Research Round-Up

Abstract

Very little research is carried out into the views of benefits administrators who play a key role in the delivery of social security benefits. This makes Hartley Dean’s recent research extremely valuable, despite its small sample size. The next research study highlighted here was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and looked at government progress towards eradicating child poverty. It finds that progress is being made but it is slow and more radical measures that will be needed if the interim targets are to be met, let alone the overall goal. The final two studies mentioned here are funded by the Department for Work and Pensions. The first looks at the living standards of families with children and finds considerable reductions in hardship among low-income families between 1999-2001. The analysis also suggests that the more favourable outcomes associated with work and higher income can more clearly account for differences in a range of child characteristics than whether the child is from a one-parent or two-parent household. The last study here covered knowledge and attitudes to pensions, finding little change on overall knowledge of pensions over the last two years but a considerable increase in the proportion of people who had heard of Stakeholder Pensions.