main Ballroom
15:00 - 16:00	Session B1: Covid and The Labour Market Amwaj Abugamza (Leeds) Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on employment and inequalities: a systematic review of international evidence and critical appraisal of statistical methods. Amwaj Abugamza (Leeds) Exploring characteristics of UK workers who left the labour market due to COVID-19 and the consequences for subjective wellbeing. Edward Webb (Leeds) Long-term health conditions and UK labour market outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic Discussion Chair: Richard Ward Session B2: Education Andrew Bryce (Sheffield) The role of education in the disability employment gap. Sam Ray-Chaudhuri (IFS) Are the kids alright? The early careers of education leavers since the COVID-19 pandemic. Ricky Kanabar (Bath) Parental homeownership and education: the implications for offspring wealth inequality in GB. Discussion Chair: Pamela Lenton (Sheffield) Session B3: Pensions and Wealth Max Mosley (NIESR/ESCoE) Exploring alternative data sources for household wealth statistics. Richard Mosley (DWP) Analysis of Private Pension Outcomes. Discussion Chair: Paul Mooney	Main Ballroom Waverley Room Assembly Room
16:00 - 16:45	DWP: The Employment Data Lab Why DWP set up the Employment Data Lab How the service works How the service was set up (Data protection; methodology; code development; etc) Technical details about the service (statistical techniques)	Main Ballroom
16:45 - 17:00	Closing Remarks Tom Younger (DWP Joint Chief Economist)	Main Ballroom

WPEG Conference programme 2022

Time	Session details	Location
09:30 - 10:00	Registration & Coffee	The Edge - Hub
10:00 - 10:15	Event Introduction Pamela Lenton (Sheffield, WPEG Organiser) Welcome and General Information Paul Mooney (DWP Chief Economist) Opening remarks	High Tor 2
10:15 - 11:15	Session A1 - Welfare and Universal Credit Emma Tominey (York) "Universal Credit: Welfare Reform and Mental Health" Vito Polito (Sheffield) "Job Search, Unemployment Protection and Informal Work" D. Woodell (DWP) "The Administrative Earnings Threshold: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design" Discussion Chair: Tom Stewart, DWP	High Tor 2
	Session A2 - Pensions and Auto-Enrolment Richard Mosley (DWP) "10 years of Pension’s Automatic Enrolment (AE) – where next? Trends in pension participation over the last 10 years since AE was introduced How the pension industry has changed as a result  Recent developments in DWP’s evidence base Where next? Discussion Chair: Paul Mooney, DWP	High Tor 3
	Session A3 - Earnings and inequalities Francesca Foliano (UCL) "Gender wage gap among young adults: a comparison across British cohorts" Alex Bryson (UCL) "Accounting for employers in the distribution of ethnicity wage gaps" Paul Fisher (Essex) “Assessing Earnings and Income Data from a Short Survey” Discussion Chair: Karl Taylor, Sheffield	High Tor 4
11:15 - 12:30	Special Session 1 - "Economy 2030" The Resolution Foundation Nye Cominetti “The changing nature of low pay work” Hannah Slaughter “Worker Power” Rui Costa “Changing jobs? Change in the UK labour market and the role of worker mobility” Discussion Chair: Mike Brewer, Resolution Foundation
12:30 - 13:30	Lunch	The Edge - Bar Area
13:30 - 14:15	Plenary Professor Hamish Low (University of Oxford) "The Evolution of Labour Market and Financial Inequalities through COVID”. Download the presentation slides (PDF, 1.15 MB)	High Tor 2
14:15 - 15:15	Session B1 - Education and the Labour Market Oliver Anderson (DfE) "Post 16 Education and Labour Market Activities" Ian Walker (Lancaster) "Grade Inflation in Higher Education" Anita Ratcliffe (Sheffield) "Anticipated Labour Market Discrimination and Human Capital Accumulation" Discussion Chair: Pamela Lenton, Sheffield	High Tor 2
	Session B2 - Intergenerational Wealth Transfers/Education Beatrice Boileau (IFS) "Intergenerational transfers and life events" Ian Gregory-Smith (Sheffield) "Executive Compensation in the UK: a structural estimation approach" Lei Xu (Bournemouth) "Effect of education of peers parents" Discussion Chair: Richard Ward, DWP	High Tor 3
	Session B3 - Inequalities, health and spatial disparities David Wilkinson (UCL) "Exploring Reasons for Labour Market Inequality a Year into the Covid-19 Pandemic" Getinet Haile (Nottingham) "Non-Standard Employment and Workplace Health Outcomes in Britain" Xiaowei Xu (IFS) “Spacial Disparities across Labour Markets”. Download the presentation slides (PDF, 2.5MB)   Discussion Chair: Joy Thompson, DWP (tbc)	High Tor 4
15:15 - 15:45	Tea/coffee	The Edge - Bar Area
15:45 - 16:45	Special Session 2 - New datasets and findings from the Wage and Employment Dynamics Project Arusha Mackenzie, Van Phan, Felix Ritchie, Damian Whittard (UWE Bristol), Alex Bryson (UCL) Lucy Stokes (NIESR) Talk 1 “A wage spine for Britain; why, and what can I do with it?” Talk 2 “Using ASHE to study wages: should I worry about sampling/ attrition, and what can I do about it? Talk 3 “The ASHE Census data: what can I do with it?” Talk 4 “How can I get access to these?” Talk 5 “Future datasets” Discussion Chair: Tom Younger, DWP
16:45 - 17:00	Closing remarks Paul Mooney (DWP Chief Economist)	High Tor 2

