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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the Understanding Society Podcast we are looking at the relationship between chronic stress markers, health, and deprived areas. Lucy Prior (University of Bristol) takes us through her research into this relationship between deprivation and negative health outcomes, and her use of Understanding Society data. 

• The need for the paper.
• How Lucy was using biomarkers to look at the mechanism that underlies the connection between deprivation and health through chronic stress. 
• What the ‘stress pathway’ is, and how your environment contributes to this stress pathway and ultimately affects your health. 
• The biological mechanism at work that links where you’re living and how that affects your health.
• How Lucy linked geography with the data to look at levels of deprivation in different areas. 
• What constitutes a ‘deprived’ area?
• The findings of the paper, and how physical health versus mental health are affected.
• Were there any surprises in the study?
• What would Lucy do differently if she were to tackle the study again? And her advice for anyone using the Understanding Society Study data in their research. 

Lucy is a Research Associate in Quantitative Methods in Education, currently working on an ESRC Standard grant on new school league table research and methods for measuring school performance. She is also interested in health geography, particularly in investigating relationships of neighbourhood deprivation with overall health and well-being, and the exploration of health pathways related to stress exposure. Her research draws on life-course and biosocial theories and employs quantitative techniques, such as multilevel modelling, to expose health and place relationships. 

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In this episode of the Understanding Society podcast, we explore the effect of our jobs and job security on our health and wellbeing. Our host Emma Houlton introduces two interviews. The first, with Professor Tarani Chandola (University of Manchester), focuses on the relationship between working hours and work-life balance and our health. The second conversation is with Dr Claire Niedzwiedz (University of Glasgow), who is studying the relationship between financial security and physical health. 

Topics covered in this episode:

• Who the researchers are, and what their studies have found
• Are flexible working conditions really better for employees?
• How does the blurring of boundaries between work and home life affect people?
• The use of biomarkers from Understanding Society
• Tarani Chandola talks about the challenges of collecting stress markers, and the correlates used in his study
• Both researchers talk about the surprises they found during their studies, and how our assumptions about our work life measure up to their findings
• Is the rise of working from home and freelancing a good thing?
• How children play into work-related stress
• The policy and research implications of these papers
• Claire Niedzwiedz takes us through the effect of secure employment, unemployment, and the threat of unemployment, on physical health
• How biomarkers change over time in response to these changes in job security

Tarani Chandola is a Professor of Medical Sociology at the University of Manchester. His research is primarily on the social determinants of health, focusing on health inequalities and psychosocial factors, and the analysis of longitudinal cohort studies. Much of his research is on the social determinants of health with a focus on stress at work, and its psychophysiological effects on health. He is a research leader on the topic of work and health, with two of his papers in the top 10 most cited studies on the topic of work stress. His h-index of 53 (Google Scholar, October 2018) and 44 (Scopus, October 2018) was achieved within 20 years of his DPhil from over 120 peer reviewed papers in peer reviewed journals. His research expertise spans different disciplines- population and public health, epidemiology, social statistics and sociology- and different methodological approaches. He has had leadership and advisory roles within international research organisations, government departments and academic bodies.

Tarani was the head of the Department of Social Statistics (2012-2014) at the University of Manchester and the director of the Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research (2014-2016). He is currently a co-director of two Economic and Social Research Council funded centres: the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM: www.ncrm.ac.uk) and the International Centre for Lifecourse Studies in Society and Health (ICLS: www.ucl.ac.uk/icls). He also co-directs the SOC-B: the Social-Biological Centre for Biosocial Research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. He is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and is a member of the Economic and Social Research Council's Strategic Advisory Network.

Claire Niedzwiedz's research focuses on understanding the social and political determinants of population health and health inequalities. She joined the Department of Sociology in July 2016 as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Quantitative Sociology, working with Professor David Stuckler. Claire is particularly interested in exploiting natural experiments which involve changes in the political environment and their impact on health and health inequalities.

