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Applied Economics
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How well are women doing? Female non-employment across UK regions

Michael Anyadike-Danes
a a

Economic Research Institute of Northern Ireland, Belfast BT1 3NQ, United Kingdom E-mail: m.anyadike-danes@erini.ac.uk Available online: 05 Apr 2011

To cite this article: Michael Anyadike-Danes (2007): How well are women doing? Female non-employment across UK regions, Applied Economics, 39:14, 1843-1854 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00036840500427957

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Applied Economics, 2007, 39, 18431854

How well are women doing? Female non-employment across UK regions

Michael Anyadike-Danes
Economic Research Institute of Northern Ireland, Belfast BT1 3NQ, United Kingdom E-mail: m.anyadike-danes@erini.ac.uk

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Discussions of the UKs recent labour market performance commonly mention the contrasting trends in the unemployment rate (down), the employment rate (up) and the inactivity rate (flat). These same commentaries also notice that the flatness of the overall inactivity rate masks contrasting trends by sex, with male rates (slowly rising) and female rates (slowly falling) and then proceed to discuss male inactivity in some detail before concluding. Bypassing the composition of female inactivity, these commentaries fail to notice that the male and the female proportions of the population not working by reason of sickness or disability are quite similar. Equally they have rarely noticed that male and female nonemployment rates display a very similar regional hierarchy with female rates in the North as much as 50% higher than those in the South, and that there is an even steeper NorthSouth gradient in some of the components of non-employment. For example, sickness and disability rates for females in the North are up to 10% of the working age population, while in the South rates are typically less than half that size.

I. Background Most commentaries on the recent performance of the UK labour market mention the contrasting trends in the unemployment rate (down), the employment rate (up) and the inactivity rate (flat) (Gregg and Wadsworth, 1999; Dickens et al., 2001; HM Treasury, 2001; Nickell and Quintini, 2002; Faggio and Nickell, 2003; HM Treasury, 2003). These same commentaries also notice that the flatness of the overall inactivity rate masks contrasting trends by sex, with male rates (slowly rising) and female rates (slowly falling) and then typically proceed to discuss male inactivity in rather more detail. In their paper on
1 2

UK male inactivity Faggio and Nickell (2003) explain: . . . why restrict ourselves to looking at inactivity among men? The answer is because inactivity rates among adult men have risen dramatically since the early 1970 s whereas those for adult women have been falling (p. 41).1 The premise is indisputable adult male inactivity rates have indeed risen substantially. However the implication that because the headline rate is falling, we can leave female inactivity rates to one side risks overlooking a worrying state of affairs which, in fact, is quite similar to that affecting males.2 For example, the proportion of the female population not working through reasons of sickness and disability is quite similar to

For an alternative perspective on inactivity which focuses on males, but for different reasons, see Alcock et al. (2003). Equally indicative is the treatment of the subject in a recent review of non-employment published by the Bank of England, where after a paragraph describing rise in male sickness and disability we find, in the paragraph on female inactivity just the following comment: . . . interestingly, the percentage citing sickness or disability has also increased among women . . . Jones et al. (2003, p. 293).
Applied Economics ISSN 00036846 print/ISSN 14664283 online 2007 Taylor & Francis http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/00036840500427957 1843

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45 40 35 30 Ratio % 25 20 15 10 5 0 SE SW EN EM YH SC WM Region NW GL WA NE NI

M. Anyadike-Danes

HD SD ED UN OI

Fig. 1.

Female non-employment by region and type, working age, ratio to population (%)

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the corresponding male rate.3 In other words, females have in fact reached parity in a category which has attracted the attention of those looking to explain the increase in male inactivity rates.4 Discussions of Britains inactivity problem typically have another feature in common: they emphasize its regional dimension. Female non-employment rates the ratio of the not employed (inactive plus unemployed) to the working age population like male non-employment rates, vary widely between the UKs regions. Not only is there a NorthSouth divide,5 but the highest rate (in the North) is 50% larger than the lowest rate (in the South). Using a fivefold classification of the non-employed (unemployed; in education or training; not working by reason of sickness or disability; looking after the home; and retired or otherwise inactive) we find a systematic, and statistically significant, cross-regional relationship between the size of the female nonemployment rate and its composition. It emerges that the proportion of working age females not working by reason of sickness or disability in some northern regions is as high as 10%, twice as large as in parts of the South. The main body of the paper is divided into four sections. The first of them sets out the basic facts of female non-employment and its composition by
3

region and describes the relationship between size and composition; the next section draws out some implications of the estimated sizecomposition relationship for cross-regional comparisons; the third section investigates female non-employment and its composition by age; while the fourth section compares male and female non-employment rates across the regions. A final section sums up while the Appendix provides information on data and estimation.

