IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/regstd/v38y2004i1p85-95.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Real North-South Divide? Regional Gradients in UK Male Non-employment

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Anyadike-Danes

Abstract

Anyadike-Danes M. (2004) The real north-south divide? Regional gradients in UK male non-employment, Reg. Studies 38, 85-95. Unemployment rates across the UK's regions are now more similar than they have been for many years. But has the longstanding north-south gap in labour market performance really narrowed? Interregional variation in non-employment rates, a more revealing indicator than unemployment rate relativities, suggests that it has not. In the relatively depressed North East of England, the proportion of working age males without a job is twice as large as in the relatively prosperous South East. Even more striking is the north-south gradient in the composition of non-employment, quantified here using compositional data analysis. The share of the non-employed not working 'for reasons of sickness or disability' is strongly and positively correlated with the non-employment rate, and since the share of non-employed who are sick and disabled rises with age, these two influences combine to produce some extraordinary gradients across the UK's regions. For example, almost half of all 60 to 64 year old males in North East England are not working by reason of sickness or disability - three times the proportion in the South East. Evidently convergence of regional labour market performance should not be included amongst the benefits claimed for the UK's widely admired 'flexible' labour market regime.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Anyadike-Danes, 2004. "The Real North-South Divide? Regional Gradients in UK Male Non-employment," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1), pages 85-95.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:regstd:v:38:y:2004:i:1:p:85-95
    DOI: 10.1080/0034340031000162235
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0034340031000162235
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0034340031000162235?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A. E. Green, 1999. "Insights into unemployment and non-employment in Europe using alternative measures," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(5), pages 453-464.
    2. A E Green, 1995. "A Comparison of Alternative Measures of Unemployment," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 27(4), pages 535-556, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ross Mackay & Jonathan Williams, 2005. "Thinking about need: Public spending on the regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(6), pages 815-828.
    2. Andrew E. Burke & Michael A. Nolan & Felix R. FitzRoy, 2006. "Education and Regional Job Creation by the Self-Employed: The English North-South Divide," Papers on Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy 2006-07, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy Group.
    3. Ian Shuttleworth & Anne Green, 2011. "Spatial Mobility Intentions, the Labour Market and Incapacity Benefit Claimants," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(5), pages 911-927, April.
    4. Andrew Burke & Felix Fitzroy & Michael Nolan, 2009. "Is there a North-South Divide in Self-employment in England?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(4), pages 529-544.
    5. Duncan McVicar, 2006. "Why do disability benefit rolls vary between regions? A review of the evidence from the USA and the UK," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(5), pages 519-533.
    6. Terence Mills, 2010. "Forecasting compositional time series," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 673-690, June.
    7. Christina Beatty & Steve Fothergill, 2023. "The persistence of hidden unemployment among incapacity claimants in large parts of Britain," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 38(1), pages 42-60, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christina Beatty & Steve Fothergill, 2023. "The persistence of hidden unemployment among incapacity claimants in large parts of Britain," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 38(1), pages 42-60, February.
    2. John Sutherland, 1999. "Further reflections on hidden unemployment: An examination of the off-flows from the claimant count in the North West of England," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(5), pages 465-476.
    3. Christina Beatty & Stephen Fothergill & Rob Macmillan, 2000. "A Theory of Employment, Unemployment and Sickness," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(7), pages 617-630, October.
    4. Stephen Fothergill, 2001. "The True Scale of the Regional Problem in the UK," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 241-246.
    5. David Armstrong, 1999. "Hidden Male Unemployment in Northern Ireland," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(6), pages 499-511.
    6. H. W. Armstrong & B. Kehrer & P. Wells, 2001. "Initial Impacts of Community Economic Development Initiatives in the Yorkshire and Humber Structural Funds Programme," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(8), pages 673-688.
    7. Christina Beatty & Stephen Fothergill, 2002. "Hidden Unemployment Among Men: A Case Study," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(8), pages 811-823.
    8. Edward A. Fieldhouse, 1999. "Ethnic Minority Unemployment and Spatial Mismatch: The Case of London," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 36(9), pages 1569-1596, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:regstd:v:38:y:2004:i:1:p:85-95. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CRES20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.