The high level of receipt of disability benefits in the UK was until the 1990s a problem predominantly affecting men. However, the number of women claimingö 1.1 millionö is now on a similar scale. The decline of heavy industry produced large numbers of men with ill health and limited alternative employment prospects who claimed disability benefits. However, this explanation is problematic for women, who have seen an expansion in employment. We set out a framework that reconciles the central importance of the level of labour demand in explaining worklessness with the paradoxical simultaneous rise of women's employment and receipt of disability benefits. Women claiming disability benefits are overwhelmingly located alongside male claimants in areas where heavy industry has declined, pointing towards linkages between the`male' and`female' sides of the labour market. Additionally, there may be raised knowledge and local acceptance of disability benefits in these locations.

There is growing concern in many developed economies that the benefits of economic growth are not shared equitably. This is particularly the case in the UK, where economic growth has been geographically uneven and often biased towards already affluent cities. Yet there is relatively little evidence on the relationship between growth and poverty in the UK. This paper addresses this gap with an analysis of the links between economic growth and poverty in British cities between 2000 -2008. We find little evidence that output growth reduced poverty. While growth was associated with wage increases at the top of the distribution, it was not associated with wage growth below the median. And there was no relationship between economic growth and the low skilled employment rate. These results suggest that growth in this period was far from inclusive.

There is widespread concern about the scale and implications of urban inequality in Great Britain, but little evidence on which cities are the most unequal and why. This paper investigates patterns of wage inequality in 60 British cities. It has two principal goals: (1) to describe which cities are most unequal and (2) to assess the important determinants of inequality. The results show a distinct geography of wage inequality, the most unequal cities tend to be affluent and located in parts of the Greater South East of England. A central determinant of these patterns is the geography of highly skilled workers. Because of this, the geography of urban wage inequality reflects the geography of affluence more generally.JEL codes: R13; R10; J3; R23

A period associated with the emergence of the current housing crisis in Britain provides a testbed in which to investigate household tenure choice in the context of rapidly rising house prices. We compile a bespoke dataset combining data from the British Household Panel Survey and sources of local and national housing and mortgage market information covering the period 1994-2008. During this period, we observe three key changes in behaviour associated with the emergence of the housing crisis: i) increasing acceptance of long-term renting; ii) the emergence of local house prices as a factor inhibiting entry to homeownership at district level; and iii) the cessation of moving to a lower cost district as a strategy to enter homeownership. We interpret these findings as some private tenants reducing their aspiration for homeownership, and those seeking entry to homeownership shifting strategy from moving to cheaper districts in favour of staying put and saving.