II. Non-Employment of Working Age Women Across the Regions: Size and Composition As background to the investigation of the composition of female non-employment it is worth examining briefly the extent of cross-regional variation in the female non-employment rate itself. Figure 1 displays the data. As can be seen straightaway the female nonemployment rate in the South East (SE) is at one end of the scale at 27.5% and at 42.5% the rate in Northern Ireland (NI) is at the other. So the gap between them, on average over the period 1995 to 2002, was 15 percentage points. We can see too that

Even in discussions of sickness by gender, males are typically given more prominence than females, see for example Disney and Webb (1991), Beatty et al. (2000) and Beatty and Fothergill (2002). For a US view of the problem which uses an exceptionally rich dataset to look in more detail at healthemployment linkages for both men and women see Wilson (2001). 4 To be fair, though, commentaries on the British labour market which discuss females tend to focus on the interaction between childbearing and employment (Desai et al., 1999; Robinson, 2003); Molho (1991) on female invalidity benefit claimants seems to be the only exception. 5 The NorthSouth divide has been used as a rough characterization of the regional distribution of prosperity in the UK since at least the 1980 s. The South is typically taken to include the four (now government office) regions in the South of England: East; London; South East; South West; and the East Midlands region; while the North is the rest of the UK: North East; North West; Northern Ireland; Scotland; Wales; Yorkshire and Humberside. The background to this characterization is discussed in detail in Lewis and Townsend (1989).

How well are women doing?

SE 50 40 Share (%) 30 20 10 0 27.5 RT HD SD ED UN SW EN EM YH SC WM NW GLWA NE NI

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30

32.5

35

37.5

40

42.5

Non-employment rate (%)

Fig. 2.

Female non-employment, scatter of composition vs. size, by region

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non-employment rates in the South (SE, South West (SW) and East (EN)), excluding London (GL), are all less than 30%. Aside from GL, the other region slightly out of order is the West Midlands (WM) which seems to be a little further north than usual, and with a rate rather larger than the East Midlands (EM) than might have been anticipated. Figure 1 also records, for each region, the values of the five different components of non-employment. At the bottom of the stack is the other inactive (including retired) rate (OI). It is around 3.5% and varies relatively little across regions. Next we have the slightly larger (but almost equally constant) unemployed rate (UN) at about 4% of the working age female population. In the South the education and training rate (ED) is close to 4% too, but note that it does seem to have a perceptible gradient,6 since it is over 5% everywhere in the North. The upward slope left to right of the sick/disabled rate (SD), the next component in the stack, is much more marked: at the southern end of the scale it is just 3% to 4%, while at the northern end it is typically more than twice as large; in Wales (WA), NE and NI it is 9% or more. Finally, we have the largest category: the lookingafter-the-home rate (HD). While it ranges considerably (just less than 12% in Scotland (SC) to 18% in NI) most regions fall in a fairly narrow band between 12.5% and 15.5%, typically at the lower end in the South and the higher end in the North. Given this evidence of an association between the size of the female non-employment rate and the composition of non-employment it is worth transforming and re-plotting the data as a scatter of the shares of non-employment by region against the size
6 7

of the rate by region. This is presented in Fig. 2. Along the horizontal axis we have the nonemployment rate with labels for each region, while the shares are measured on the vertical axis.7 To ease the interpretation of the plots simple linear fits have been added to each of the shares. At the left hand (southern) end of Fig. 2 four of the shares UN, ED, SD and OI are approximately equal (all in the 10% to 15% range in the SE); with HD accounting for the rest (approximately half) of nonemployment. At the other end of Fig. 2, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly, NI resembles SE closely only with respect to the size of its HD share. The other four categories are in strong contrast: the linear fits suggest two shares are rather larger (SD and ED); and the other two are rather smaller (UN and OI). Although there is clearly a relationship between size and composition, it is quite difficult to interpret the raw share data. Most particularly because there are some obvious outliers (for example, HD and SD in Scotland) and it is hard to judge the strength of the underlying relationship. In order to bring more precision to this assessment it is necessary to carry out a more formal statistical examination.

