Harkne
Biographic Data
| ID | 54153 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Harkne |
| FAMILY NAME | Harkne |
| SIGNATURE | HARKNE |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bath |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8498-6847 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 99 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Do High Minimum Wages Harm the Progression of Minimum Wage Workers? Evidence From the United Kingdom
Using panel data from the United Kingdom between 2009 and 2019, we study how substantial increases in the real and relative value of the minimum wage impacted on the wage progression of covered workers. We find that progression out of minimum wage jobs is frequent, although most workers remain low paid. Using hazard rate models, we find a short‐lived negative effect on progression associated with the introduction of the National Living Wage in 20…
Insurance against risk? Cost and compensation of job loss in different welfare states
This study investigates the cost of job loss to household incomes, and the extent to which initial earnings losses are compensated through the labor market, within the household, and by the social security programs. Using survey and administrative data from Denmark, Finland, Germany, and the UK (1990-2018), we estimate short- and long-term effects of job loss with a dynamic difference-in-differences model. Job loss reduces household income by 17 …
Young adult mental health during the United Kingdom’s first Covid-19 lockdown
Young adults in the UK saw sharp declines in their mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines whether living with siblings helped moderate this negative effect. We compare the outcomes of young adults (age 19), who were i) living with parents and siblings with ii) those who were living with only parents and with iii) those who lived away from the parental home. Data comes from the Millennium Cohort Study COVID-19 survey. We l…
What explains intergenerational associations in home ownership and value in the UK? Investigating the transmission mechanisms
Evidence shows strong associations in wealth across generations, yet the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Some studies attribute these associations to direct financial transfers between generations, while others suggest more indirect mechanisms such as the impact of parental wealth on children’s earnings, family formation, or saving and investment behaviour. Factors such as residential homophily and house value appreciation may als…
Gender and Parenthood Differences in Job Mobility and Pay Progression in the UK
Understanding disparities in the rates at which men and women's wages grow over the life course is critical to explaining the gender pay gap. Using panel data from 2009 to 2019 for the United Kingdom, we examine how differences in the rates and types of job mobility of men and women-with and without children-influence the evolution of wages. We contrast the rates and wage returns associated with different types of job moves, including moving empl…
Learning in a Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the greatest disruption to children's schooling in generations. This study analyses primary school children's emotional engagement with remote schooling during the Spring 2020 lockdown in the Republic of Ireland, which involved one of the longest school closures among rich countries at the time. It investigates whether children's engagement with their remote schooling varied by personal and family characteristics…
The Accumulation of Economic Disadvantage
This study examines how motherhood earnings penalties in combination with the cost of partner absence affect single mothers' economic well-being. Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for 1990–2015 and fixed-effects models with individual-specific slopes reveals that when needs are controlled for, the transition to parenthood is as strongly linked to reduced family income as partner absence is. I consider different route…
Single Mothers’ Income in Twelve Rich Countries
I examine how single motherhood affects income in different quantiles of the distribution in twelve rich countries. Using harmonized data from the Luxembourg Income Study, I show how the distribution of income for households headed by single mothers differs from households with children that are headed by couples. I show that there is a striking variation by country in the influence of single motherhood on income at different points of the distri…
Gender division of housework during the Covid-19 pandemic
First evidence shows that lockdown and confinement measures were associated with a more egalitarian gender division of housework in the United Kingdom. However, we know little about how the gender division of housework adjusted in different phases of the p
The Single Motherhood Penalty as a Gender Penalty
Recent analysis has suggested that poverty rates, and their variation across rich countries, is driven much less by the prevalence of certain risks than by the poverty penalty attached to the risks. Focusing on single motherhood as a poverty risk, it is claimed the penalty attached to it is specific to the United States. This claim, we show, relies on models that condition on the major mechanisms through which poverty risks are heightened: the ri…
The Rise in Single-Mother Families and Children’s Cognitive Development
