Improving lives? Child poverty and social exclusion

This chapter details findings on child poverty and social exclusion from the 2012 UK Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey (PSE2012).It details the turbulent policy context in relation to child poverty in the years between the PSE1999 and PSE2012.It details the stability in perceptions of child necessities over time, and adult perspectives on children’s needs in 2012.The use of adult respondents in research on child poverty, and the implications of this in relation to how data can be interpreted, are detailed – and we recommend the inclusion of children in future similar studies.Findings indicate disturbingly high levels of child poverty in the UK, within a policy context which is likely to exacerbate this even further.Contrary to policy and popular rhetoric, we find no support for the idea that parental behaviours rather than ‘genuine’ poverty are the cause of children going without.Rather, parents are making substantial and personally detrimental sacrifices to ensure that their children are provided for.

Improvement for some: poverty and social exclusion among older people and pensioners

This chapter focuses on several key areas of poverty and social exclusion experienced by older people and pensioners using B-SEM. Analyses by pensioner household type (n=2,296) show differences in older adults’: access to material, economic and social resources; participation in common social activities and civic and political participation; and quality of life. Younger pensioners (particularly couples) are least likely to report lower resources and exclusion from participation, and more likely to report higher quality of life. In contrast, older and single (particularly female) pensioners are most likely to report lower levels of economic and social resources and lower scores on participation and quality of life sub-domains. Although the general position of pensioners has improved over the past decade, the findings conclude that this has not been the case for all pensioners. The policy situation explaining some of these disparities and the implications for further policy action are discussed.

Better understandings of ethnic variations: ethnicity, poverty and social exclusion

Previous assessments of poverty and social exclusion in the UK show variations in the social position of people with different ethnic backgrounds. While many minority groups experience significant disadvantage compared with the white majority, this is found to be particularly persistent among Pakistani and Bangladeshi people. However, this previous work is less than comprehensive in its coverage of the ethnic minority population. There are also concerns that standard measures of socioeconomic status fail to account for some of the specific experiences of ethnic minority groups and as a consequence underestimate the prevalence of socioeconomic disadvantage among them. The Poverty and Social Exclusion UK 2012 survey enables us to look at groups often ignored in analyses of ethnic inequalities, such as white minority groups and more recent migrants. Our findings therefore make a valuable contribution to this existing evidence, drawing attention to the particular disadvantage experienced by Black African and Polish people. The more detailed markers employed here reveal additional dimensions of disadvantage than have generally been explored previously and through this the significant disadvantage experienced by other groups – such as Black Caribbean people – as well as the heterogeneity within particular ethnic groups, which have been unappreciated in previous work.

Which men and women are poor? Gender, poverty and social exclusion

This chapter makes the case for reasserting the importance of gender to poverty and social exclusion.We argue that gender matters to understanding poverty, given the continued relevance of gender to involvement in paid and unpaid work, and caring responsibilities, across the lifecourse. However, academics and policy makers need to reconfigure gendered poverty as more than simply studying ‘poor women’. Our analysis explores the circumstances of both women and men, and how gender intersects in significant ways with age and household type. We also show that gender differences emerge not in relation to deprivation but also in economising practices that men and women adopt to protect their living standards with women more like to cut back than men. Finally, our work highlights the need for poverty researchers to acknowledge the importance of both household and individual level measures.

The impoverishment of youth: poverty, deprivation and social exclusion among young adults in the UK

The 2008 economic crisis and subsequent austerity policies have had profoundly damaging impacts for young adults across Europe in ways which threaten to seriously undermine their capacity to make successful transitions to adult independence.Nevertheless, reliable evidence on youth living standards and living conditions in the wake of these cataclysmic events has been scarce.This chapter provides new evidence on the nature, extent and social distribution of vulnerability to poverty and social exclusion amongst young adults in the UK. The work described here updates earlier analyses of the 1999 PSE-GB study using a comparable methodology. The chapter therefore examines trends in poverty and wider forms of social exclusion for young adults over the 1999-2012 period.These data reveal a dramatic increase in youth material and social deprivation over this period and, using a range of different measures, a rise in the extent of youth poverty which requires urgent policy action.

Measuring poverty in the UK

All politicians from all political parties in the UK agree that poverty is ‘bad’ things which should be reduced/eradicated.There is political unanimity about this, however, there is also often passionate contestation about the causes and solutions to poverty and, in particular, who is to blame for poverty. This chapter both describes the Poverty and Social Exclusion project’ methodological approach and draws on over 200 years of poverty research to reach the following conclusions: 1) Poverty is not behaviour – most poverty has a structural cause; 2) Poverty is not a disease – you cannot catch poverty from your parents nor transmit it to your friends, relatives or children; 3) The underclass is a persistent myth – which has never existed; 4) Redistribution is the only solution to child poverty – only adults can provide the resources that children need. Failure to learn these lessons from research invariably results in ineffective and inefficient anti-poverty policies such as the £1 billion Troubled Families programme.

Conclusion: innovating methods, informing policy and challenging stigma

The preceding chapters of this volume have detailed the ways in which poverty and social exclusion are very real and large-scale problems in the UK today. They have also examined the subtle variations in vulnerability to poverty and the impact poverty has on different groups within society. But the aim of this book – and of the 2012 Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey (...

Devolution and North/South division: poverty and social exclusion in the countries and regions of the UK

The chapter presents a spatial analysis of poverty and social exclusion using data from the Poverty and Social Exclusion survey 2012 based on the countries of the UK and the North and South of England. The PSE-UK survey results are discussed in the context of the geography of income inequalities within EU countries and recent shifts in inequalities within the UK. The PSE-UK survey data reveal that the North of England is the most socially excluded part of the UK. The capacity of regional economic development policies, UK and EU, to address the UK's territorial inequalities is discussed. The chapter argues that current forms of devolution are very limited in what they can do to compensate for the lack of economic development and powers to address poverty and social exclusion through income redistribution and service provision remain marginal.

A worsening picture: poverty and social exclusion and disabled people

A string of reforms over recent years has left disabled people at heightened risk of poverty and social exclusion. This chapter presents an analysis of PSE2012 data in relation to disabled people during the period 2010-2013 in the UK.The results are hard-hitting. The odds of a disabled adult being in poverty were more than three times those of a non-disabled person when risk estimates were adjusted for age and gender. The odds of disabled people being socially excluded from a range of indicators were significantly higher than for non-disabled people for each of the 11 indicators. Comparable data suggests that between 1999 and 2012 the experiences of deprivation and disadvantage for households with disabled people have considerably worsened. Disabled people now appear to be among the ‘poorest of the poor’.

The cost of children: parents, poverty, and social support

This chapter provides an overview of the relationship between parenting and poverty in the UK. We focus on the economising practices couple and particularly lone parents resort to in order to reduce living costs and the extent to which poorer parents are likely to engage in widely promoted parent-child activities. We find that despite engagement in the labour market as well as support from state, family and friends, parenting remains expensive and for those on low income associated with self-sacrifice and prioritisation of children’s material, social and educational needs. We also find that most parents, regardless of their income, have similar levels of engagement in parenting activities, casting doubts over political claims of widespread ‘poor parenting’.