Don't miss our weekly PhD newsletter | Sign up now Don't miss our weekly PhD newsletter | Sign up now

  Payments for cold weather and wellbeing


   Faculty of Management, Law and Social Sciences

  ,  Applications accepted all year round  Self-Funded PhD Students Only

About the Project

The UK Government provides a “Cold Weather Payment” to people receiving certain benefits. The payment is triggered whenever the temperature in the person’s home location falls below zero degrees Celsius (or is forecast to be below zero) for seven consecutive days. Since 2008/09, the payment has been set at £25 for every seven-day spell of cold weather.

There are other benefits designed to alleviate fuel poverty, including the Winter Fuel Payment and Warm Home Discount. However, a problem with identifying the causal effect of these on household wellbeing is that pensioners and beneficiaries tend to have worse underlying health and live in worse quality homes than others, so a comparison of those who are eligible for these payments and those who are not will be misleading. In contrast, the nature of the Cold Weather Payment provides an ideal way to measure the effect of the payment on wellbeing, by exploiting the fact that weather patterns are essentially random and by using a so-called regression discontinuity design.

The objective of the project will be to compare wellbeing among those who are eligible for the payment and live in areas where the temperature is just below zero (the treatment group) with those who live in areas where the temperature is just above zero (the control group). These two groups should be essentially identical in terms of personal and household characteristics and weather conditions, but only the treatment group will receive the Cold Weather Payment. Historical weather data will be obtained from TimeAndDate.com This will be matched with household survey data from Understanding Society, using the interview date and the location of the respondent’s residence. Understanding Society contains various measures of wellbeing, as well as detailed questions on a person’s benefit receipt, which allows eligibility for the Cold Weather Payment to be determined.

How to apply

Formal applications can be submitted via the University of Bradford web site; applicants will need to register an account and select 'Full-time PhD in Business and Management' as the course, and then specify the project title when prompted.

About the University of Bradford

Bradford is a research-active University supporting the highest-quality research. We excel in applying our research to benefit our stakeholders by working with employers and organisations world-wide across the private, public, voluntary and community sectors and actively encourage and support our postgraduate researchers to engage in research and business development activities.

Positive Action Statement

At the University of Bradford our vision is a world of inclusion and equality of opportunity, where people want to, and can, make a difference. We place equality and diversity, inclusion, and a commitment to social mobility at the centre of our mission and ethos. In working to make a difference we are committed to addressing systemic inequality and disadvantages experienced by Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff and students.

Under sections 158-159 of the Equality Act 2010, positive action can be taken where protected group members are under-represented. At Bradford, our data show that people from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic groups who are UK nationals are significantly under-represented at the postgraduate researcher level. 

These are lawful measures designed to address systemic and structural issues which result in the under-representation of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic students in PGR studies.

Environmental Sciences (13) Sociology (32)

Funding Notes

This is a self-funded PhD project; applicants will be expected to pay their own fees or have a suitable source of third-party funding. UK students may be able to apply for a Doctoral Loan from Student Finance for financial support. Applications submitted before the 31st December 2023 may be considered for a possible ESRC studentship under the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership if this is mentioned on the application form.

Register your interest for this project



Where will I study?