This paper offers two key arguments. The first is that HRM scholars and HR practitioners need to pay a good deal more attention to the bi‐directional relationship between menopause and the workplace—how menopausal symptoms can affect women's experience of work and how work can exacerbate a woman's symptoms. We outline the social responsibility, demographic, legal and business cases which explain the urgency of more research and more concerted practice in this area. Our second argument concerns the importance of future research and practice adopting an intersectional political economy approach, in order to better understand the considerable differences between how women going through menopause transition experience work. Here, we offer arguments ranging from the macro‐ through the meso‐ down to the micro‐level of these differences, in so doing setting an agenda for the work to come on this very significant issue.

Objectives: This study explored experiences of, attitudes to and knowledge about menopause in the workplace among participants from the UK to assess the extent to which the menopause remains a taboo in this context. Method: An online survey was distributed via TUC (Trades Union Congress, UK) networks and social media and was completed by 5399 respondents. Questions explored three key issues relating to menopause at work: respondents' own experiences of menopause transition; disclosure at work; and availability of information on menopause at work. Result: The largest group (43.4%) of respondents were perimenopausal and 16.8% were post-menopausal. 12.3% indicated that they might be experiencing menopause but were not sure. Only 45.8% had disclosed their menopause status at work. Fewer than 20% were provided with information about menopause in their workplace but the majority would like such information to be available. Conclusion: The survey findings suggest some progress has been made to raise awareness about menopause in the workplace but that substantial work remains to be done to ensure women transitioning through menopause are supported.

This paper discusses the issue of choice as it applies to long-term unemployed and vulnerable individuals. It argues that the combination of poor employment opportunities, requirements, compulsions and sanctions has not merely reduced available choice for individuals with multiple barriers to re-/join the labour market but has also resulted in curtailed decision-making abilities when it comes to their pathways into employment. The outcomes can include protective resistance as a response to the extent of regulation, which may undermine engagement in job search and related activities. Despite attempts by benevolent staff in a charity to provide support and enhance capabilities that result in the overcoming of protective resistance, they operate within a broader institutional framework of choice as set by government policy. The end result is compulsion, not choice.

This article introduces a special issue of Work, Employment and Society on solidarities in and through the experience of work in an age of austerity and political polarisation. It commences by discussing the renaissance of studies of solidarity in the workplace – and beyond. Debates on solidarity as a concept are reviewed in relation to moral economy, labour organising-mobilisation, emotional labour and public sociology. Each of the special issue articles assess the value of the solidarity concept under contemporary conditions. Between them they explore solidarity among gig economy delivery riders (Italy and UK), special needs teachers (England), volunteer lifeboat crews (UK and Ireland) and international ‘social factory’ activists. Two articles examine solidarity within organised labour: first, internationalism among dock workers and second, North American police unions’ construction of a divisive ‘blue solidarity’. The article concludes by calling for continued study of different forms of solidarity in and through work, especially among migrants and individualised workers.

This article explores the way in which government policy shapes the lives of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). In particular it examines how the concept of NEETs is set within a specific infrastructure and discourse for managing and supporting young people. The article provides a brief history of the NEET concept and NEET initiatives, before moving on to scrutinise the policies of the Coalition Government. A key distinction is made between those policies and practices that seek to prevent young people becoming NEET from those that seek to re-engage those who are NEET. It is argued that the Coalition has drawn on a similar active labour market toolkit to the previous Labour administration, but that this has been implemented with fewer resources and less co-ordination. It concludes that there is little reason to believe that Coalition policy will be any more successful than that of the previous government, and some reason to be concerned that it will lead to young people becoming more entrenched within NEET.