WPEG Conference programme 2021

Monday 12 July 2021
1:00 – 1:15pm	Event Introduction Karl Taylor (University of Sheffield) and Richard Ward (DWP, WPEG Co-Ordinator) Welcome and General Information Paul Mooney (DWP Chief Economist) Opening remarks
1:15pm - 3:00pm	Session 1A: Covid-19/EU Exit Alina Sandor (JRF), "What the First Covid Lockdown meant for people in insecure, poor quality work" Jesse Matheson (University of Sheffield), "Home working during Covid" Francesca Foliano and Rebecca Riley (UCL/ Kings College Centre for Macroeconomics), "Global Competition, UK Labour Market Adjustment and the Brexit Vote". Richard Ward (DWP), "Estimating impacts of EU Exit on welfare expenditure in context of uncertain migration" Discussion Chair: Tom Stewart, DWP
	Session 1B: Support for unemployed Bert Van Landeghem (University of Sheffield), "Statistical profiling of unemployed jobseekers" Jeraldine Kay and Simon Marlow (DWP),  "Impact assessment and cost benefit analysis of the Work Programme" Charlotte Edney (University of Lancaster), "Welfare conditionality and lone parents: quasi experimental evidence from the UK Lone Parent Obligation reform" Edward Martyn (DWP), "Designing the Restart impact evaluation: Quasi experiments and natural control groups" DWP (tbc) - Restart and Plan for Jobs evaluation strategy (tbc) Discussion Chair: Tom Younger, Head of Labour Market Analysis, DWP
3:00 - 3:15pm	Break
3:15 - 4:30pm	Special session: Wage and Employment Dynamics Project Arusha Mackenzie, Van Phan, Felix Ritchie, Damian Whittard (UWE Bristol),  Alex Bryson (UCL), John Forth (City), Carl Singleton (Reading) Lucy Stokes (NIESR) Talk 1: The Wage and Employment Dynamics Project – Why Bother? Talk 2: Can we use/trust the ASHE data as a longitudinal data source Talk 3: Quality-assuring ASHE Talk 4: ASHE/CENSUS wage regressions Discussion Chair: Karl Taylor (University of Sheffield)

