Research Type: Work, Health & Social Mobility

Small area-based measures of income are being developed through an ESNSG project with the University of Essex. These statistics will give data on the probability of households in each small area falling below a given low-income threshold. This methodology is to be extended further in a separate NISRA project which is to be applicable at a household level. The current project will apply this model to each NILS member giving the probability that their household falls below an income threshold. This modelled income probability will then be used as a proxy for income in future NILS projects such as production of mortality and fertility rates by income probability and investigation of migration patterns. However, this project will focus on providing background information and evaluating the usefulness and accuracy of results produced using the income model.

Northern Ireland is one of the most deprived areas in the UK and until fairly recently, consistently had the highest rates of unemployment, and long-term unemployment, and lowest proportions of the population of working age defined as economically active, of any of the regions within the UK. Remarkably however, there has been very little research into the relationship between unemployment and ill-health here, due principally to the absence of adequate data sources. Most would agree that research in this area is fraught with methodological difficulties and that many questions surrounding the relationship between unemployment and ill-health still remain unanswered. This proposed study is a series of linked studies using the NILS to examine the relationship between unemployment and ill-health in Northern Ireland.