III. Implications of an Estimated SizeComposition Relationship The data under investigation here are shares for each region the sum across the five categories of nonemployment is 100% and the analysis of such share data is complicated because of induced correlation

The terms gradient and slope are being used loosely here because the axis is categorical. Since the horizontal axis is now on an interval scale the slope of the lines can here be interpreted as a SouthNorth gradient.

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Table 1. Projected composition of female non-employment, NorthSouth differences, shares of non-employment (%) Non-employment rate South low (27.5%) UN ED SD OI HD 12.8 14.5 14.5 14.5 43.7 North high (42.5%) 10.4 18.3 25.5 7.0 38.9 Difference 2.4 3.8 11.0 7.5 4.8 UN ED SD OI HD NEMP

M. Anyadike-Danes
Table 2. Projected components of female non-employment, NorthSouth differences, ratio to population (%) South low (27.5%) 3.5 4.0 4.0 4.0 12.0 27.5 North high (42.5%) 4.4 7.8 10.8 3.0 16.5 42.5 Difference 0.9 3.8 6.8 1.0 4.5 15.0

(if in one region the sum of four of them is smaller it means necessarily that the fifth must be larger). However, this difficulty can be overcome by transformation of the data prior to estimation, and system-wide hypothesis testing after it. Briefly,8 shares are transformed into log ratios: in our case the natural log of the UN, ED, SD and HD shares divided by the OI share. A linear relationship between the non-employment rate and each of these log ratios is then estimated where the slope coefficient of the equation then summarizes the dependence of each compositional log ratio on the size of nonemployment. A series of tests is then conducted to investigate the statistical significance of the dependence of composition on size. In our case the hypothesis that the slope coefficients were zero (the null of no connection between size and composition) was decisively rejected (at p5105). The final step is then to solve the estimated relationships together with the adding up constraint (the sum of shares is 100%) to yield a simple model which can be used to project the composition of non-employment given its size. Since the focus here is on the implications of the estimated model for the relationship between the size and composition of non-employment rather than the specification and estimation of the relationship the somewhat more detailed account is provided in the Appendix. The implications of the estimated model can most easily be seen by using it to construct the projected composition of non-employment. Table 1 records the results of these calculations for the two ends of the observed range of the non-employment rate from low (the South East, 27.5%) to high (Northern Ireland, 42.5%). The unemployment share changes very little, at the high end it is just two percentage points down. So the unemployment share is slightly lower the higher is

the non-employment rate. The education share, by contrast, moves in the opposite direction, it is larger the higher is non-employment. The most striking change, though, is in the share of sick/disabled it almost doubles, increasing by 11 percentage points (from 14.5 to 25.5). Finally we have two offsets to this change, the shares of looking after the home and other inactive, both of which contract the higher is the non-employment rate. The change in the other inactive share is very substantial: at the high end it is 7.5 percentage points down, less than half its size at the low end. A strong contrast is now clearly evident between the structure of non-employment in the South almost 45% looking after the home, with the other components in roughly equal proportions; and nonemployment in the North where the shares are strongly differentiated while looking after the home is still at the top of the list at just under 40%, sick/disabled has now expanded very substantially to 25%. Having estimated the extent of the size composition effects we can now calculate their implications for the different categories of nonemployment measured as a ratio to the working age population. The figures are set out in Table 2 and the picture, somewhat obscured by idiosyncratic variations in Fig. 2, is now strikingly clear. Measured as a ratio to the working age population the sick/disabled rate in the North is more than two and a half times as large as in the South: the sick/disabled rate is up from 4% to almost 11%. The education rate is up substantially too almost twice as large in the North (the looking-after-the-home rate is up by a similar amount, but this is on a much smaller base). Almost equally significantly the unemployed rate is virtually unchanged: the projected proportion of the working age population unemployed hardly varies from South to North.

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8 There seem to have been relatively few applications of compositional data analysis to economic data, Fry et al. (2000) and Fry et al. (2001) are notable exceptions. Our general approach (like that of Fry et al., 2000 and 2001) derives from the treatment of the compositional data problem proposed by Aitchison (1986).

How well are women doing?