This article assessed changes in the association between single motherhood and children’s verbal cognitive ability at age-11 using data from three cohorts of British children, born in 1958 (n = 10,675), 1970 (n = 8,933) and 2000 (n = 9,989), and mediation analysis. Consistent with previous studies, direct effects were small and insignificant. For those born in 1958 and 1970 indirect effects, operating through reduced economic and parental resourc…
The Effect of Motherhood and Lone Motherhood on the Employment and Earnings of British Women
This article examines the effect of becoming a first-time mother and subsequent, or concurrent, transitions to lone parenthood on women’s employment and wages. Using longitudinal British Household Panel Survey data and fixed-effect models we find the arrival of a first child to have a substantial effect on employment and wages (n = 1,133 individuals; 13,369 observations). Employment rates fall 20 percentage points (ppt), and fulltime employment 4…
The Effect of Employment on the Mental Health of Lone Mothers in the UK Before and After New Labour's Welfare Reforms
The Employment Effects of Recession on Couples in the UK
The effect that the 2008/09 recession has had on unemployment and, in particular, on the distribution of job losses across households is of key concern to policymakers. During the 1991 recession rising male unemployment was associated with a sharp increase in the number of workless households, with this polarisation of work between 'work-rich' and 'work-poor' persisting many years later. Part of the reason for this polarisation was that the desig…
The impact of the tax and benefit system on second earners
This article analyses the theoretical and applied aspects of employment disincentives for second earners that exist in the British tax benefit system. The shortcomings of existing tax-benefit income profiles are examined, together with the underlying role of tax credits in disincentives compared with other factors. The potential of such disincentives to worsen employment of second earners in a recession is addressed. Conclusions suggest that a mo…
Welfare Reform and Lone Parents in the UK
A series of reforms to help low income families with children were introduced in the UK in 1999, including in-work tax credits and welfare-to-work programmes. Lone parents were a key target for these reforms - they comprised 22% of all families by 1998 but 55% of families with children in poverty. Previous studies have shown that the reforms raised employment among lone parents. This article extends the analysis of the effect of the reforms to co…
Elderly people in Vietnam
This article explores social protection in Vietnam. Vietnam is one of the best-performing countries in terms of combining rapid economic growth, rapidly falling poverty and a commitment to social protection. It is keen not to repeat the mistakes of increased inequality and rural instability that have plagued its neighbour China and deserves more coverage by, and attention from, European policy analysts. This article summarises research on elderly…
Social Protection in Vietnam and Obstacles to Progressivity
The present paper analyzes the incidence and progressivity of Vietnamese state income transfers using survey data from the Vietnamese Household Living Standards Survey 2004. Data quality and sample selection issues are highlighted, especially in the coverage of rural‐urban migrants. Simple income‐based profiles of incidence are matched to several influences that confound and complicate the measurement of progressivity. The issue of the informal e…
The Family Gap in Pay
In this paper, we use microdata on employment and earnings from a variety of industrialized countries to investigate the family gap in pay – the differential in hourly wages between women with children and women without children. We present results from seven countries: Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Finland, and Sweden. We find that there is a good deal of variation across our sample countries in the effects o…
The Household Division of Labour
Female employment grew rapidly in the 1990s, and this has accelerated the demise in the numbers of families headed by a male breadwinner. In 2002, three-quarters of married or cohabiting couples, and 56 per cent of those with children under school age, were supported by two-earners. Women in couples where both partners work full-time have always worked long hours, an average 40-hour week in 2002. What has changed over the decade is that there are…
Welfare Reform and the Employment of Lone Parents
Employment rates for lone parents in the UK in the early 1990s were extremely low, when compared with those in other countries or with married women in this country, at just over 40 per cent. Since 1993 the employment of lone parents has risen by 11 percentage points to reach 53 per cent in 2002. This is more than twice the increase in employment for the population as a whole. The rate of increase in employment was notably faster after 1998 when …
Evaluating the pin money hypothesis
Women's pay and family incomes in Britain, 1979–91
One of the most striking trends in Britain over the past 10–15 years is the sharp rise in the labour force participation of women. Despite women's increased participation, other aspects of their labour force activity remain unchanged. Women still tend to be clustered in female-dominated occupations and, compared to men, they are still disproportionately likely to be working part-time, and to be low paid.