Tuesday 13 July 2021: Day 2
12:00 - 12:30pm	Special Session: Stephen Jenkins (LSE) and Fernando Rios-Avila (Levy Institute) " Employment Earnings and Measurement Errors Using Linked Survey and Administrative Data" Discussion Chair: Richard Ward, DWP
12:30 - 2:00pm	Session 2A: Education Mat Weldon (DfE), "GCSE Attainment and Lifetime Earnings" Andrew McKendrick (University of Lancaster), "Paying Students to Stay in School: Short and Long-term Effects of a Conditional Cash Transfer in England" Prof Yu Zhu et al (University of Dundee), "Does higher-education make you more entrepreneurial? Causal Evidence from China" Discussion Chair: Steve McIntosh (University of Sheffield)
	Session 2B: Pay and wages Ray Bachan and Alex Bryson (Universities of Brighton and UCL), "Gender wage gap among University Vice Chancellors in the UK" Panagiotis Nanos and Ian Gregory-Smith (University of Sheffield), "Executive Compensation in the UK a Structural Estimation Approach" Karen Mumford (University of York), "NHS Pay Gap" Discussion Chair: Andrew Ward, DWP
2:00 - 2:15pm	Break
2:15 - 3:15pm	Keynote session Mike Brewer (Resolution Foundation), "After Covid-19: the lessons for the UK's labour market, inequality and the welfare system" Chair: Karl Taylor (University of Sheffield) Download the keynote presentation (PDF, 3.8MB)
3:15 - 3:30pm	Break
3:30 - 5:00pm	Session 3A: Human capital/returns to education/work Golo Henseke/Felstead/Gallie/Francis Green (UCL), "Unpicking rising degree requirements in the British labour market" Yannis Galanakis (University of Kent), "Are you in the right job? Human Capital Mismatch in the UK" Felix Fitzroy and Mike Nolan (St Andrews / Hull), "Tax, Welfare, and Work in Britain: Another Triumph of Injustice" Discussion Chair: Steve McIntosh (Sheffield)
	Session 3B: Wealth and pensions Paul Gregg and Ricky Kanabar (University of Bath/CEPEO UCL WP), "Intergenerational wealth transmission in Great Britain" Anastasiya Oleksiyenko (University of Bristol), "Who pays the cost of pension auto-enrolment in the UK" Jesal Sheth (NEST), "The impact of Covid-19 on income and pension saving behaviours" Discussion Chair: DWP tbc
5:00 - 5:10pm	Closing remarks  Paul Mooney, DWP Chief Economist

WPEG Conference programme 2019

Tuesday 30 July 2019
08:00 to 10:15	Registration and Coffee The Edge - Hub
10:15 to 10:30	Event Introduction High Tor 2 Karl Taylor (Sheffield, WPEG Organiser) Welcome and General Information Laura Webster (DWP Chief Economist)
10:30 to 12:00	Session A1: The Labour Market High Tor 2 Melanie Jones (Cardiff) "The UK gender pay gap: Does firm size matter?" Pedro Gomes (Birkbeck) "Public-sector employment over the life cycle" Mike Simmons (Royal Holloway) "Job-to-job transitions, job finding and the ins of unemployment Ezgi Kaya (Cardiff) "Gender wage gap across the quantiles: What is the role of firm segregation Discussion Chair: Andrew Ward, DWP
	Session A2: Welfare High Tor 3 Cristina Sechel (Sheffield) "The effect of mental health on employment: Accounting for selection bias" Jennifer Prattley (Manchester) "The influence of household pension wealth, partner’s health and spousal employment status on women’s early retirement transitions in England" Andrew Bryce (Sheffield) "Weekend working in 21st century Britain: Does it matter for well-being?" Conor O’Loan (DWP) "The impact of benefit sanctions on employment outcomes" Discussion Chair: Tom Stewart, DWP
	Session A3: Savings, Wealth and Retirement High Tor 4 Paul Fisher (ISER, Essex) "Another look at whether the rich save more: evidence from a survey experiment" Ricky Kanabar (Bath) "Let us share things fairly: wealth differences following a reform to divorce legislation in GB" Anne Devlin (Queens) "Retirement: The new reality evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing 2002-2015" Mark Baker (PPI) "The impact of Pension Credit reform for mixed age couples" Discussion Chair: Chris Sutton, DWP
12:00 to 13:00	Lunch The Edge - Bar Area
13:00 to 14:00	Plenary Professor Andrew Clark (Paris School of Economics) "The Origins of Labour-Market Success: Evidence from a British Birth Cohort" High Tor 2
14:00 to 14:30	Tea/Coffee The Edge - Bar Area
14:30 to 16:00	Session B1: Education and the Labour Market High Tor 2 Emma Gorman (Westminster) "Education pathways for young people who ‘stumble’ at KS4: causes and consequences for the other fifty per cent" Yannis Galanakis (Kent) "Work in a man’s shoes: Determinants of female human capital mismatch in the UK" Yu Zhu (Dundee) "The returns to education in China: Evidence from the higher education expansion" Damian Whittard (UWE) "Not just arms and legs: The impact of student working on local labour markets" Discussion Chair: Allan Little (DFE)
	Session B2: Pensions High Tor 3 Maciej Lis (OECD) "Drivers of the gender gap in pensions : Evidence from EU-SILC and the OECD pension model" Hayley James (Manchester) "Engagement pathways in workplace pensions" Tim Pike (PPI) "Understanding the gender pensions gap" Discussion Chair: Laura Webster, DWP
	Session B3: Housing and the Labour Market High Tor 4 Ashwin Kumar (Manchester Metropolitan) "Interaction between pension and housing" Iain Hardie (Glasgow) "The impact of Universal Credit rollout on housing security: An analysis of landlord repossession rates in English local authorities" Richard Ward (DWP) "Impact evaluation of lower benefit cap policy" Discussion Chair: Joy Thompson (DWP)
16:00 to 16:20pm	Closing remarks High Tor 2 Laura Webster (DWP Chief Economist)

