Andrew Jenkins

• PhD
• Associate Professor at University College London

This paper draws on longitudinal birth cohort data for Britain to analyse participation in learning activities by people in their 30s and 40s. People in this age group have received less attention than either young adults or people in retirement. Yet technical change and the need for new skills make it important for them to engage in learning to im...

Finding interventions which can address the decline of cognitive function as people get older is of great importance to policy-makers, especially in post-industrial societies with rapidly ageing populations. We examine the impact of several different types of mentally stimulating activities on cognitive function in a sample of community-dwelling Eu...

The literature on educational choices and participation has tended to focus on youth and to some extent on older adults, with little attention to the group in between. This paper therefore analyses participation in various types of learning by people in their 30s and 40s. This group are often juggling career and family life commitments meaning that...

This study examines the impact of universities’ reputation on teaching income and demonstrates how strongly reputation may affect the fees that they can charge. Higher Education is increasingly competitive and international, and institutions are preoccupied with national and international prestige. Research output is demonstrably central to reputat...

There is a growing interest among researchers in the impact of locality on young people who are inactive and not engaged in education, employment or training (NEETs). Previous research on this, however, is rather limited and does not account for a number of characteristics that mediate the effects of disadvantaged neighbourhoods on transition outco...

This paper investigates why people return to study in their 30s and beyond and upgrade to a higher level qualifications. Some previous research has argued that attitudes formed in childhood, via family background and schooling, continue to shape a person’s engagement in learning throughout the adult lifecourse. Psychologists distinguish extrinsic m...

The importance of people gaining new, and high-level, qualifications in adulthood has been much emphasised in policy rhetoric. It is widely assumed that adults should engage in learning throughout their working life in order to adapt to changing conditions in the labour market and to ensure that national economies remain competitive in a global ski...

Supporters and critics of free schools in England have had differing expectations about whether free schools would emerge in socially disadvantaged areas, and whether they would become socially selective. We investigate the outcomes, using information from the first three years since the introduction of the first new schools in 2011, drawn from the...

There is a growing interest among researchers and policy-makers in the influence of adult learning on a range of outcomes, notably health and well-being. Much of the research to date has tended to focus on younger adults and the immediate benefits of course participation. The longer-term outcomes, such as the potential of accumulated learning exper...

This paper examines the degree to which British adults participating in workplace literacy courses improved their reading comprehension skills, using longitudinal data which cover the period from enrolment until between two and three years later. Learners were tested using an instrument designed explicitly for adults, with two parallel forms. For t...

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There is growing interest in factors which can contribute to the wellbeing of older adults. Participation in learning could have beneficial effects, but to date research on the benefits of learning has tended to focus on young people or those in mid-life and there is currently little evidence on the impact of learning on the wellbeing of older adul...

This research used longitudinal data to explore the extent to which people were gaining qualifications in adulthood from ages 23 to 50 and also the amount of “upgrading” (moving to higher levels of qualification than previously held). IOE Research Briefings are short descriptions of significant research findings, based on the wide range of projects...

In an ageing society such as the UK, there is much interest in factors which can contribute to the wellbeing of older adults. It is not implausible to suppose that participation in learning could have beneficial effects, yet research on the wider benefits of learning has tended to focus on young people or those in mid-life and there is currently li...

Policy makers have placed much emphasis on the importance of people continuing to obtain qualifications in adulthood in order to adapt to changing conditions in the labour market, and on the need for a highly skilled workforce if the UK is to remain a competitive economy. In this paper I analyse the extent to which people acquired qualifications in...

This paper analyses the regulatory attitudes to asset valuation in the twentieth century. It focuses in particular on the US experience from Smith v Ames 169 US 466 (1898) to Federal Power Commission v Hope Natural Gas 320 US 591 (194418. Federal Power Commission v. Hope Natural Gas Co. 320 U.S. 591 (1944).View all references) and on the experience...

This paper reports the findings of research on relationships between depression and participation in learning using data from a large sample of older adults. The objective was to establish whether learning can reduce the risk of depression. Data were obtained from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a nationally-representative sample of adult...

The objective of this research was to identify the effects of participation in learning on the subjective wellbeing of older adults. Data were from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), a large-scale, nationally representative survey of those aged 50 and above. The survey contains several wellbeing measures and information on three types...

This study draws on the Millennium Cohort Study to explore the housing and neighbourhood circumstances of children born in England in 2000 at the age of 5 in 2006. The majority of children experienced good housing conditions. Those in social rented homes, and to a lesser extent in private rented homes too, were markedly disadvantaged in terms of fa...

This report sets out findings from new research on the relationships between the literacy and numeracy levels of older adults and the extent of disadvantage in later life. The research consisted of a review of the literature and secondary analysis of a quantitative data source on older adults. The new findings in this report are based on quantitati...