Welfare Reform and Lone Parents in the UK
A series of reforms to help low income families with children were introduced in the UK in 1999, including in-work tax credits and welfare-to-work programmes. Lone parents were a key target for these reforms - they comprised 22% of all families by 1998 but 55% of families with children in poverty. Previous studies have shown that the reforms raised employment among lone parents. This article extends the analysis of the effect of the reforms to co…
Gender division of housework during the Covid-19 pandemic
First evidence shows that lockdown and confinement measures were associated with a more egalitarian gender division of housework in the United Kingdom. However, we know little about how the gender division of housework adjusted in different phases of the p
The Effect of Motherhood and Lone Motherhood on the Employment and Earnings of British Women
This article examines the effect of becoming a first-time mother and subsequent, or concurrent, transitions to lone parenthood on women’s employment and wages. Using longitudinal British Household Panel Survey data and fixed-effect models we find the arrival of a first child to have a substantial effect on employment and wages (n = 1,133 individuals; 13,369 observations). Employment rates fall 20 percentage points (ppt), and fulltime employment 4…
The Effect of Employment on the Mental Health of Lone Mothers in the UK Before and After New Labour's Welfare Reforms
The Employment Effects of Recession on Couples in the UK
The effect that the 2008/09 recession has had on unemployment and, in particular, on the distribution of job losses across households is of key concern to policymakers. During the 1991 recession rising male unemployment was associated with a sharp increase in the number of workless households, with this polarisation of work between 'work-rich' and 'work-poor' persisting many years later. Part of the reason for this polarisation was that the desig…
Evaluating the pin money hypothesis
The Accumulation of Economic Disadvantage
This study examines how motherhood earnings penalties in combination with the cost of partner absence affect single mothers' economic well-being. Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for 1990–2015 and fixed-effects models with individual-specific slopes reveals that when needs are controlled for, the transition to parenthood is as strongly linked to reduced family income as partner absence is. I consider different route…
The Single Motherhood Penalty as a Gender Penalty
Recent analysis has suggested that poverty rates, and their variation across rich countries, is driven much less by the prevalence of certain risks than by the poverty penalty attached to the risks. Focusing on single motherhood as a poverty risk, it is claimed the penalty attached to it is specific to the United States. This claim, we show, relies on models that condition on the major mechanisms through which poverty risks are heightened: the ri…
The impact of the tax and benefit system on second earners
This article analyses the theoretical and applied aspects of employment disincentives for second earners that exist in the British tax benefit system. The shortcomings of existing tax-benefit income profiles are examined, together with the underlying role of tax credits in disincentives compared with other factors. The potential of such disincentives to worsen employment of second earners in a recession is addressed. Conclusions suggest that a mo…
Social Protection in Vietnam and Obstacles to Progressivity
The present paper analyzes the incidence and progressivity of Vietnamese state income transfers using survey data from the Vietnamese Household Living Standards Survey 2004. Data quality and sample selection issues are highlighted, especially in the coverage of rural‐urban migrants. Simple income‐based profiles of incidence are matched to several influences that confound and complicate the measurement of progressivity. The issue of the informal e…
Gender and Parenthood Differences in Job Mobility and Pay Progression in the UK
Understanding disparities in the rates at which men and women's wages grow over the life course is critical to explaining the gender pay gap. Using panel data from 2009 to 2019 for the United Kingdom, we examine how differences in the rates and types of job mobility of men and women-with and without children-influence the evolution of wages. We contrast the rates and wage returns associated with different types of job moves, including moving empl…
Elderly people in Vietnam
This article explores social protection in Vietnam. Vietnam is one of the best-performing countries in terms of combining rapid economic growth, rapidly falling poverty and a commitment to social protection. It is keen not to repeat the mistakes of increased inequality and rural instability that have plagued its neighbour China and deserves more coverage by, and attention from, European policy analysts. This article summarises research on elderly…
Women's pay and family incomes in Britain, 1979–91
One of the most striking trends in Britain over the past 10–15 years is the sharp rise in the labour force participation of women. Despite women's increased participation, other aspects of their labour force activity remain unchanged. Women still tend to be clustered in female-dominated occupations and, compared to men, they are still disproportionately likely to be working part-time, and to be low paid.
