SEMILUX is coming in hybrid mode!
The University, LIS Datacenter and LISER invite you for a hybrid session of the monthly seminar on social inequality and public policies, which will be held ONLINE and IN-PERSON.
Speaker: Professor Jacques Wels
Social Epidemiology, Public Health & Sociology, Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Honorary Senior Research Fellow, University College London, United Kingdom
Title: Explaining Social Disparities by Emulating Interventions at Different Life Course Stages
Abstract:
Research on trade unions mainly focuses on their impact of pay and job satisfaction but their relationship with workers’ health has been overlooked. Several factors contribute to this. Firstly, there is limited understanding of how trade unions influence worker health. Their impact can be direct, latent, and political. Directly, unions enhance health and safety committees in democratic industrialized nations. They can also affect wages, job security, gender equality policies, and flexible work arrangements, all influencing health outcomes. While these effects may not be immediate or explicit, unions mediate them, even if health and well-being are not their primary objectives. Moreover, trade unions play a significant political role, influencing discussions on wages, work quality, social security, equality, and retirement ages, all with deep implications for population health. Secondly, there is a limited amount of data on this matter as both cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys addressing workers’ health and wellbeing and employment often omit to include questions on the presence of a trade union with the worker’s company. Thirdly, unions are often considered as a thing of the past, with very little understanding of how collective negotiation still plays a major part in our contemporary societies. This presentation will draw on my previous work on this. I will particularly focus on the relationship between trade unions and workers’ physical and mental health in the United Kingdom, using longitudinal data from Understanding Society but I will also present results from the United States and Japan. Finally, I will briefly explain my project for the five coming years and the relevance to develop a comparative framework based on longitudinal data to address these issues.
In-person room: MSH 1st floor LISER seminar room
Please join us on Webex meetings by following the link below.
Meeting link: https://unilu.webex.com/unilu/j.php?MTID=m6e5deeedcd78f118e358aaa4a5d04ac6
(Please copy and paste this web address in a web browser if this link is not working)
Meeting number: 2790 931 5287
Password: mfWtA6j9cb5
If you would like to present your work at SEMILUX, please contact jason.settels@uni.lu.