This document presents findings from research on the relationships between the literacy and numeracy levels of older adults and the extent of disadvantage in later life. Looks at data on proficiency, changes over the life course, and work. Identifies key evidence gaps. Considers the measurement of literacy and numeracy and contains findings on whet...

This report for CEDEFOP considers the meso-social benefits for social groups and communities. This is a subject of considerable interest both academically in terms of the contribution of VET at the community level, and in policy terms, as agendas in European countries are orientated towards community cohesion and active, participatory citizenship....

Modern societies demand high levels of literacy. The written word is pervasive; individuals with poor literacy skills are deeply disadvantaged; and governments are increasingly pre-occupied with the contribution that skills can make to economic growth. As a result, the basic skills of adult workers are of concern as never before, a focus for workpl...

Improving educational achievement in UK schools is a priority, and of particular concern is the low achievement of specific groups, such as those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. An obvious question is whether we should be improving the outcomes of these pupils by spending more on their education. The literature on the effect of educational s...

The education policies of governments have become increasingly directed towards economic ends, including the development of workforce skills. UK governments have been particularly committed to such policies and have adopted some quite distinctive tools, relying heavily on targets and emphasizing certificated rather than uncertificated learning. The...

In England, the government has encouraged state secondary schools to be more diverse by becoming specialist. This paper reports estimates of the relative effectiveness of specialist schools for pupils' attainment in General Certificate of Secondary School examinations in 2001 compared to nonspecialist comprehensive schools, controlling for pupils'...

Policy makers place increasing emphasis on the importance of lifelong learning in enabling more people, not just the registered unemployed, who are out of the labour force to move back into employment, or even into employment for the first time. However, there is very little reliable evidence on the economic effects of formal learning undertaken by...

In recent decades there has been a well-documented increase in organisations' use of formal tests for selection purposes. This article investigates whether tests' technical qualities and predictive validity are the critical determinants of take-up, or whether other organisational and contextual factors are more important. Case studies of organisati...

ClendinningAnne. Demons of Domesticity: Women and the English Gas Industry, 1889–1939. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2004. xvii + 352 pp. ISBN 0-7546-0692-9, $109.95 (cloth). - Volume 7 Issue 1 - Andrew Jenkins

Enterprise & Society 7.1 (2006) 195-197 This book examines the role of women, both as employees and as consumers, in the English gas industry in the fifty years between the 1880s and the eve of the Second World War. By the late nineteenth century, the gas industry was well established throughout England, using coal as its main raw material and with...

One of the most important and controversial questions for the economics of education is whether increasing the level of school resources improves student outcomes. In this paper we investigate the effects of school resources on student attainment in English secondary schools using a unique and incredibly rich national data set, which contains infor...

This report summarises the results from a project investigating the effect of additional school resources on pupil attainment in examinations for the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). Specifically, we apply quantitative methods to a large, representative dataset to answer the following research questions. What is the impact of a ma...

In this paper we review the literature on the impact of workplace basic skills training on individuals, as measured by their effects on wages and employment probability. In addition, we also examine studies on the returns to individuals of general training at the workplace. On the whole, the evidence suggests that better numeracy and literacy skill...

Privatised utilities are typically characterised by both undervaluation and underpricing. When faced with this problem, regulators have tended to employ a market-value approach to determine the regulatory asset base. This paper analyses this approach and shows that it magnifies the impact of any 'short-lived' error at privatisation and has the effe...

This article analyses government-industry relations in the nationalised British gas industry in the 1950s and 1960s. New archival research suggests that the government exercised a relatively benign influence on the gas industry in this period. The gas industry was provided with adequate funds for investment, its pricing strategies were not seriousl...

Enterprise & Society 4.4 (2004) 708-710 Dieter Helm's new book traces the development of what may be termed the market approach to energy policy introduced by the Conservative governments in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s. The major steps in this process were the privatization of the gas and electricity industries and the restructuring and liberali...

We study the impact of employment quota on firms' demand for disabled workers. The Austrian Disabled Persons Employment Act (DPEA) requires firms to provide at least one job to a disabled worker per 25 non-disabled workers, a rule which is strictly enforced by non-compliance taxation. We find that, as a result of the discontinuous nature of the non...

Despite the policy importance of lifelong learning, there is very little hard evidence from the UK on (a) who undertakes lifelong learning and why, and (b) the economic benefits of lifelong learning. This paper uses a rich longitudinal panel data set to look at key factors that determine whether someone undertakes lifelong learning and then models...

Why are similar workers paid differently? I review and compare two lines of research that have recently witnessed great progress in addressing “unexplained” wage inequality: (i) worker unobserved heterogeneity in, and sorting by, human capital; (ii) firms’ monopsony power in labor markets characterized by job search frictions. Both lines share a vi...

This paper examines the current growth in psychometric testing for recruitment, and the degree to which it reflects dissatisfaction with formal qualifications in the general education and/or vocational sectors, changes in skill needs, or other non-education related factors. It is a companion piece to Jenkins (2001) which reviews the evidence on lev...