̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Anna Barford

‘Generation lockdown’ needs targeted help-to-work policies – global report

fpjl2 — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 09:54:57 +0000

Experts argue that many countries simply “repackaged” existing – and often already failing – policies without the necessary funding or retooling to benefit under 24-year-olds: the global demographic hit hardest by the economic consequences of COVID-19.

In the report commissioned by the UN’s International Labour Organization, the Cambridge team calls on countries to go beyond employment policies that “yo-yo” with each virus surge, and implement longer-term interventions aimed squarely at the young.

̽��ֱ��report suggests that, since the pandemic began, more than one in six young people globally were made redundant, with severe impacts on their mental health and wellbeing.

It is estimated that over 40% of all young people with a job pre-pandemic – some 178 million young workers – worked in the most affected sectors: tourism, services and retail. Tourism alone saw financial losses eleven times greater than the 2008 financial crash.

Global youth employment fell by more than double the rate of older adults in 2020 (8.7% compared to 3.7%), with loss of work particularly concentrated among young women in middle-income countries. Global female employment rates fell by 5% over the last year, compared to 3.9% for men.

In the 132 countries that adopted 580 fiscal and economic measures to support businesses during the Covid crisis, only 12% aimed to improve women’s economic security by ensuring that female-dominated sectors received financial support – mainly in Latin America, the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa.

In some lower-income countries, there are reports of more young women turning to sex work as a result, contributing to rising HIV cases as well as unintended pregnancies.

Even among high-income nations, the impact on young people’s livelihoods has varied dramatically. For example, between February and April 2020 – as the virus took hold – there was an 11.7 percentage point reduction in labour participation among Canada’s young people, a 7.5 point drop in the US, but just a 1.9 point drop in South Korea.

Many of those lucky enough to hold onto work saw their incomes fall substantially. By May last year, young people around the world still in work had almost a quarter of their hours cut on average (23%).

“Young people face distinct challenges which disadvantage them compared to older adults when it comes to finding work post-pandemic,” said report co-author Dr Adam Coutts, from Cambridge’s Department of Sociology.

“These include less work experience and financial capital, weaker social networks, and higher levels of in-work poverty. They are also much more likely to have to make ends meet via informal cash-in-hand work.

“Recent school leavers are often ineligible for unemployment benefits or furlough schemes. This left many young people falling through the cracks of policy interventions,” said Coutts.

Co-author Dr Garima Sahai from Cambridge's Department of Geography said: "Young women have been especially hit by the pandemic who have experienced higher job losses, increased unpaid care work, the shadow pandemic of gender-based violence to name only a few effects.”

Researchers argue that “generation lockdown” could face protracted periods of unemployment, making it hard to re-enter the labour market, and get overtaken by “younger and better qualified cohorts”.

“Young people have been forced to remain at home, stuck with their parents, cut off from friends and partners,” said ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge co-author Dr Anna Barford. “Anxiety, stress and depression skyrocketed among young people around the world.”

“For those without ready access to internet connections or laptops, finishing school or hunting for work has been almost impossible at times,” she said.

“Repeated outbreaks in areas from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America will deplete household savings, shrink opportunities and diminish the aspirations of generation lockdown.”

̽��ֱ��report highlights that fact that young people migrate to find work and their place in the world. ̽��ֱ��pandemic shut down long-established migratory patterns: from young Guatemalans heading north to Mexico, to young Zimbabweans moving to South Africa. Young immigrants were also much more likely to lose work as average incomes fell.

Most national governments have offered economy-wide fiscal stimulus as well as labour market interventions, from reduced working weeks to temporary furlough schemes and increased social protection.

Some governments offered lifelines directly to sectors that prop up the youth labour market, such as India’s emergency loan support, which focused on the wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing, rental and business services (with some 100 million young people in the Asia and Pacific region estimated to be employed in these sectors).

However, the researchers say that only a few nations deployed policy responses tailored to the specific needs of young people affected by the economic fallout of COVID-19.

These included South Korea’s one-off cash transfers to young jobseekers and government-backed paid apprenticeships in Malaysia, while the EU reinforced its “Youth guarantee” scheme: with member states aiming to provide everyone under the age of 30 with education, traineeship or a job within four months of becoming unemployed.

̽��ֱ��researchers argue that, without “youth-sensitive” employment policies, intergenerational inequalities will be further exacerbated during the pandemic recovery period.

