Example employment dissertation topic 1:

One hundred years of unemployment benefit: The changing realities of welfare provision

The social reforms enacted under David Lloyd George brought to social security safety to the masses through the introduction of National Insurance. One hundred years later, the proposed welfare reforms of Iain Duncan Smith have been described as the largest changes wrought to social security in a generation. Charting the rise of welfarism and questioning the on-going sustainability of its universality in an era of prolonged austerity, this is a dissertation that synthesises the legal and social aspects of work and benefits with political ideology and contemporary societal developments. This is a fascinating dissertation topic that could be tailored to accommodate a number of individual areas of expertise.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Arni, P., Lalive, R. and Van Ours, J.C. (2012). ‘How effective are unemployment benefit sanctions? Looking beyond unemployment exit’. Journal of Applied Econometrics (ahead-of-print) DOI: 10.1002/jae.2289.
• Starke, P. (2008). ‘Radical welfare state retrenchment: A comparative analysis’. Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, vol. 33, 192-195.
• Warr, P. and Jackson, P. (2011). ‘Men without jobs: Some correlates of age and length of unemployment’. Journal of Occupational Psychology, vol. 57(1), pp. 77-85.