The Living Wage in higher education: anatomy of a social justice campaign

Purpose To identify the methods used to spread the Living Wage in higher education in the UK and evaluate the effectiveness of the Living Wage campaign. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-methods research design, at the centre of which is the creation of a database of all UK higher education institutions, including measures of the adoption of the Living Wage, redistributive consequences for workers and exposure to different campaign methods. This quantitative core has been supplemented by interview, observation and archive data. Findings The main findings are that the Living Wage campaign in higher education has been complex, making use of a variety of methods, relatively successful, generating substantial redistributive effects, and that all methods used have contributed to these outcomes. A key finding is that no single method stands out as more effective than the others, suggesting that there is no one best way to promote social justice objectives. Research limitations/implications An important feature of the research is that it encompasses all universities in the UK, but the converse of this breadth of coverage is a lack of detailed case studies of the implementation of the Living Wage standard at individual universities. Practical implications The evidence indicates that social justice campaigning can prove effective in shaping employer behaviour and raising labour standards. Specific findings point to the effectiveness of joint campaigning, involving two or more institutional actors, the value of place-based initiatives, particularly where these are confined to a relatively narrow geographical area, and the importance of political support. Perhaps the main practical lesson is that a range of campaign methods, both adversarial and employer-supporting, can generate positive effects. Originality/value The paper reports original data and extends the long tradition of examining industrial relations processes, such as strikes and collective bargaining, to the analysis of a social justice campaign.