Irish Recession Research Articles

Parental unemployment during the Great Recession and childhood adiposity.

The incidence of adiposity in the early years of life has outgrown the prevalence in older children and adolescents globally; however, the factors influencing weight gain are predominantly studied in adults. This study examines the relationship between changing economic conditions during the Irish recession and child weight in a nationally representative sample of 10,011 Irish children studied at 9 months, 3 years and 5 years old. This study is the first to use longitudinal anthropometric measurements to estimate the impact of direct parental unemployment on children's weight. Fixed effect logistic regression is used to examine the effects of parental unemployment on weight using the Growing up in Ireland infant cohort from 2008 to 2013. Weight and length/height measured by trained interviewers and child growth charts are used to quantify children's weight status according to BMI-for-age and weight-for-age measures. For BMI-for-age, the probability of a child being classified as overweight/obese is 8 percentage points higher if either parent experiences unemployment. A sensitivity analysis of weight-for-age indicates that the probability is of similar magnitude across several alternative growth charts and definitions of adiposity (the WHO standard, British Growth Reference, and Centers for Disease Control). The analysis is repeated, cross-sectionally, for physical activity and diet to clarify mechanisms of effect. The probability of a child consuming healthy food and physical activity with an implied cost is lower if either parent becomes unemployed. A focus on overweight/obesity in the early years is of crucial importance as if current trends are not addressed, a generation of children may grow up with a higher level of chronic disease.

The effect of local unemployment on health: A longitudinal study of Irish mothers 2001-2011

The relationship between economic conditions and health is mixed, with some evidence from the most recent financial crisis finding a positive effect of periods of unemployment on heath behaviours. This study uses longitudinal data spanning the periods before, during and after the Irish crisis of 2007, to test the impact of economic expansion and contraction on mothers physical and mental health and health behaviours. Three waves of data from the Irish Lifeways Cohort Study for the period 2001–2011, and local area employment rates from the Irish Census, are used to capture the impact of a period of increased unemployment on health before, during and after the Irish recession, independent of individual employment status. The results from fixed effect linear probability models demonstrate that an additional unit of local area unemployment increases the probability of reporting poor self-rated health by 1–1.8 percentage points and of reporting poor mental well-being by 1.4 and 2.7 percentage points depending on the instrument used. There are decreases in the probability of consuming cigarettes by 3.3 percentage points, self-describing as a regular smoker by 2.9 percentage points and obesity by 0.9 percentage points. The probability of engaging in at least 20 minutes of strenuous or moderate exercise per week declines by 7.8 and 8.7 percentage points respectively, while the probability of engaging in at least 20 minutes of mild exercise rises by 10 percentage points. These results are largely consistent with the US literature, which is predominantly based on working men, thus demonstrating the universal impact of economic vulnerability on health.

Household gambling expenditures and the Irish recession

This article examines the determinants of household gambling expenditures in Ireland and the effects of the recession on these expenditures using a large micro data-set, the Irish Household Budget Survey (HBS). Two gambling expenditures are examined, bookmaker tote betting and spending on the national lottery. Households with an older and a less educated head of household participate in and spend more on both forms of gambling while the presence of children in the households tends to reduce participation and spending in gambling. There is also evidence to suggest that households with an unemployed head of household have a higher likelihood of participation in gambling. The recession has affected the two forms of gambling in different ways. Lottery expenditures appear resilient to the effects of the recession. This is demonstrated in the estimated expenditure elasticities in particular. Bookmaker/tote expenditures have changed from a necessity to a luxury good, while lottery expenditures have increased in their necessity status. This can be explained by the fact that playing the lottery requires less time, knowledge and risk and has potentially greater benefits attached to it in comparison to bookmaker/tote betting. During a recession these factors become much more prevalent.

A violent past but a peaceful present: The cultural psychology of an Irish recession.

A violent past but a peaceful present: The cultural psychology of an Irish recession.

Employers, trade unions and concession bargaining in the Irish recession

The issue of concession bargaining between employers and unions during the Great Recession has received little attention in the research literature. This article presents a systematic analysis of the conduct of concession bargaining during the recession in Ireland in the context of three forms of concession bargaining identified in the international literature: integrative concession bargaining, distributive concession bargaining and ultra concession bargaining – each with different but overlapping sets of institutional foundations and implications for employers and trade unions. Drawing on focus groups of managers and union officials and a representative survey of employers, the article shows that distributive concession bargaining has been the predominant form in the Irish recession. This form of concession bargaining is likely to have few lasting direct effects on employer or union roles in collective bargaining but nevertheless appears to have significant indirect implications for the silent marginalization of unions in workplaces.