Table 3. Components of projected female non-employment rates, contribution of scale and size effects to NorthSouth differences, ratio to population (%) Scale UN ED SD OI HD NEMP 1.9 2.2 2.2 2.2 6.5 15.0 Size 1.0 1.6 4.6 3.2 2.0 0.0 Sum 0.9 3.8 6.8 1.0 4.5 15.0

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The data are plotted as stacked bars to display simultaneously the size of non-employment and its composition. As you will see this makes it easier to appreciate the life course correlates associated with the shape of non-employment. In the teenage years the non-employment rate is relatively high at 50% (predominantly education); it then falls quite steeply to roughly 35% for 20 to 24 year olds (transition to work); it remains around 30% from the mid-20s to the end of the 30s (largely looking after the home during child-bearing and child-raising years); after which it falls again slightly up to the end of the 40s (prime working years, as looking after the home declines); after which it rises gradually, and by retirement age it has reached 50% (with other inactivity, essentially retirement, moving up quite steeply). In broad outline, this life course related pattern is quite widely recognized.9 What is not perhaps so well known is the significance of the role played by the proportion of sick/disabled females in this narrative and, more particularly, by its exponential growth with age. As is clearly evident from Fig. 3, up to the 35 to 39 year old age group less than 5% of women in any of the age groups are in the sick/ disabled category, but by the last pre-retirement age group the average regional rate has climbed to almost 20%. Since, as we now know, the working age female non-employment rate varies markedly across regions, it is not surprising to find that this is true for the nonemployment rates by age group too. The simplest way to see the extent of this variation is by plotting the regional minimum and maximum rates for each age group, as well the difference between them, the crossregional range. These are displayed in Fig. 4. Clearly the regional range varies considerably. At the younger end, 30 percentage points separate the nonemployment rates of 16 to 19 year olds,10 at the older end (for both 50 to 54 and 55 to 59) it is almost 20 percentage points, for most of the age groups in between though it is between 10 and 15 percentage points. Given what we have seen earlier about the link between the size and the composition of nonemployment, it might have been anticipated that with a cross-regional range of this magnitude there are likely to be sizecomposition relationships for at least some of the age groups. The approach to

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Table 3 provides some further insight into the effect of size on composition. It records a decomposition of SouthNorth differences in rates (measured as a ratio to population) into two effects: a scale effect and a size effect. The scale effect for each category of non-employment is computed by applying the projected southern share to the northern non-employment rate. So the scale effect records the difference in a component rate if size and composition were independent, while the (residual) size effect is produced by the correlation between size and composition. From the results of this calculation we can now see more clearly how important, quantitatively, are the size effects measured as a ratio to the population. The rough balance between the positive size effect on sick/ disabled and the sum of the negative size effects on other inactive and looking after the home is evident (a transformation of the picture in Table 1). The decomposition of the unemployed rate is important too. The overall SouthNorth difference of around one percentage point is the result of a scale effect of 2 being offset by a size effect of 1. This serves to emphasize even more strongly the limitations of regional variations in female unemployment rates as a useful indicator of conditions in the female labour market.

IV. Female Non-employment by Age The non-employment rate has a characteristic agerelated shape, the picture for the UK is captured by the regional average rate by age recorded in Fig. 3.

9 It is important to remember though, when reflecting on the possible implications of these patterns that the non-employment rate represented in Fig. 3 combines age (or life course) effects with cohort effects of at least two often distinguished generations: generation X (born mid-1960s to mid-1980s, up to mid-30 year olds in our sample period); baby boomers (born mid-1940s to mid-1960s, 35 years plus old around the end of the 1990s). Comparative analysis of longitudinal data would be required to disentangle cohort from age effects. 10 This gap is a little exaggerated by Northern Ireland which is an outlier at 72%, the next closest region is 10 percentage points lower at 63%.

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55 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1619 2024 2529 30 34 35 39 40 44 Age group (years) 45 49 50 54

M. Anyadike-Danes

HD UN SD OI ED

Ratio (%)

55 59

Fig. 3.

Female non-employment rate and its composition by age, regional average, ratio to population (%)

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80 70 60 Ratio (%) 50 40 30 20 10 0 1619 2024 2529 3034 3539 Age group 4044 4549 5054 5559 Range Min Max

Fig. 4.

