What Works for Place-based Economic Inactivity?
Ulster University
This project aims to understand how place-related factors in NI combine to affect local economic inactivity, and then to identify salient policy solutions via international review and local stakeholder engagement activities.
The project is organised into three work packages.
WP1 will use data from the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey to explore the interconnections between different drivers of economic inactivity in NI. Helpfully, the latest available survey data (2024) features questions on "Skills" and "Income and Poverty", alongside background questions on aspects such as age, sex, household tenure and composition, marital status, qualifications, employment status, religion and community, care and health. The WP will yield a statistical report and an accompanying set of infographics.
WP2 will review the international evidence base to identify salient learning cases for NI. We will identify five to seven policies to evaluate in detail with particular attention on policy approaches that can yield a "˜multiple dividend' (by addressing more than one driver). Alongside the review activity, we will also conduct a small number of interviews with NI and international experts. The interviews will inform our selection of policies for review, and also enhance our understanding of the operability of specific policy solutions in the NI context. The WP will yield an evidence report, with accessible summary tables on individual policy approaches and example case studies.
WP3 will deliver two policy stakeholder workshops. Workshop 1 will seek to understand which of the identified policy solutions have the most potential for impact in NI and how these might be operationalised. Workshop 2 will explore policy coherence - focusing especially on the emerging priority of a just transition to net zero and how this agenda might be fruitfully synergised with reducing economic inactivity. The WP will yield two policy briefs.
