Winter Term Series

Thursday 20 March 2025, 1.00pm-2.30pm, in person (OLD 2.21) and online

Abstract: Children live in increasingly complex families. Trends such as increased rates of parental separation, re-partnering, childbearing across partnerships and shared custody mean many children will spend some time living with single parents or between separated parents, will become stepchildren and gain step- or half-siblings (Thomson 2014). Increased family complexity has coincided with an increased focus on ‘family’ income in the United Kingdom’s welfare system, as the importance of means testing has grown (Timmins, 2023). In this presentation, I will assess the implications of family change for social welfare provision. The talk is in three parts. First, I set out discrepancies between the legal systems assumptions about parents’ responsibility for children and those in the welfare system. Second, using data from United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Survey, from 2009/10 to 2021/22, I describe changes in family complexity in the UK and show that the incomes of ‘complex families’ are particularly likely to be influenced by means-testing. I show the implications for individuals’ access to resources, illustrating how family income, and its composition, changes when single parents re-partner. Finally, I review evidence on international policy differences in welfare and child maintenance systems’ treatment of children whose parents have separated and who live with stepparents or between households and assess their potential for effectively meeting children’s needs.

Presenter Bio: Susan Harkness is a Professor of Social Policy at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on how income inequality and poverty is shaped by gender and family structure. Using quantitative methods, she focuses on less advantaged groups, including part-time and low-paid workers, and single-mother families.

How to attend?

In person (OLD 2.21) and online.

Thursday 27 March 2025, 1.00pm-2.30pm, in person (OLD 2.21) and online

Abstract: While previous research has shown that disadvantaged young people are less likely to work in professional occupations than their advantaged peers, even conditional on their education, until now little has been known about the reasons for this - are they applying for professional entry-level roles and not being hired, or are they not applying in the first place? Using unique recruitment data from 17 large employers' graduate programmes, we are able to answer this question for the first time. We find that applicants from lower SEB groups and ethnic minority groups are well represented among the applicant pool, but disproportionately do not receive job offers, even when considering applicants with similar prior attainment and other demographic characteristics applying to similar roles. Around half of the gap in job offers between working class and professional background applicants appears during the application sift and online test phase of the process. The other half of the gap in offers emerges at the face-to-face stages. For ethnic minority groups, the majority of the gap in offer rates emerges at the application sift and online test phase, rather than at the face-to-face stage. Women are typically underrepresented in the applicant pool across entry routes but are more likely to achieve a job offer than otherwise similar men, among those who do apply.

Presenter Bio: Lindsey Macmillan is Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunties (CEPEO) at UCL. She is also a Research Fellow at Institute for Fiscal Studies and Visiting Professor at CASE at LSE. Her research considers the role of early skills, education, and labour market experience in the transmission of incomes and work across generations. She has published widely on areas relating to intergenerational mobility, educational inequalities, and the role of family background in access to jobs.

How to attend?

In person (OLD 2.21) and online.

Thursday 3 April 2025, 1.00pm-2.30pm, in person (OLD 2.21) and online

Abstract: University graduates hold more positive attitudes towards immigrants than non- graduates. However, whether individual gains in higher education lead to a more inclusive society depends on why universities foster inclusive attitudes. I will present two studies where I investigate whether higher education shapes attitudes directly (absolute effect) or indirectly, by conferring a higher social status (positional effect). I test these competing hypotheses for the UK in study 1 using the British Election Study and the British Social Attitudes Survey, which cover attitudes towards immigrants between 1961 and 2021 for cohorts born throughout the 20th century. In study 2 I use UKHLS data on individuals and their parents to examine if and why parental education matters for attitudes towards immigrants. In line with an absolute effect of higher education, I find that graduates have had consistently more positive attitudes than non-graduates across generations, even relative to the expansion of education. I also find that parental education has an enduring effect on individual attitudes. However, I also show that attitudes around the impact immigration has on society have become more negative among younger cohorts, suggesting that higher education is insufficient to protect against surges in hostility. My research contributes to understanding why and how attitudes towards immigrants overlap with educational stratification.

Presenter Bio: Vicky is an early career Leverhulme fellow in Sociology at the University of Essex. She is currently researching how generational replacement and the changing educational composition of the population interact to shape changes in attitudes towards immigrants.

How to attend?

In person (OLD 2.21) and online.

Catch up on our 2024/25 seminar series so far via our YouTube channel here.

Catch up on our 2024/25 seminar series via our YouTube channel here.

20 February 2025

The Bystander Issue: Why Do We Take The Harassers' Side?

Presenter: Dr Margaux Suteau (LSE).
Video coming soon

13 February 2025

A Brief Introduction about the Young Lives Study and a Paper Presentation: "A Sound Methodology: Measuring Experiences of Violent Conflict through Audio Self-Interviews"

Presenter: Dr Marta Favara (University of Oxford)

Watch the presentation here

7 February 2025

Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite

Presenter: Professor Sam Friedman (LSE)

Watch the presentation here

30 January 2025

Working with Hope: Reflections on Researching Child Poverty in Incredibly Hard Times

Presenter: Professor Ruth Patrick (University of York).

