Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain: The Millennium Survey

Abstract

POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN BRITAIN: THE MILLENNIUM SURVEY Christina Pintazis, David Gordon and Ruth Levitas (Eds) Bristol: Policy Press 2006, 512 pp, GBP 24.99 ISBN 978 1861343734In 1985, Mack and Lansley published Poor Britain, based on the consensual deprivation method, identifying the minimum acceptable level of living in Britain by recognising the necessities of life by public opinion. Based in this tradition, the Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) survey in 1999 examined poverty among adults and children in various social groups. The data provides a unique and rigorous mapping of poverty with its use of both consensual and more conventional poverty measures. There is richness in this investigation, holding measures we hope to find in other future studies. This 2006 anthology, based on the PSE data, is dedicated to the inventors of the consensual poverty method.Overall, the book provides a broad picture of how poverty can be measured and gives a better understanding of the processes of social exclusion. This critique is mainly related to documentation, power and the representativeness of the data.The first chapter includes an all too short description of the data collection. Even though this is not supposed to be a manual for the PSE data, there are several questions left unanswered due to the fact that we lack the possibility of evaluating the quality of the data. The other drawback is that the sample consists only of about 1,500 respondents. Being also a follow-up sample to the General Household Survey, questions on the missing data, and how missing data is distributed in different groups, raises the question of whether the sample is fully representative and can be extrapolated to the whole population. The concluding chapter states that the book is the core summary of the PSE survey methodology and findings: yet we are given only a reference to a website to find information on the variables.The book is organised in three parts, divided into principles, processes and people. In part one, principles, the chapters focus on the theories and concepts of poverty and social exclusion. Chapter two, written by David Gordon, is a comprehensive description of the concept and measurement of poverty, reviewing the problems and controversies in defining poverty. Three different measures, argued to hold a number of technical and theoretical advances, are used: the consensual measurement, the income poverty measurement and the subjective measurement. AU three measures produce similar results, showing about 25% of the population to be living in poverty. Starting here, and all through the book, we see alarming results from Britain. Considering the fact that the book is dedicated to the founders of the consensual poverty method, it is appropriate that Chapter four, The necessities of life, by Pantazis, Gordon and Townsend, is one of the best chapters in this volume; worth reading for anyone interested in this method. The breakthrough of Mack and Lansley (1985) was not only the focus on public opinion, instead of poverty lines set by experts, but also the importance of necessities beyond food and shelter: necessities important for the individual to participate in society. In the PSE survey, there is an analysis of the differences in perception of necessities between men and women, younger and older persons, minority ethnic and non-minority ethic, and social class differences; providing support for the importance of using different measures. This chapter also contains a defence of the critique previously raised against the consensual approach. However, one could also have wished for some overall discussion on the shortcomings of the PSE. There must be some consideration of the fact that this is a small sample, consisting of 1,500 individuals. It is also difficult to interpret the effects of this being a sample from the General Household Survey.The second part, processes, explores the roads into poverty in Britain, starting with the chapter, Does work pay? …