Unequal Britain at Work

This book provides the first systematic assessment of trends in inequality in job quality in Britain in recent decades. It assesses the pattern of change drawing on the nationally representative Skills and Employment Surveys (SES) carried out at regular intervals from 1986 to 2012. These surveys collect data from workers themselves thereby providing a unique picture of trends in job quality.

The book is concerned both with wage and non-wage inequalities (focusing, in particular on skills, training, task discretion, work intensity, organizational participation, and job security), and how these inequalities relate to class, gender, contract status, unionisation, and type of employer. Amid rising wage inequality there has nevertheless been some improvement in the relative job quality experienced by women, part-time employees, and temporary workers. Yet the book reveals the remarkable persistence of major inequalities in the working conditions of other categories of employee across periods of both economic boom and crisis.

Beginning with a theoretical overview, before describing the main data series, this book examines how job quality differs between groups and across time.

Alan Felstead, Research Professor, Cardiff University,Duncan Gallie, Professor of Sociology and Emeritus Fellow of Nuffield College, University of Oxford,Francis Green, Professor of Work and Education Economics, University College London

Alan Felstead is Research Professor at Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University in the UK. He is also a Visiting Professor at the ESRC Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies (LLAKES), Institute of Education, University of London. He has published numerous books and articles on skills, training and employment. Recent books include Improving Working as Learning (Routledge, 2009) and Changing Places of Work (Palgrave, 2005).


Duncan Gallie is Professor of Sociology, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. His research has examined the changing nature of job quality both in Britain and Europe, the social consequences of unemployment and attitudes to inequality. His most recent book is Economic Crisis, Quality of Work and Social Integration (Oxford University Press, 2013). He has been Vice-President and Foreign Secretary of the British Academy.


Francis Green is Professor of Work and Education Economics at the ESRC Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies (LLAKES), Institute of Education, UCL. His research focuses on skills, training, work quality and industrial relations issues. His most recent book is Skills and Skilled Work: An Economic and Social Analysis (Oxford University Press, 2013). He is a regular consultant on skills and job quality issues with national governments and international organisations such as the OECD, ILO and the European Commission.