Female non-employment by age, regional max., min. and range, ratio to population

modelling here parallels that for the working age group as a whole: a relationship was estimated between the log ratios for UN, ED, SD and HD (expressed as a ratio to OI) for each of the nine age groups and the non-employment rate11 and the model-based hypothesis tests are tabulated in the Appendix. Here we will focus on just one aspect of the results: the implications for the proportion sick/ disabled. Figure 5 displays the projected sick/disabled proportions for our nine age groups, where the proportion has been computed for two values: the regional minimum non-employment rate (South) and the regional maximum (North). The principal features of the pattern are very clear: first, the proportions rise monotonically with age; second,
11

and more significantly, the gradient12 rises steadily, increasing from age group to age group, and ultimately quite dramatically. For the oldest, preretirement, age group aged 55 to 59 years the sick/ disabled rate is 30% in the North, three times the 10% rate in the South. Indeed, for the two preceding age groups, the 45 to 49 year olds, and the 50 to 54 year olds the northern proportion is three times the proportion in the South.

V. The Gender Divide Across the Regions The simplest way of presenting malefemale differences in non-employment rates across

Since the non-employment here is serving as an indicator of the state of the labour market the overall female working age non-employment rate was use as the right hand side variable in each case. An alternative formulation using the age group specific non-employment rates produced results of the same general character. 12 The denominator of the gradient varies, of course, from age group to age group. It is the age group specific range depicted in Fig. 5. In the case of the two oldest age groups, for example, it is 20 percentage points so roughly equal to the vertical rise.

How well are women doing?

5559 5054 35 30 25 Ratio (%) 20 25 20 15 10 'South' 'North' 4549 4044 3539 3034 2529 2024 1619

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Fig. 5.

Female non-employment, sick/disabled by age projected North and South, ratio to population

Female (%)

Table 4. Non-employment rate and its components females and males, regional average ratio to population (%) Female
M +

Male 7.0 5.4 7.6 3.5 0.9 24.4

Difference 3.0 0.1 1.1 0.1 13.2 9.3

Male (%)

Fig. 6. Working age non-employment rates by region, female vs. male, ratio to population (%)

UN ED SD OI HD NEMP

4.0 5.5 6.5 3.6 14.1 33.7

the regions is to plot one series against the other.13 Figure 6 displays the data with male non-employment on the horizontal axis and female on the vertical. A straight line has been added to Fig. 6 which depicts the average relationship (female male 9.3) and this straight line fits the scatter fairly well.14 So it seems that for most regions the working age female non-employment rate is approximately the male rate plus just over 9 percentage points. Indeed, only two regions show a difference of more than 2 percentage points from the cross-regional average: East is above (female higher than average, given male) and Scotland below (female lower than average, given male).
13

Given the close correlation between nonemployment rates across gender it seems worth looking more closely at the detail of differences in composition by gender. One obvious way of asking the question is: when measured as a ratio to working age population, how large are the malefemale differences in the components of the non-employment rate? Table 4 provides the answer.15 The most striking feature of the figures is the similarity of the average rates for education, sick/disabled and the other inactive.16 The male and female rates for looking after the home are of course quite different (by 13 percentage points), and there is a clear gap in the

This comparison must be qualified by the recognition that the working age category for females (16 to 59 years) is five years shorter than that for males (16 to 64 years), and that non-employment rates among 60 to 64 year old males are relatively high. 14 The OLS estimate of the relationship is, female 0:83 male 13:4
0:08 2:1

R2 0:91

The hypothesis that the slope coefficient is 1.0 and the intercept 9.3 cannot be rejected at the 5% level. 15 For the background on male non-employment see Anyadike-Danes (2004). 16 Especially since the female working age population is, on average, younger: the female retirement age is 60 years, and the sick/disability rates among males 60 to 64 are relatively high.

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Table 5. Projected male and female non-employment rates, contribution of size effects to SouthNorth differences, ratio to population (%) Female UN ED SD OI HD 1.0 1.6 4.6 3.2 2.0 Male 0.5 0.6 4.0 2.9 Difference 0.5 2.2 0.6 0.3 2.0
Rate (%) 60 50 40 30 20

M. Anyadike-Danes

Male 10 0 16-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 Age (Years) Female Femx

Note: Male non-employment rates ranged from 16.5% in the South (South East) to 31.5% in the North (Northern Ireland), a SouthNorth range of 15 percentage points. See Anyadike-Danes (2004).

