Report

A healthy labour market

This report from UK think tank IPPR looks at creating a post-pandemic world of healthier work.

That work determines health has been impossible to ignore during a pandemic. People in ‘working class jobs’ have been around twice as likely to die from Covid-19 than those in ‘middle class jobs’. And those in the lowest paid occupations have experienced a mortality rate five times higher than those in the highest paid occupations. The pandemic illustrated the complicated but critical relationship between work and health in real-time. Not only has it highlighted the importance of work as a determinant of health, but indicates the policy instruments most effective at improving population health. As the pandemic reshapes labour markets and redefines attitudes to work, this report makes the case for why health should be put at the heart of work.