WPEG Conference programme 2018

Monday 30 July 2018
10:00am to 12:00 noon	Registration and check-in The Edge - Hub
12:00 to 1:00pm	Lunch The Edge - Bar Arena
1:00 to 1:40pm	Event Introduction Karl Taylor (Sheffield, WPEG Organiser) Welcome and General Information Helen Oginsky (DWP, WPEG Organiser) "DWP and the external research community, key developments in the last year and main priorities going forward" Natalie Day (Sheffield, Social Sciences Partnerships, Impact and Knowledge Exchange (SSPIKE))
1:40 to 3:10pm	Session A1: Labour Markets: Sub-national High Tor 2 Josh Snelders (DWP) "Assessing local labour market flexibility and resilience" David Morris (Nottingham) "Do regional skills shortages impact firm productivity? Evidence from the UK" Stuart Mackay and Ryan Dunn (DWP) "Development of interactive analytical tools to support decision-making" Panos Nanos (Sheffield) "Search across local labour markets" Discussion Chair: Jake McDonald (DWP)
	Session A3: Wellbeing High Tor 4 Gillian Wylie (SDS) "Wider impacts of apprenticeships on well-being" Mark Langdon, Caroline Floyd, Rachel Shanahan, Adam Coutts and Zara Harrison (DWP) "Social isolation and health" Michael Nolan (Hull) "Education, income and happiness: Panel evidence for the UK" Tanya Wilson (Stirling) "Long-run health and mortality effects of exposure to universal health care at birth" Discussion Chair: Chris Anderson (DWP)
3:10 to 3:40pm	Tea & Coffee The Edge - Bar Area
4:30 to 6:00pm	Session B1: Fuller Working Lives High Tor 2 Helen Gray (IES) "Do older workers affect economic performance" David Wilkinson (UCL, IOE) "Skill mismatch among older workers and workplace performance in Britain" Damon Morris (Sheffield) "The labour market outcomes of older versus younger apprentices: A comparison of earnings differentials" Karen Hancock (Loughborough University) "Healthier ageing: Increasing physical activity among older people – a behavioural economics perspective" Discussion Chair: Tom Younger (DWP)
	Session B2: Labour Market Gender Gaps High Tor 3 Carl Singleton (Edinburgh) "Who works for whom and the UK gender pay gap" Heather Joshi (UCL, IOE) "The gender gap in wages over the life course: evidence from a cohort born in 1958" Andrea Lee (DWP) "Implications for DWP progression, adequacy and pensions policy" Discussion Chair: Sofia Poni (DWP)
	Session B3: Disability and Employment High Tor 4 Duncan McVicar (Queens University Belfast) "Reducing the generosity and increasing the conditionality of welfare benefits for people with disability: Turning the super-tanker or squeezing the balloon?" Gordan Pal and Imogen Butcher (DWP) "Evaluating voluntary programmes for disabled people" Anne Devlin (Queens University Belfast) "Why is work-limiting disability in Northern Ireland so high?" Discussion Chair: Paul Mooney (DWP)
6:45 to 9:30pm	Conference meal