Watch the presentation here

23 January 2025

How Should we Conceptualize the Sposal Relationship of 'Mixed Race' People?

Presenter: Professor Miri Song (University of Kent)

No video available

5 December 2024

Status-Enforcing Criminal Laws

Presenter: Professor Jamelia Morgan (Northwestern University)

Watch the presentation here

28 November 2024

Neighbourhood Migration and the Air Pollution Disadvantage of Immigrant Minorities

Presenter: Dr Tobias Rüttenauer (University College London)

No video available

21 November 2024

The role of default options and financial and pension literacy for retirement saving in a fully funded system

Presenter: Dr Piera Bello (University of Bergamo)

No video available

14 November 2024

Aid’s Impact on Social Protection in the Global South

Presenter: Dr Miguel Niño-Zarazúa (SOAS, University of London)

Watch the presentation here

24 October 2024

Understanding Global Blackness: Indigeneity, Reparations and the Post-colonial State

SPECIAL Race Matters Initiative (RMI) Seminar

Presenter: Dr Althea-Maria Rivas (SOAS, University of London)

No video available

17 October 2024

The Concentration of Children on Income Distribution and Its Consequences for Poverty and Inequality

Presenter: Professor Berkay Ozcan (LSE)

Watch the presentation here

10 October 2024

Analysis of Cybercrime Issues in Anglophone West Africa

Presenter:Dr Suleman Lazarus (LSE)

Watch the presentation here

Catch up on our 2023/24 seminar series via our YouTube channel here.

21 March 2024

Birth spacing and the health of mothers and fathers: an analysis of physical and mental health using individual- and sibling-fixed effects
Presenter: Dr Kieron Barclay

Watch the presentation here

14 March 2024

Intergenerational educational mobility during the twentieth century in 77 low- and middle-income and 15 high-income countries
Presenter: Dr Mobarak Hossain

Watch the presentation here

15 February 2024

Conflict-related migration: new insights from Ukraine
Presenter: Professor Lucinda Platt

Watch the presentation here

8 February 2024

Research similarity and Women in Academia
Presenter: Dr Alessandra Casarico

Watch the presentation here

1 February 2024

Colonization and Social Policy: A Comparative Analysis of Social Policy Development in South Asia; Pre to Post Colonial Era
Presenter: Dr Zahid Mumtaz

Watch the presentation here

25 January 2024

Intergenerational Poverty Persistence in Europe - is there a Great Gatsby Curve for Poverty?
Presenter: Professor Brian Nolan

Watch the presentation here

18 January 2024

Kingdon at 40: Multiple Streams, Multiple Flaws
Presenter: Dr Fabio Battaglia

No video available

7 December 2023

The Altruistic Authoritarian Citizen
Presenters:Professor Reza Hasmath (University of Alberta) and Dr Timothy Hildebrandt (LSE)

Watch the presentation here

23 November 2023

Formal Trade, Informal State: Public Authority and the Governance of Informal Cross-Border Trade in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
Presenter: Dr Jonathan Bashi Rudahindwa (SOAS, University of London)

Watch the presentation here

16 November 2023

Qualitative Literacy: A Guide to Evaluating Ethnographic and Interview Research
Presenters: Professor Mario Small (Columbia University) and Dr Jessica Calarco (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Watch the presentation here

9 November 2023

The Political Economy of Women's Work in Palestine under Settler Colonialism
Presenter: Dr Samia M Al-Botmeh (Birzeit University)

Watch the presentation here

26 October 2023

Energy Policy Support Increases through Policy Goal Communication
Presenter: Dr Gracia Bruckmann (University of Bern)

No video available

12 October 2023

Marketing Development Studies in the Neoliberal University and How to Be Cosmopolitan
SPECIAL Race Matters Initiative (RMI) Seminar
Presenter: Dr Kamna Patel (University College London)

Watch the presentation here

5 October 2023

Imperial Development: The Humanitarian-Development Nexus in Jordan and Lebanon
Presenter: Dr Lama Tawakkol (University of Manchester)

Watch the presentation here

Catch up on our 2022/23 seminar series via our YouTube channel here.

30 March 2023

Social and academic embeddedness as buffers against school closure effects on schooling outcomes

Speaker: Professor Herman van de Werfhorst, European University Institute

Winter Term Series

Thursday 20 March 2025, 1.00pm-2.30pm, in person (OLD 2.21) and online

How to attend?

Thursday 27 March 2025, 1.00pm-2.30pm, in person (OLD 2.21) and online

How to attend?

Thursday 3 April 2025, 1.00pm-2.30pm, in person (OLD 2.21) and online

How to attend?

2019/20

2018/19

2017/18

Behavioural Public Policy Seminars LSE Hayek Programme - Department of Social Policy Joint BPP seminar series

EPG online series

CASE Seminars Social Exclusion Seminars and the Welfare Policy and Analysis Seminars

Mannheim Centre for Criminology Seminars