ABSTRACT This paper explores how the various pressures of finance, employability and part-time work are experienced by undergraduates studying in an English Red Brick University. Drawing on the results of a 3-year qualitative study that followed 40 students throughout their 3 years of studies (n₁ = 40, n₂ = 40, n₃ = 38, ntotal = 118), the paper details three dimensions by which students understood their part-time employment experiences: the characteristics of employment types; motivations for employment and the challenges of shaping their employment experiences around their studies. It is argued that the current shortfalls in the student budget and the pressures of the employability agenda may actually serve to further disadvantage the lower income groups in the form of a ‘double deficit’. Not only are discrepancies between income and expenditure likely to mean that additional monies are necessary to study for a degree, the resulting need for part-time employment is also likely to constrain both degree outcome and capacity to enhance skills necessary for ‘employability’.

This article critically examines how undergraduate students in a red brick university in the North of England have experienced the threefold rise in tuition fees since 2012, with particular attention on how they have begun to understand and negotiate the process of indebtedness. Drawing on a corpus of 118 interviews conducted with a group of 40 undergraduates across their whole student lifecycle, analysis is directed toward examining how students have variously sought to respond to the policy, reconcile the debt with their decision to study at university and, begin to negotiate a life of everyday indebtedness. The findings are located in the context of wider neoliberal policy trends that have continued to emphasise 'cost-sharing' as a mechanism for increased investment within the higher education sector generally, and individual fiscal responsibility specifically. Given the lack of any other viable career pathways for both lower and higher income students, they had to accept indebtedness as inevitable and take what comfort they could from the discourses of 'foregone gain' that they had been presented with. Evidently, and as the students in our sample well recognised, whether those discourses actually reflect the future remains to be seen. There is also no evidence within our data that students anticipated the subsequent changes to the repayment terms and conditions - a fact that is likely to compound feelings of economic powerlessness and constrain their capacity for financial agency yet further.

Background There have been recent suggestions that the majority of cancers are caused by random cell mutations, as opposed to environmental and inheritable factors. We hypothesise that if this is the case, then there would be no geographical patterning to cancer mortality rates at the neighbourhood level. Our paper presents a test of this hypothesis for England and Wales. Methods Mortality data for England and Wales (2006–2009) are used for Middle Super Output Areas (mean population size 7200). We focus on the 16 most prevalent cancers. Age- and sex-standardised mortality ratios were calculated. The global Moran's I is used to estimate the spatial autocorrelation of each cause of death, detailing the degree of geographical clustering each displays. We also use the local Moran's I to explore the patterns of any clustering found. Results Lung cancer was found to have a strong geographical clustering at the neighbourhood level (I = 0.431, 95% CI = 0.417–0.445). However, few other cancers were found to have any clustering, with I values mostly below 0.1. Only those causes related to poor diet and increased alcohol consumption (associated to social factors) displayed some degree of clustering (stomach cancer I = 0.185, 95% CI = 0.171–0.199; liver cancer I = 0.117, 95% CI = 0.103–0.131). Results were consistent after completing sensitivity analyses. Discussion Our results suggest that the majority of the most prevalent cancers have somewhat random geographical patterns, supporting our hypothesis. Nevertheless, social and environmental factors were still important for some cancers including lung, stomach and liver cancers. The results have important implications for policy, as if cancer development is mostly random then there is greater need for focusing on early detection and increasing awareness as opposed to tackling environmental risk factors.

This paper describes how the UK’s National Classification of Output Areas was validated through the use of ground-truthing conducted by the authors. To get an independent view on the classification across a wide spread of places, a consultation exercise was devised inviting colleagues and contacts to comment on the classification for an area with which they are familiar. This proved to be a largely successful exercise. Not only did it broadly support the quality of the classification, but respondents also provided a wealth of comments and suggestions for current and future work.

SummaryThe paper describes the creation of the Office for National Statistics 2001 output area classification, which was created in collaboration with the authors. The classification places each 2001 census output area into one of seven clusters based on the socio-economic attributes of the residents of each area. The classification uses cluster analysis to reduce 41 census variables to a single socio-economic indicator. The classification was made available with a host of supporting and descriptive information as a National Statistic via National Statistics on line. The classification forms part of a suite of area classifications that were produced by the Office for National Statistics from 2001 census data. Classifications of local authorities, statistical wards and health areas are also available.