Evaluating the pin money hypothesis
The Household Division of Labour
Female employment grew rapidly in the 1990s, and this has accelerated the demise in the numbers of families headed by a male breadwinner. In 2002, three-quarters of married or cohabiting couples, and 56 per cent of those with children under school age, were supported by two-earners. Women in couples where both partners work full-time have always worked long hours, an average 40-hour week in 2002. What has changed over the decade is that there are…
Welfare Reform and the Employment of Lone Parents
Employment rates for lone parents in the UK in the early 1990s were extremely low, when compared with those in other countries or with married women in this country, at just over 40 per cent. Since 1993 the employment of lone parents has risen by 11 percentage points to reach 53 per cent in 2002. This is more than twice the increase in employment for the population as a whole. The rate of increase in employment was notably faster after 1998 when …
The Family Gap in Pay
In this paper, we use microdata on employment and earnings from a variety of industrialized countries to investigate the family gap in pay – the differential in hourly wages between women with children and women without children. We present results from seven countries: Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Finland, and Sweden. We find that there is a good deal of variation across our sample countries in the effects o…
Elderly people in Vietnam
This article explores social protection in Vietnam. Vietnam is one of the best-performing countries in terms of combining rapid economic growth, rapidly falling poverty and a commitment to social protection. It is keen not to repeat the mistakes of increased inequality and rural instability that have plagued its neighbour China and deserves more coverage by, and attention from, European policy analysts. This article summarises research on elderly…
Social Protection in Vietnam and Obstacles to Progressivity
The present paper analyzes the incidence and progressivity of Vietnamese state income transfers using survey data from the Vietnamese Household Living Standards Survey 2004. Data quality and sample selection issues are highlighted, especially in the coverage of rural‐urban migrants. Simple income‐based profiles of incidence are matched to several influences that confound and complicate the measurement of progressivity. The issue of the informal e…
Welfare Reform and Lone Parents in the UK
A series of reforms to help low income families with children were introduced in the UK in 1999, including in-work tax credits and welfare-to-work programmes. Lone parents were a key target for these reforms - they comprised 22% of all families by 1998 but 55% of families with children in poverty. Previous studies have shown that the reforms raised employment among lone parents. This article extends the analysis of the effect of the reforms to co…
The impact of the tax and benefit system on second earners
This article analyses the theoretical and applied aspects of employment disincentives for second earners that exist in the British tax benefit system. The shortcomings of existing tax-benefit income profiles are examined, together with the underlying role of tax credits in disincentives compared with other factors. The potential of such disincentives to worsen employment of second earners in a recession is addressed. Conclusions suggest that a mo…
The Employment Effects of Recession on Couples in the UK
The effect that the 2008/09 recession has had on unemployment and, in particular, on the distribution of job losses across households is of key concern to policymakers. During the 1991 recession rising male unemployment was associated with a sharp increase in the number of workless households, with this polarisation of work between 'work-rich' and 'work-poor' persisting many years later. Part of the reason for this polarisation was that the desig…
The Effect of Motherhood and Lone Motherhood on the Employment and Earnings of British Women
This article examines the effect of becoming a first-time mother and subsequent, or concurrent, transitions to lone parenthood on women’s employment and wages. Using longitudinal British Household Panel Survey data and fixed-effect models we find the arrival of a first child to have a substantial effect on employment and wages (n = 1,133 individuals; 13,369 observations). Employment rates fall 20 percentage points (ppt), and fulltime employment 4…
The Effect of Employment on the Mental Health of Lone Mothers in the UK Before and After New Labour's Welfare Reforms
The Rise in Single-Mother Families and Children’s Cognitive Development
This article assessed changes in the association between single motherhood and children’s verbal cognitive ability at age-11 using data from three cohorts of British children, born in 1958 (n = 10,675), 1970 (n = 8,933) and 2000 (n = 9,989), and mediation analysis. Consistent with previous studies, direct effects were small and insignificant. For those born in 1958 and 1970 indirect effects, operating through reduced economic and parental resourc…
Gender division of housework during the Covid-19 pandemic