Transitions In and Out of Unemployment among Young People in the Irish Recession

Young people have been hit hard by unemployment during the Irish recession. While much research has been undertaken to study the effects of the recession on overall labour market dynamics, little is known about the specific effects on youth unemployment and the associated challenges. This paper attempts to fill this gap by comparing the profile of transitions to work before the recession (2006) and as the economy emerged from the recession (2011). The results indicate that the rate of transition of the youth from unemployment to employment fell dramatically. The fall is not due to changes in the composition or the characteristics of the unemployed group but to changes in the external environment, which implied that the impact of certain individual characteristics changed over the course of the recession. In particular, for youth, education and nationality have become more important for finding a job in Ireland.

Recessionary bundles: HR practices in the Irish economic crisis

The HR practices adopted by firms in response to the current deep and prolonged recession have received little attention in the literature. There are reasons for supposing that firms will adopt HR practices in bundles in responding to the recession in order to benefit from technical and behavioural complementarities. Drawing on a nationally representative survey, the article investigates the bundles of HR practices adopted by firms during the Irish recession and examines influences on the bundles that are evident. The article contributes to HRM theory by testing different views on HR bundles likely to be adopted in recessionary conditions and by moving beyond the prevailing focus in HRM on HR bundles adopted by firms in steady‐state business conditions.

Business partners and working the pumps: Human resource managers in the recession

This article examines the work and roles of HR managers in the Irish recession. It tests the validity of three competing views about the future of HR: that the profession needs to become a business partner; that it is knee-deep in a legitimacy crisis; and that it is fragmenting by being unable to cope with the complexity of modern organizational life. Three key findings emerge from the research. First, HR managers have gained greater influence in business decision-making, but much of this influence arises from short-run retrenchment measures. Second, many HR managers remain committed to long established professional values and ideas of good practice. Third, modern HR managers are developing a professional identity that allows them to perform multiple, competing roles. These findings challenge existing arguments about the effects of the current recession. They also speak to ongoing debates about changing HR roles by showing how HR managers remain adept at making pragmatic adaptations to secure their role in organizational life.

Sliding Doors Cost Measurement: The Net Economic Cost of Lax Regulation of the Irish Banking Sector

AbstractThis paper develops a restrictive procedure for evaluating economic policy decisions, by comparing actual economic history with a simulated history where a specific policy decision is replaced with a counterfactual, but credible, alternative. We apply the procedure to the mistaken decision to impose excessively lax banking sector risk regulation in Ireland during the period 2003–08. We measure the differences in banking sector stability and national income that would have occurred if the stricter regulatory approach enforced in Ireland in 2009 had been put in place six years earlier. We find that a few simple, reasonably prudent regulatory controls on the Irish banking sector would have greatly limited the vulnerability of the domestic sector to the 2008 global credit freeze and almost certainly prevented the 2008–09 collapse of the domestic banking sector and the consequent deep Irish recession of 2009–10. On the other hand, the risky and unsustainable inflow of foreign capital mediated by the domestic banks accounts for a substantial part of Irish economic growth during the 2003–07 period. Without this net foreign borrowing inflow, cumulative gross domestic product over the early period would have been substantially lower.

Sliding Doors Cost Measurement: A Restrictive Approach to Analyzing the Net Economic Cost of Policy Decisions and an Application to Irish Financial Regulation

This paper develops a restrictive procedure for evaluating economic policy decisions, by comparing actual economic history to a simulated history where a specific policy decision is replaced with a counterfactual, but credible, alternative. Our procedure is theoretically straightforward, but empirically problematic since it requires the identification of a feasible policy alternative and a model linking a specific policy choice to subsequent economic outcomes. We apply the procedure to the mistaken decision to maintain an excessively lax financial regulation regime in Ireland during the period 2003-2008. We measure the differences in banking sector stability and national income that would have occurred if the stricter regulatory regime imposed in Ireland in 2009 had been put in place six years earlier. We find that a few simple, reasonably prudent regulatory controls on the Irish banking sector would have greatly limited the vulnerability of the domestic sector to the 2008 global credit freeze, and almost certainly prevented the 2008-2009 collapse of the domestic banking sector and the consequent deep Irish recession of 2009-2010. On the other hand, the risky and unsustainable inflow of foreign capital mediated by the domestic banks accounts for a substantial part of Irish economic growth during the 2003-2007 period. Without this net foreign borrowing inflow, cumulative gross domestic product over the early period would have been substantially lower.

The structural failure of Irish economic development and employment policy

This article takes the Irish recession since 2008 and the need to introduce radically new employment polices as its ultimate goal. However, in arriving at these in the last section of the article, there is a need to first trace the historical development of economic development and employment policy. This is necessary to test whether current responses to unemployment, which are typically neo-liberal and serve specific ideologies and sectional interests in Irish society, have been continuous since independence; and to identify where breaks may have occurred and where continuities remain. Running through this, critical questions relate to whose interests have been served by dominant economic policy from independence to the present day. In learning lessons from this process, we can then come to conclusions as to what policy prescriptions are needed to reduce unemployment and put Ireland on a more state responsive, fairer and sustainable economic development and employment policy path from 2010 onwards.