They call for more youth-targeted ALMPs – Active Labour Market Policies – that provide support to boost employability, from vocational training to one-on-one jobseeker counselling, alongside mental health and wellbeing assistance for young people.

One example highlighted by the report's authors is the Indonesian ‘pre-employment card’, the Kartu Pre-Kerja, with $1.3bn allocated to fund skills training for two million young workers. By contrast, Mexico reduced its ALMPs spending to move funding to other parts of the pandemic response.

“Holistic policy responses require health and non-health government departments and ministries to work together more effectively,” said Coutts. “ ̽��ֱ��pandemic forced them to work together. These new networks and cross-departmental links need to be maintained.”

“Coordination should extend outside government to NGOs, trade unions, employer organisations, policy makers and young people themselves, in order to design better quality and more effective post-pandemic support for young people who have faced 18 months of social and economic chaos,” he added.

Nations the world over are guilty of “policy inertia” when it comes to supporting young people who lost work or will struggle to enter the labour market as a result of the pandemic, according to new ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge research.

Repeated outbreaks... will deplete household savings, shrink opportunities and diminish the aspirations of generation lockdown

Anna Barford

International Labour Organization

A young casual worker in Zimbabwe during the pandemic

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Austerity cuts ‘twice as deep’ in England as rest of Britain

fpjl2 — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 23:31:55 +0000

A “fine-grained” analysis of local authority budgets across Britain since 2010 has found that the average reduction in service spending by councils was almost 24% in England compared to just 12% in Wales and 11.5% in Scotland.

While some areas – Glasgow, for example – experienced significant service loss, the new study suggests that devolved powers have allowed Scottish and Welsh governments to mitigate the harshest local cuts experienced in parts of England.

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge researchers found that, across Britain, the most severe cuts to local service spending between 2010 and 2017 were generally associated with areas of “multiple deprivation”.

This pattern is clearest in England, where all 46 councils that cut spending by 30% or more are located. These local authorities tend to be more reliant on central government, with lower property values and fewer additional funding sources, as well as less ability to generate revenue through taxes.

̽��ֱ��north was hit with the deepest cuts to local spending, closely followed by parts of London. ̽��ֱ��ten worst affected councils include Salford, South Tyneside and Wigan, as well as the London boroughs of Camden and Hammersmith and Fulham. Westminster council had a drop in service spending of 46% – the most significant in the UK.

̽��ֱ��research also shows a large swathe of southern England, primarily around the ‘home counties’, with low levels of reliance on central government and only relatively minor local service cuts. Northern Ireland was excluded from the study due to limited data.

̽��ֱ��authors of the new paper, published today in the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, say the findings demonstrate how austerity has been pushed down to a local level, “intensifying territorial injustice” between areas.

They argue that initiatives claimed by government to ameliorate austerity, such as local retention of business taxes, will only fuel unfair competition and inequality between regions – as local authorities turn to “beggar thy neighbor” policies in efforts to boost tax bases and buffer against austerity.

“ ̽��ֱ��idea that austerity has hit all areas equally is nonsense,” said geographer Dr Mia Gray, who conducted the research with her Cambridge colleague Dr Anna Barford.

“Local councils rely to varying degrees on the central government, and we have found a clear relationship between grant dependence and cuts in service spending.

“ ̽��ֱ��average cuts to local services have been twice as deep in England compared to Scotland and Wales. Cities have suffered the most, particularly in the old industrial centres of the north but also much of London,” said Gray.

“Wealthier areas can generate revenues from business tax, while others sell off buildings such as former back offices to plug gaping holes in council budgets.

“ ̽��ֱ��councils in greatest need have the weakest local economies. Many areas with populations that are ageing or struggling to find employment have very little in the way of a public safety net.

“ ̽��ֱ��government needs to decide whether it is content for more local authorities to essentially go bust, in the way we have already seen in Northamptonshire this year,” she said.

Local authorities with largest spending drop	Change in service spending 2010-2017
Westminster	-46%
Salford	-45%
South Tyneside	-44%
Slough	-44%
Wigan	-43%
Oldham	-42%
Gateshead	-41%
Camden	-39%
Hammersmith & Fulham	-38%
Kensington & Chelsea	-38%

̽��ֱ��latest study used data from the Institute of Fiscal Studies to conduct a spatial analysis of Britain’s local authority funding system.

Gray and Barford mapped the levels of central grant dependence across England’s councils, and the percentage fall of service spend by local authorities across Scotland, Wales and England between financial years 2009/2010 and 2016/2017.