Fig. 7. Male and female non-employment by age, ratio to population, regional averages

unemployed rate too, with females on average 3 percentage points below males. So the bulk of the difference between male and female non-employment rates can be proximately accounted for by the difference in the rate for looking after the home plus the difference in the unemployed rate (9.3 % 13.2 3.0). One implication of the form of the relationship between male and female non-employment rates displayed in Fig. 6 is a reminder that they have the same southnorth range of 15 percentage points (for males: 16.5% to 31.5%; for females: 27.5% to 42.5%). This similarity makes it quite natural to compare the NorthSouth size effects since these are, by construction, corrected for differences in scale. The figures are presented in Table 5. Generally the size effects are quite small. For three of the components unemployment, sick/disabled and other inactive they are less than one percentage point. In each of these categories, then, male and female rates show approximately the same South North variation. Only two show significant variations education plus two percentage points; and looking after the home, minus two percentage points. The second of these is quite predictable, we know the female looking-after-the-home rate declines (relative to a male rate which is small and shows little variation across regions). Less evident though is the finding, as we move South to North, that the female education rate has a steeper slope than the male. Finally, let us turn to malefemale comparisons by age group. It might have been anticipated that male non-employment rates, like those for females would display much the same characteristics shape over the life course. Less expected, though foreshadowed by the cross-regional relationship for the working age group as a whole, is the degree of similarity. As Fig. 7 illustrates, if the looking-after-the-home proportion is
17

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45 40 35 30 Ratio (%) 25 20 15 10 5 0 'South' 'North' 60-64 55-59 50-54 45-49 40-44 35-39 30-34 25-29 20-24 16-19

Fig. 8. Male non-employment, sick/disabled by age, projected North and South, ratio to population

deducted the regional average rates for males and females are almost identical. Even more remarkable is the similarity in the NorthSouth gradient in the sick/ disabled rate by age. Figure 8 displays the data for males17 and the resemblance to that for females in Fig. 5 is striking: note the rates for 55 to 59 year old males are around 30% in the North (much the same as for females) and are about three times the corresponding rate in the South (again, much the same as for females). Indeed, in respect of sick/ disabled rates the situation of older females seems virtually identical to that of males.

VI. Conclusion Female non-employment rates vary considerably across UK regions in recent years they have ranged from less than 30% (in the South East) to more than 40% (in Northern Ireland). There is also a

These figures are taken from Anyadike-Danes (2004).

How well are women doing?

systematic pattern of variation in the composition of female non-employment, a pattern that is correlated with the size of the non-employment rate. Most notably the sick/disabled share of non-employed females in the North (about 25%) is around threequarters larger than it is in the South (where it is about 15%). Alternatively, measured as a ratio to population, this translates into a sick/disabled rate which is two-and-a-half times higher in the North (where it is 11%) than in the South (where it is 4%). By contrast, the unemployed share and the unemployed to population ratio hardly vary at all. One way of illustrating the implication of the relationship between the size and composition of female non-employment is to perform a simple counterfactual calculation. We can apply the southern share to the northern rate and then compare that hypothetical share to the actual northern share. The difference between them (multiplied by the nonemployment rate) is the size effect produced by the dependence of composition on size. Here the North records a large positive size effect for sickness/ disability and almost equally large negative size effect for other inactive (essentially the retired). Equally noteworthy are the strong similarities between male and female non-employment. Of course female non-employment is higher around 13% of female working age population is looking after the home but the share of that category varies relatively little across regions. So it turns out, perhaps surprisingly, that the composition of female nonemployment otherwise quite closely resembles that of males. Not only is the regional average sick/ disability rate (the ratio of the numbers sick/disabled to the population) for females roughly equal to the male rate, but also they both exhibit the same strong dependence of the sick/disabled share of the non-employed on the size of the nonemployment rate.

