Social science sites of the week

In the news this week

Brexit : the UK has gone mad! Read the New York Times opinion piece

PM statement on Brexit: 2 April 2019
Jeremy Corbyn statement on Twitter
DUP statement
European Commission reaction
President Macron reactions -
including statement an extension is not automatic
Norbert Rottgen
Denmark Prime Minister
Guy Verhofstadt
CBI director twitter
CBI national emergency
Federation of Small Businesses reaction.
Plotting of voting patterns in the indicative votes @simon Hix LSE an amazing mapping

Brexit Timeline- House of Commons Library

Se the full listing on our blog.


20 years of the National Minimum Wage - what has been the impact?

On 1 April 1999 the National Minimum Wage (NMW) was introduced – a £3.60 wage for everyone aged 23 and over.

According to a Uk government report from the Low Pay Commission.
30% of workers have benefited either directly or indirectly from the minimum wage – with up to 7 million individuals a year feeling the benefits
but what do other commentators think?Try these links to make up your own mind
In a special blog posting the Resolution Foundation- found that it had not led to unemployment
However at the same time 'Reductions in hours worked, particularly amongst lower earning men, have countered the inequality reducing impact of the NMW.

According to the TUC workers between 21-24 have missed out
Unison also highlights similar issues and GMB makes the point about a much greater rise in bosses wages
Professor Len Shackleton, Editorial Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs has written for CapX on the 20th anniversary of the National Minimum Wage. on the relationship between the wage and the war on poverty
Also useful is IFS 2018 report on living standards and the impact of the National Minimum Wage
it makes some positive remarks but also adds. However, 'the minimum wage is not particularly well targeted at low-income households, as many low-wage workers are members of middle-income households and many of the poorest in society are not in work at all.' . They have also published a brief review of the possible impact of the recent rise in wages.

Joseph Rowntree Foundation campaigns of a living wage and has materials on its website about in work poverty. 

MediArXiv launched

A great new scholar-led digital archive for media, film and communication studies—has just been launched by the Jeff Pooley, Associate Professor of Media & Communication, Muhlenberg College (USA) . Papers are being gradually added. Certainly one to watchOther good sources include:
SSRN Papers
Core Open access research papers

Ukraine - get the facts on the election results.

Voting in Ukraine means that a comedian could be the next president. Here are some facts on the recent election
The Central Election committee has results and regulations. The site is not currently available in English

Election observations
OSCE mounted an election observation mission. Find details and reports on its website
The European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO)
PACE - Council of Europe
Background analysis on the state of democracy in Ukraine from leading think tanks
Atlantic Council
OSW
Chatham House
Wilson Center
Brookings Institution.
United States Institute of Peace
Foreign Affairs
Carnegie Europe

2019 United Nations Peacekeeping Ministerial Conference on Uniformed Capabilities, Performance and Protection on 29 March 2019 at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

The videoed speeches and resolutions from this conference are now available on a special website.
They include a gender parity strategy for increasing the number of women in peacekeeping operations.

This week it is World Autism awareness week

the United Nations has also designated 2nd April World Autism Day. Read the original resolution and get facts from the website

What is the cost of Autism?
According to work at the LSE The cost of autism in the UK is £32 billion per year in treatment, lost earnings, care and support for children and adults with autism. Read more about their research and access recent findings

Indeed in 2016 an NAS report on employment found that only '16% are in full-time paid work. but 77% of those unemployed wanted to work '

Get free information on the latest academic research
The National Autistic society provides free access to its bibliographies which reference research articles added to its library catalogue and the
Research Autism database
Network Autism is a network for sharing experience, knowledge and information for professionals in the field
PubMed- medical articles


Women in Politics 2019 – Map
A great resource from the IPU includes statistics on leadership, heads of state and ministerial positions worldwide. Compare with 2017

Facebook Ads Library
Who pays for adverts on Facebook? This free resource will have data for 7 years of all political and other advertising on Facebook and Instagram regular reports on trends will also be provided. It displays Page creation dates, mergers with other Pages, Page name changes and where a Page is managed from, and the option to report an ad for policy violations. The help page provides information on an API. There are country specific versions.

Finally with Easter approaching.
Some religious calendars from the Great British Library, bNF medieval French, English manuscripts.

See Bedes reckoning of time
See this article on religious calendars
800 manuscripts digitised and included in full on the French site .
Highlights plus articles and selected examples on the British Library English version