Some of the local services hit hardest across the country include highways and transport, culture, adult social care, children and young people’s services, and environmental services.

̽��ֱ��part of central government formerly known as the Department of Communities and Local Government experienced a dramatic overall budget cut of 53% between 2010 and 2016.

As budget decisions were hit at a local level, “mandatory” council services – those considered vital – were funded at the expense of “discretionary” services. However, the researchers found these boundaries to be blurry.

“Taking care of ‘at risk’ children is a mandatory concern. However, youth centres and outreach services are considered unessential and have been cut to the bone. Yet these are services that help prevent children becoming ‘at risk’ in the first place,” said Gray.

“There is a narrative at national and local levels that the hands of politicians are tied, but many of these funding decisions are highly political. Public finance is politics hidden in accounting columns.”

Gray points out that once local councils “go bust” and Section 114 notices are issued, as with Northamptonshire Council, administrators are sent in who then take financial decisions that supersede any democratic process.

̽��ֱ��research has also contributed to the development of a new play from the Menagerie Theatre Company, in which audience members help guide characters through situations taken from the lives of those in austerity-hit Britain. ̽��ֱ��play opens tonight in Oxford, and will be performed in community venues across the country during October and November.

Gray added: “Ever since vast sums of public money were used to bail out the banks a decade ago, the British people have been told that there is no other choice but austerity imposed at a fierce and relentless rate.”

“We are now seeing austerity policies turn into a downward spiral of disinvestment in certain people and places. Local councils in some communities are shrunk to the most basic of services. This could affect the life chances of entire generations born in the wrong part of the country.”

Research finds significant inequalities in cuts to council services across the country, with deprived areas in the north of England and London seeing the biggest drops in local authority spending since 2010.

Public finance is politics hidden in accounting columns

Mia Gray

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Estate sunset

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Unsafe havens? Health risks for refugees

jfp40 — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 09:33:04 +0000

As the humanitarian crisis in Syria continues to unfold, over two million people are thought to have crossed the borders into neighbouring countries. Desperate, empty-handed and facing an uncertain future, most of the refugees will seek aid and support in camps, where they will be exposed to yet another threat: infectious disease.

High population densities, malnutrition, poor sanitation, sexual violence and reduced access to healthcare following forced migration can create a ‘perfect storm’ where communicable diseases become a major cause of mortality and morbidity. And it’s far from a recent problem.

Over 600,000 cases of cholera have been recorded in Haiti since the earthquake of 2010, which displaced up to 2.3 million people. Cholera was also responsible for some 50,000 deaths in 1994 among refugees of the Rwandan genocide. In 1949, the British Red Cross noted that malaria and dysentery were widespread among 30,000 Arab refugees living in huts, caves or ragged tents in Jordan. In 1901, Boer War refugees were exposed to measles, pneumonia, dysentery, diarrhoea, bronchitis and enteric fever in the camps of the Transvaal.

“Since biblical times, mass migrations have followed conflict and crises,” said Professor Andy Cliff. “Today, humanitarian aid organisations perform an incredible job in taking care of refugees but this can take time to come into play, and the conditions that migrants find themselves in raises the spectre of epidemics. Diseases such as cholera, dysentery, measles and meningitis, for instance, have resulted in high mortality rates in relief camps in Africa, Asia and Central America.”

Although the impact of forced migration on health is well known, no study has ever systematically linked the nature of displacement, its geographical location and the particular patterns of disease that occur: a triangulation that, if charted, could help authorities and aid agencies prepare as crises unfold.

"We call this the displacement–disease nexus,” added Cliff. “Understanding it lies at the heart of preparing for future displacements, both for the welfare of the migrants and for the health and economy of the destination.”

For the past year, Cliff from the Department of Geography and Professor Matthew Smallman-Raynor from the ̽��ֱ�� of Nottingham have been leading a project that is assembling the first ever database to link these types of information. And to do so, their team is looking back over 100 years of forced migrations, across the globe.

“ ̽��ֱ��research could scarcely be more timely,” said Smallman-Raynor. “ ̽��ֱ��most recent figures released by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimate up to 45.2 million people in situations of displacement for 2012, which is the highest figure in 20 years.”

Cliff’s colleagues Dr Anna Barford and Heather Hooper have begun the task of hunting through the rich archives held by organisations such as the UNHCR, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations Office at Geneva and the World Health Organization, as well as searching through scientific journals dating back to 1901. A doctoral student, Anna-Meagan Fairley at the ̽��ֱ�� of Nottingham, is looking specifically at infectious disease among people displaced by natural disasters.