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Anyadike-Danes, M. K. (2004) The real NorthSouth divide? Regional gradients in UK male nonemployment, Regional Studies, 38, 8595. Beatty, C. and Fothergill, S. (2002) Hidden unemployment among men: a case study, Regional Studies, 36, 81123. Beatty, C., Fothergill, S. and Macmillan, R. (2000) A theory of unemployment and sickness, Regional Studies, 34, 61730. Desai, T., Gregg, P., Steer, J. and Wadsworth, J. (1999) Gender and the labour market, in The State of Working Britain (Eds) P. Gregg and J. Wadsworth, ch. 10, Manchester University Press, Manchester. Dickens, R., Gregg, P. and Wadsworth, J. (2001) Overview of the British labour market in recovery, The State of Working Britain Update 2001, ch. 1, Centre for Economic Performance, London. Disney, R. and Webb, S. (1991) Why are there so many long term sick in Britain, Economic Journal, 101, 25262. Faggio, G. and Nickell, S. (2003) The rise in inactivity amongst adult men, in The Labour Market Under New Labour: The State of Working Britain (Eds) R. Dickens, P. Gregg and J. Wadsworth, ch. 3, Palgrave Macmillan, London. Fry, J., Fry, T. and Mclaren, K. (2000) Compositional data analysis and zeros in microdata, Applied Economics, 32, 9539. Fry, J., Fry, T., Mclaren, K. and Smith, T. (2001) Modelling zeros in microdata, Applied Economics, 33, 38392. Gregg, P. and Wadsworth, J. (1999) Economic inactivity, in The State of Working Britain (Eds) P. Gregg and J. Wadsworth, ch. 3, Manchester University Press, Manchester. HM Treasury (2001) The Changing Welfare State: Employment Opportunity for All, HM Treasury, London. HM Treasury (2003) Full Employment in Every Region, HM Treasury, London. Jones, J., Joyce, M. and Thomas, J. (2003) Nonemployment and labour availability, Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Autumn, 291303. Lewis, J. and Townsend, A. (Eds) (1989) The NorthSouth Divide, Paul Chapman Publishing, London. Molho, I. (1991) Going on to invalidity benefit: a study for women, Applied Economics, 23, 156977. Nickell, S. and Quintini, G. (2002) The recent performance of the UK labour market, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 18, 20220. Robinson, H. (2003) Gender and labour market performance, in The Labour Market Under New Labour: The State of Working Britain (Eds) R. Dickens, P. Gregg and J. Wadsworth, ch. 15, Palgrave Macmillan, London. Wilson, S. (2001) Work and the accommodation of chronic illness: a re-examination of the health labour supply relationship, Applied Economics, 33, 113956.

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References
Aitchison, J. (1986) The Analysis of Compositional Data, (Chapman and Hall London; reprinted 2003), Blackburn Press, Caldwell, New Jersey. Alcock, P., Beatty, C., Fothergill, S., MacMillan, R. and Yeandle, S. (2003) Work to Welfare: How Men Become Detached from the Labour Market, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

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Appendix Data sources and construction The data used here are from the spring 1995 to 2002 sweeps of the Labour Force Survey and were supplied by the Statistics Branch of Northern Ireland Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment. In the Labour Force Survey the employed are defined as, . . . people aged 16 or over who did some paid work in the reference week (whether as an employee or self-employed); those who had a job that they were temporarily away from (on holiday, for example); those on government-supported training and employment programmes; and those doing unpaid family work. The term non-employed is defined here as all those of working age (16 to 59 for females, 16 to 64 for males) who were not employed plus those classified as employed who were on, the government-supported training and employment programmes. The five category classification of non-employment used here is built up from the almost 30 categories distinguished in the Labour Force Survey itself. The LFS categories are listed in Tables A1 and A2

M. Anyadike-Danes
below shows how our non-employment categories relate to it.

The model, the coefficient estimates and the projected shares Following Aitchison (1986), the first step in modelling a compositional dataset is to form a set of log ratios. Since we have four categories: unemployed (UN); in education and training (ED); sick/disabled (SD); looking after the home (HD); and retired and other inactive (OI)) we form three ratios and with OI as the base category. We then take natural logarithms of the ratio and have three relationships to estimate,   UN U U lnNEM ln OI   ED ln E E lnNEM OI   SD ln S S lnNEM OI   HD ln H H lnNEM OI

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Table A1. LFS categories Category number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 LFS (INECACA) category Employee Self-employed Government scheme Unpaid family worker ILO unemployed Inactive, seeking, unavailable, student Inactive, seeking, unavailable, home/family Inactive, seeking, unavailable, temp sick Inactive, seeking, unavailable, long-term sick/disabled Inactive, seeking, unavailable, other reason Inactive, seeking, unavailable, no reason Inactive, not seeking, would like, waiting on results of job application Inactive, not seeking, would like, student Inactive, not seeking, would like, home/family Inactive, not seeking, would like, temp sick Inactive, not seeking, would like, long-term sick/disabled Inactive, not seeking, would like, believes no job available Inactive, not seeking, would like, not yet looking Inactive, not seeking, would like, not looked Inactive, not seeking, would like, no reason Inactive, not seeking, would not like job, waiting on results of job application Inactive, not seeking, would not like job, student Inactive, not seeking, would not like job, home/family Inactive, not seeking, would not like job, temp sick Inactive, not seeking, would not like job, long term sick/disabled Inactive, not seeking, would not like job, does not need/want job Inactive, not seeking, would not like job, retired Inactive, not seeking, would not like job, other reason Inactive, not seeking, would not like job, no reason

How well are women doing?