First evidence shows that lockdown and confinement measures were associated with a more egalitarian gender division of housework in the United Kingdom. However, we know little about how the gender division of housework adjusted in different phases of the p
The Single Motherhood Penalty as a Gender Penalty
Recent analysis has suggested that poverty rates, and their variation across rich countries, is driven much less by the prevalence of certain risks than by the poverty penalty attached to the risks. Focusing on single motherhood as a poverty risk, it is claimed the penalty attached to it is specific to the United States. This claim, we show, relies on models that condition on the major mechanisms through which poverty risks are heightened: the ri…
Learning in a Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the greatest disruption to children's schooling in generations. This study analyses primary school children's emotional engagement with remote schooling during the Spring 2020 lockdown in the Republic of Ireland, which involved one of the longest school closures among rich countries at the time. It investigates whether children's engagement with their remote schooling varied by personal and family characteristics…
The Accumulation of Economic Disadvantage
This study examines how motherhood earnings penalties in combination with the cost of partner absence affect single mothers' economic well-being. Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for 1990–2015 and fixed-effects models with individual-specific slopes reveals that when needs are controlled for, the transition to parenthood is as strongly linked to reduced family income as partner absence is. I consider different route…
Single Mothers’ Income in Twelve Rich Countries
I examine how single motherhood affects income in different quantiles of the distribution in twelve rich countries. Using harmonized data from the Luxembourg Income Study, I show how the distribution of income for households headed by single mothers differs from households with children that are headed by couples. I show that there is a striking variation by country in the influence of single motherhood on income at different points of the distri…
Young adult mental health during the United Kingdom’s first Covid-19 lockdown
Young adults in the UK saw sharp declines in their mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines whether living with siblings helped moderate this negative effect. We compare the outcomes of young adults (age 19), who were i) living with parents and siblings with ii) those who were living with only parents and with iii) those who lived away from the parental home. Data comes from the Millennium Cohort Study COVID-19 survey. We l…
What explains intergenerational associations in home ownership and value in the UK? Investigating the transmission mechanisms
Evidence shows strong associations in wealth across generations, yet the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Some studies attribute these associations to direct financial transfers between generations, while others suggest more indirect mechanisms such as the impact of parental wealth on children’s earnings, family formation, or saving and investment behaviour. Factors such as residential homophily and house value appreciation may als…
Gender and Parenthood Differences in Job Mobility and Pay Progression in the UK
Understanding disparities in the rates at which men and women's wages grow over the life course is critical to explaining the gender pay gap. Using panel data from 2009 to 2019 for the United Kingdom, we examine how differences in the rates and types of job mobility of men and women-with and without children-influence the evolution of wages. We contrast the rates and wage returns associated with different types of job moves, including moving empl…
Do High Minimum Wages Harm the Progression of Minimum Wage Workers? Evidence From the United Kingdom
Using panel data from the United Kingdom between 2009 and 2019, we study how substantial increases in the real and relative value of the minimum wage impacted on the wage progression of covered workers. We find that progression out of minimum wage jobs is frequent, although most workers remain low paid. Using hazard rate models, we find a short‐lived negative effect on progression associated with the introduction of the National Living Wage in 20…
Insurance against risk? Cost and compensation of job loss in different welfare states
This study investigates the cost of job loss to household incomes, and the extent to which initial earnings losses are compensated through the labor market, within the household, and by the social security programs. Using survey and administrative data from Denmark, Finland, Germany, and the UK (1990-2018), we estimate short- and long-term effects of job loss with a dynamic difference-in-differences model. Job loss reduces household income by 17 …
Economics (18 works) · Demographic economics (16 works) · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics (13 works) · Labour economics (12 works) · Political science (11 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Economic growth (7 works) · Demography (6 works)