“Because each set of circumstances is unique, we need to look at as many cases of displacement as possible, over a long time period,” said Barford. “Only then can we start to work out whether there are patterns that governments and aid agencies can learn from in preventing epidemics and delivering healthcare.”

Epidemics of communicable diseases not only affect the health of migrants in camps, but also the health of those in areas the migrants pass through during their migration. “Perhaps one of the most significant examples relates to the First World War,” said Cliff. “Chaos ensued in terms of preparedness for the end of the war – several million refugees were swilling around on borders between Russia and eastern Europe, and you could map the spread of typhus and cholera marching with the refugees as they crisscrossed Europe.”

̽��ֱ��results will be used to establish global electronic databases of infectious disease events in relation to mass population movements since the beginning of the 20th century. “It will be a fascinating resource,” said Barford. “Out of this we’ll pick 50 events and look in detail at the short-, medium- and long-term geographical patterns and consequences of displacement-associated epidemics. ̽��ֱ��databases will be available to national and international organisations involved in health promotion and in the delivery of humanitarian assistance.”

̽��ֱ��results will also be published by Oxford ̽��ֱ�� Press as one of a series of atlases; a previous volume in the series Atlas of Epidemic Britain: A Twentieth Century Picture authored by Cliff and Smallman-Raynor won the British Medical Association prize for Best Medical Book of the Year 2013.

̽��ֱ��results of this ambitious project, which is funded by the Leverhulme Trust, will also be of interest to countries such as the UK that eventually become home to refugees after they have left intermediary camps. “This so-called secondary migration has been the cause of much public and political debate, with the UK’s Department of Health launching a consultation into proposals for charging migrants to use the health system,” added Cliff. “By also looking at the long-term health consequences for secondary migrants, we hope to shed light on how best to prepare for their arrival and support their healthcare.”

For further information about this story, please contact Louise Walsh at louise.walsh@admin.cam.ac.uk

Inset image: A Syrian woman near a fire at a refugee camp in Azaz, Syria, on December 17, 2012. Credit: Freedom House

A new study is looking at a century of mass migrations worldwide to understand the public health consequences when people are forced to flee from war, persecution and natural disaster.

Since biblical times, mass migrations have followed conflict and crises

Professor Andy Cliff

MM/JRS

Caption: A group of Sri Lankan refugees arrives in Tamil Nadu after a risky 30-mile boat ride across the Palk Straits

Migration and mental health

Infectious disease is not the only health threat that victims of forced migration face. Their mental health is also at risk.

Forced migrations are often the result of violent events or economic hardship, which can have profound psychological consequences. Migrants may be without their family support network and living in difficult conditions, while their left-behind families might find it equally hard to cope.

̽��ֱ��mental health of individuals after forced migration, as well as after their subsequent return migration, is an area that Dr Tine Van Bortel from the ̽��ֱ��’s Institute of Public Health describes as “one of the least explored areas of health research.”

She has been involved in pilot projects that have looked at the quality of life, well-being and mental health of migrant domestic workers and their left-behind families in Singapore and Sri Lanka, and of Muslims forcibly resettled in 1990 by rebel fighters in Sri Lanka, working in collaboration with Dr Chesmal Siriwardhana and Sabrina Anjara at King’s College London and researchers at the Sri Lankan Institute of Research and Development (IRD).

“In terms of economic forced migration, we find that both labour-receiving countries and labour-sending countries have inadequate measures to provide the information, care and support that’s needed for migrant workers and their left-behind families,” said Van Bortel. “Some labour-receiving countries have health checks in place but these focus mainly on communicable diseases and not on mental health. Hard work, social isolation, abuse and missing their left-behind family members often lead to significant mental strain and sometimes suicide. In turn, the left-behind families often find it difficult to cope too."

“We are now broadening our research to look at possible interventions to raise awareness, psycho-educate and empower people to make more informed decisions about economic migration, to help migrant workers and their left-behind families cope more constructively with often challenging situations, and to address the psycho-social needs of displaced populations,” added Van Bortel.

“Humanitarian agencies are increasingly aware of the psychological consequences of forced migration and have been campaigning for change. We hope that the results might be used by legislators and policy makers in countries affected by forced migration and internal displacement to improve policy and practice for the benefit of individuals, families and communities.”

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