Table A2. Non-employment and LFS categories Non-employment Education and training Unemployed Sick/disabled Home/family duties Retired/other inactive Corresponding LFS categories 3 6 13 22 5 8 9 15 16 24 25 7 14 23 10 11 12 17 18 19 20 21 26 27 28 29

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To find solutions for the shares conditional on values for (the exogenous) NEM we first exponentiate the share equations. So we have: UN e1:087 NEM0:035 OI ED e1:771 NEM0:064 OI SD e2:383 NEM0:087 OI HD e0:026 NEM0:041 OI Then we can substitute each of these expressions into the adding-up condition which becomes an equation for OI in terms of NEM. We have: h 100 OI e1:087 NEM0:035 e1:771 NEM0:064 e2:383 NEM0:087 i e0:026 NEM0:041 OI which can be rewritten as,

Table A3. Coefficient estimates for females of working age UN ED 1.771 0.064 SD 2.383 0.087 HD 0.026 0.041

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1.087 0.035

where NEM is the non-employment rate. The coefficients were estimated using OLS, and the restricted model (all i, i 0) was decisively rejected (p5105). The coefficient estimates are set out in Table A3. A noteworthy feature of these coefficients is that the  in the unemployment equation and the  in the looking-after-the-home equation are of the same sign and almost the same magnitude.18 Evidently the nature and extent of dependence of the log ratio of the share on the non-employment rate is virtually the same for these two categories of non-employment. By contrast, the dependence coefficients for the other two are much larger, with the sick/disabled coefficient twice that of unemployment and education. In order to derive the projected composition of non-employment it is necessary to solve the model using the three sets of estimated relationships and the adding up constraint. We have the following four equations:   UN 1:087 0:035 lnNEM ln OI   ED 1:771 0:064 lnNEM ln OI   SD 2:383 0:087 lnNEM ln OI   HD 0:026 0:041 lnNEM ln OI UN ED SD OI HD 100
18

OI

100 1Z

where, h Z  e1:087 NEM0:035 e1:771 NEM0:064 i e2:383 NEM0:087 e0:026 NEM0:041 We can then solve for the other four shares and the equation for the unemployment share is, for example,   100 UN e1:087 NEM0:035 1 Z where Z is defined as before. The unemployment solution and those for the other three non-employment categories are then used, in conjunction with the low and high values of the non-employment rate, to produce the projections displayed on and Tables 1 and 2. Calculation of scale and size effects The scale component of NorthSouth differences displayed in Table 3 are constructed by multiplying each component in the South column by the ratio of the overall NorthSouth nonemployment rate difference to the southern nonemployment rate (that is, by 0.545 [(42.5 U 27.5)/ 27.5]). The size component was then calculated by subtracting the scale effect from the North South difference in the component (as recorded in Table 2).

Indeed it is not possible to reject the model which restricts them to be equal.

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Table A4. Model tests for females by age group Age group (years) 1619 2024 2529 3034 3539 4044 4549 5054 5559 Preferred model U , U , U , U , U , U , U , U , U ,  E,  S ,  H 0  E,  S ,  H 0  E,  S ,  H 0 E, H 0, S 6 0 E, H 0, S 6 0 E, S, H 6 0 E 0, S, H 6 0 E 0, S, H 6 0 E 0, S, H 6 0

M. Anyadike-Danes
unemployed 16 to 19 year olds (UN1619) we have for example,   UN1619 U1619 U1619 lnNEM ln OI1619 Note that to maintain comparability between coefficient estimates across age groups we used the overall level of non-employment (NEM), not nonemployment by age, on the right hand side (in practice, this makes no difference to the significance tests). The estimated coefficients for each age group (where significant) were combined with the North (42.5%) and South (27.5%) figures for overall working age non-employment to generate projections for each age group (as in the model for working age women). The projected sick/disabled shares were then transformed into the North and South ratios to population displayed in Fig. 5. The male component in Table 5 and the projected sick/disabled rates by age for males plotted in Fig. 8 were calculated in a parallel fashion. For a discussion of the model for males see Anyadike-Danes (2004).

Note: Coefficient estimates and details of model significance tests available from author on request.

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Modelling female non-employment by age group The relationship between the size of the nonemployment rate and its composition can be estimated, using the same simple model, for each of the five-year age groups. The estimated equations for each age group are as before. So for