Tuesday 31 July 2018
7:30 to 9:00am	Breakfast The Edge - Dining Room
9:00 to 10:30am	Session C1: Pensions I High Tor 2 Jonathan Cribb (IFS) "The effects of automatic enrolment on employees working for small employers" Sonia Buchholtz (Warsaw School of Economics) "Pension strategies of adult workers in the country with population growing old before getting rich" James Rees (DWP) "Role of analysis in the automatic enrolment policy cycle" Discussion Chair: Laura Webster (DWP)
	Session C2: Employee Motivation and Reward High Tor 3 Robert Simmons (Lancaster) "Are workers rewarded for inconsistent performance?" Bicheng Yang (University of British Columbia) "Incentives from compensation and career movements on work performance: Evidence from a reform of personnel policies" Discussion Chair: Sarah Kissack (DWP)
	Session C3: Labour Market Progression High Tor 4 Getinet Haile (Nottingham) "Organisational accreditation and worker upskilling in Britain" Amanda Langdon and Philip Thomas (DWP) "Building the evidence on in-work progression" Marco Ercolani (Birmingham) "Education surplus, skills mismatch and technology" Discussion Chair: Adrian Richards (DWP)
10:30 to 11:00am	Tea & Coffee The Edge - Bar Area
11:00am to 12:30pm	Session D1: Understanding Unemployment High Tor 2 Bert Van Landegham (Sheffield) "Numeracy and unemployment duration" Chris Tucker, Alex Snowsill and Szymon Debski (DWP) "Impact of introducing digital interventions for jobseekers" Amanda Gosling (Kent) "The measurement of unemployment" Discussion Chair: Ellen Flint (DWP)
	Session D2: Universal Credit High Tor 3 Karl Handscomb (DWP) "Universal Credit longer-term labour market effects" Tom Waters (IFS) "The distributional impact of Universal Credit: a long-run perspective" Ramesh Deonarine and James Hurkett (DWP) "Universal Credit business case" Discussion Chair: Joy Thompson (DWP)
	Session D3: Retirement Needs High Tor 4 Luke Barclay (DWP) "Investigating factors that affect financial wellbeing in retirement" David Sturrock (IFS) "Survival pessimism and the demand for annuities" Tom Stewart and Will Shaw (DWP) "Analysis of cold weather payments" Rowena Crawford (IFS) "Should generations differ in their pension accumulation?" Discussion Chair: Tom Younger (DWP)
12:30 to 1:30pm	Lunch The Edge - Bar Area
1:30 to 2:30pm	Plenary High Tor 2 Professor Alex Bryson (UCL, IOE) "Public sector HRM: Does it work?"
2:30 to 3:00pm	Tea & Coffee The Edge, Bar Area
3:00 to 4:30pm	Session E1: Pensions II High Tor 2 Ricky Kanabar (Bath) "Mind the gap! The effect of an increased UK state pension age on expected working life of employees" Anna Ruzik-Sierdzińska (Warsaw School of Economics) "Migration with pension reform expectations" Neil Amin-Smith (IFS) "Individuals' pension intentions in the new era of pensions freedom" Discussion Chair: Laura Webster (DWP)
	Session E2: Housing and Mobility High Tor 3 Ed Ferrari (CRESR) “Connecting housing and labour markets: the role of transport for low income households” Richard Mosley and Sarah Kissack (DWP) "Assessing recent changes in the housing market for low-income families: Affordability and mobility challenges?" Yu Zhu (Dundee) "Elite school designation and house prices: Quasi-experimental evidence from Beijing, China" Discussion Chair: Andrew Parfitt (DWP)
	Session E3: Education High Tor 4 Rhys Davies (Cardiff) "Addressing inequality: The provision of careers guidance in Welsh schools" Stanley Siebert (Birmingham) "Student feedback, parent-teacher communication, and academic performance: Experimental evidence from rural China" Patricio Valdivieso (Aberdeen) "Intergenerational mobility of white working class boys in Britain: A quantitative analysis using UK data" Reshmi Sengupta (FLAME) "The commuting trade-off: How does mother’s commuting time affect children's educational outcomes?" Discussion Chair: Mike Daly (DWP)

Steering committee

Convenor: Pamela Lenton (University of Sheffield)
DWP Co-ordinators: Richard Ward, Tom Stewart, James Pope, and Stuart Maclachlan.

• Martyn Andrews (University of Manchester)
• David Blackaby (University of Wales, Swansea)
• Sarah Brown (University of Sheffield)
• Bob Butcher (DWP)
• Tim Butcher (Low Pay Commission)
• Monojit Chatterji (University of Dundee)
• Andy Dickerson (University of Sheffield)
• Francis Green (University of Kent)
• Karen Mumford (University of York)
• Karl Taylor (University of Sheffield)
• Jonathan Wadsworth (Royal Holloway)
• Bill Wells (DWP)
• Asghar Zaidi (DWP)

Contact us

To get in touch with WPEG please email wpeg@sheffield.ac.uk.