Claire completed her PhD in Public Health at the University of Glasgow, which examined the relationship between welfare regimes and socioeconomic inequalities in wellbeing among older people across Europe. After completing her PhD she undertook postdoctoral research at the Centre for Research on Environment, Society and Health (CRESH) based at the University of Edinburgh. This research included studies examining inequalities in mental health, wellbeing and loneliness across Europe and ways in which these might be reduced. Claire also has a background in Physiology and previously worked for the NHS as a health analyst.

Understanding Society is the largest longitudinal study of its kind - around 40,000 households have contributed to the Study, and their data leads to research which informs policy, shaping the future of the UK.

For more information, visit our website

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In this first episode of Season 2 of the Understanding Society podcast we are talking to the four panellists from Understanding Society’s presentation and discussion of headline findings from their 2018/19 report. Fran Bennett (University of Oxford), Monica Costa Dias (Institute for Fiscal Studies), Sam Smethers (Fawcett Society), and Helen Wright (923jobs.com) explore findings and ideas surrounding the gender pay gap in the UK, and what can be done to close it.

Topics covered in this episode:

-      Why does the gender pay gap still exist?

-      The complicated factors and causes of the discrepancy in pay between men and women.

-      Women’s attitude towards pay and career progression, including returning to work after having children.

-      Monica Costa Dias outlines the key research and figures surrounding the gender pay gap in the UK.

-      Fran Bennett talks about the effect of social security, Universal Credit in particular, on women in relationships and single mothers.

-      How Universal Credit’s incentives and rebates can work against women looking to enter part-time work and pay for childcare.

-      Helen Wright takes us through her experiences as a mother looking to enter part-time work and finding a lack of opportunities, which led to the founding of her part-time recruitment agency 923jobs.

-      What changes can be made to the job market and working attitudes to close the pay gap.

-      How changing and improving the physical and social infrastructure of the UK can make a huge difference for women. 

The Panellists

Fran Bennett

Fran Bennett works in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford as a senior research and teaching fellow, with a focus on social policy. She is also an active member of the Women's Budget Group. Fran has a particular interest in social security policy, gender issues, and poverty, income distribution and participation.

She is also an independent consultant, and has written extensively on social policy issues for the UK government, NGOs, and others. With Prof Jonathan Bradshaw, she is one of the UK team of independent experts in the European Social Policy Network for the European Commission.

Fran chairs the editorial board of the Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, having been a co-editor. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and an associate of its international advisory group.

Monica Costa Dias

Monica is an Associate Director at the IFS and a Research Economist at the Centre for Economics and Finance, University of Porto. Her research interests are mainly on Labour Economics and the Economics of Education, with a focus on the determinants of individual and household choices, including human capital investments, labour supply and intra-household allocation of resources, and their consequences for inequality and the evaluation and design of tax and welfare policies

Sam Smethers

Sam joined the Fawcett Society in August 2015 as Chief Executive. Prior to that she was the Chief Executive of Grandparents Plus for over six years. Sam is no stranger to equalities and gender issues having worked for both the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. She also served as a Fawcett trustee between 2007 and 2010, was a trustee of Gingerbread for seven years and has nine years’ experience working in Parliament. Sam is passionate about equal representation, valuing and sharing care and closing the gender pay gap. She has made a big impact already and focused on creating a brilliant team, driving forward an intersectional approach to our work and devising an exciting programme to mark 100 years of women's suffrage.

Helen Wright

Prior to having children, Helen worked as a broadcast journalist for the BBC and ITV, followed by 18 months running her own media training company. She has a degree in History from Durham University, and a Diploma in Journalism from Cardiff University. After her career break Helen found herself surrounded by talented professional women who, like her, were having trouble getting back into the labor market due to a lack of flexible working positions. As a result, Helen founded 923jobs, a recruitment agency that specialises in placing high quality professionals into jobs with flexible hours. 

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