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    Deliberating Upon the Living Wage to Alleviate In-Work Poverty: A Rhetorical Inquiry Into Key Stakeholder Accounts
    (Frontiers Media S.A, 2022-06) Hodgetts DJ; Young-Hauser AM; Arrowsmith J; Parker J; Carr SC; Haar J; Alefaio S
    Most developed nations have a statutory minimum wage set at levels insufficient to alleviate poverty. Increased calls for a living wage have generated considerable public controversy. This article draws on 25 interviews and four focus groups with employers, low-pay industry representatives, representatives of chambers of commerce, pay consultants, and unions. The core focus is on how participants use prominent narrative tropes for the living wage and against the living wage to argue their respective perspectives. We also document how both affirmative and negative tropes are often combined by participants to craft their own rhetorical positions on the issue.
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    Pandemic or Not, Worker Subjective Wellbeing Pivots About the Living Wage Point: A Replication, Extension, and Policy Challenge in Aotearoa New Zealand
    (Frontiers Media S.A, 2022-07) Carr SC; Haar J; Hodgetts D; Jones H; Arrowsmith J; Parker J; Young-Hauser A; Alefaio-Tugia S
    Recent pre-pandemic research suggests that living wages can be pivotal for enhancing employee attitudes and subjective wellbeing. This article explores whether or not the present COVID-19 pandemic is impacting pivotal links between living wages and employee attitudes and subjective wellbeing, with replication indicating robustness. Twin cohorts each of 1,000 low-waged workers across New Zealand (NZ), one pre- (2018), and one present-pandemic (2020) were sample surveyed on hourly wage, job attitudes, and subjective wellbeing as linked to changes in the world of work associated with the pandemic (e.g., job security, stress, anxiety, depression, and holistic wellbeing). Using locally estimated scatter-point smoothing, job attitudes and subjective wellbeing scores tended to pivot upward at the living wage level in NZ. These findings replicate earlier findings and extend these into considering subjective wellbeing in the context of a crisis for employee livelihoods and lives more generally. Convergence across multiple measures, constructs, and contexts, suggests the positive impacts of living wages are durable. We draw inspiration from systems dynamics to argue that the present government policy of raising legal minimum wages (as NZ has done) may not protect subjective wellbeing until wages cross the living wage Rubicon. Future research should address this challenge.
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    Understandings of wellbeing in the context of a living wage : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, Massey University, Aotearoa New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2021) Lorth, Christina
    Academic, public, and media interest in the living wage (LW) is rising in Aotearoa/New Zealand (NZ) and globally. This is due, in part, to the growing inequalities and the need to find viable solutions to issues of income (in)adequacy and its impacts on wellbeing. This thesis addresses the lack of research into everyday wellbeing among low-income workers’ who have experiences of the LW in Aotearoa/NZ. A narrative approach informed by hermeneutic phenomenology and social practice theories were used to examine five case studies. Each case consisted of enhanced, semi-structured interviews (n=10 in total) and photo-elicitation projects that offered insights into participants’ experiences of wellbeing and the LW. This thesis documents how participants construct wellbeing as fundamentally relational, dynamic, and as a complex collection of multiple and interconnected dimensions. These manifest through everyday interactions with people, objects, practices, and places. The findings support the assertion that earning a LW has implications for participants’ wellbeing, increases civic and social participation and leisure activities, and enhances the overall quality of life. Key considerations also include work characteristics, relationships, material living conditions, and household composition. This research aligns with existing research and offers more holistic, nuanced, and context-specific understandings of wellness and the LW.