Breadline Britain Research Articles

The Violence of Poverty: Theology and Activism in an “Age of Austerity”

ABSTRACTFaith groups are in the front line of the struggle to defeat poverty in breadline Britain. Given their roots in local communities Churches and Christian NGOs are well-placed to challenge economic policies that have resulted in the spiraling of food poverty, homelessness, personal debt and child poverty. By framing poverty as a political choice, a form of structural violence and systemic sin this paper brings peace studies and political theology into a constructive dialogue. In the face of ongoing “austerity” the paper demonstrates that poverty represents a clear and present danger to the social fabric of the UK and argues that only a re-imagined interdisciplinary theology of liberation can provide academics and activists with the tools needed to defeat systemic poverty and the cultural violence upon which it rests.

Stewart Lansley and Joanna Mack (2015), Breadline Britain: The Rise of Mass Poverty. London: Bloomsbury, £9.99, 352 pp., pbk.

Stewart Lansley and Joanna Mack (2015), Breadline Britain: The Rise of Mass Poverty. London: Bloomsbury, £9.99, 352 pp., pbk.

Longitudinal environmental justice analysis: Co-evolution of environmental quality and deprivation in England, 1960–2007

We describe contemporaneous changes in environmental quality and social deprivation in English local authority districts over four decades, using secondary source GIS modelled data on environmentally intrusive development. The distribution of this development is described with respect to the Townsend material deprivation score, corroborated against the Breadline Britain index. Spatial patterns of environmental intrusion and material deprivation change markedly over the period, although a clear environmental inequality remains throughout. However, it is not the most deprived who experience the greatest decline in their environmental quality, as most of the increase in environmental intrusion occurs in those districts whose population were amongst the most affluent in the early 1960s. We note that the environmental justice implications of these observations are dependent upon conceptions of justice held, and reflect on the challenge of testing, through empirical longitudinal analysis, the notion that environmental sustainability and social justice are incompatible.

Increasing inequalities in risk of murder in Britain: trends in the demographic and spatial distribution of murder, 1981–2000

This study analyses demographic and spatial factors that underlie the rise in murder rates seen in Britain between 1981 and 2000 and considers the possible contribution of a public health approach to the understanding of murder. Comparison of murder rates by age group and sex finds that increases occurred only among males aged 5–59 years, and were greatest among males aged 20–24 years. Analysis of the relationship with poverty at the area level, using the Breadline Britain index and deciles based on wards, demonstrates that increases in murder rates were concentrated in the poorest areas. Rates of murder have risen in the same population groups and areas that have experienced increases in suicide and may be associated with worsening social and spatial inequality.

Creating Small Area Measures of Urban Deprivation

In recent years, the scale and pace of urban change have been associated with fine-scale fragmentation of the lifestyles of urban populations. One manifestation of this is that households of diverse means and circumstances may be found living in proximity to one another, particularly in urban areas. In this paper we argue that in these changed circumstances conventional deprivation indicators fail adequately to detect within and between small area variations in socioeconomic and environmental conditions. Using a case study of Bristol, England, we develop an analysis around Gordon and Forrest's Breadline Britain indicator in order to reveal the diversity of economic conditions that exist within wards that might be labelled as either affluent or deprived. We argue that adequate representation of diversity requires a greater sensitivity to difference at fine scales. In this context, we begin to evaluate the claims of marketeers who use commercial sources of data to model incomes at unit postcode and even household scales. We undertake an evaluation of such data and extend their application to calculation of Breadline Britain index scores. The results suggest some potential for using unconventional sources of data to ‘freshen up’ census information and provide direct, meaningful, measures of deprivation.

Pushed into Social Exclusion: Asbestos-Related Disability and Relative Poverty on Clydeside

This article utilises the concepts of relative poverty and social exclusion to explore industrial disability on Clydeside using oral testimony. Since the publication of Townsend's Poverty in the UK in 1979 there has been an ongoing debate surrounding the issue of poverty in Great Britain (Townsend 1979; Pichaud 1987; Alcock 1993; Hutton in Baldwin et al 1990). Townsend's rediscovery of the existence of relative poverty in the late 20th century was achieved by surveying 2000 households and ascertaining details of amenities, fuel and light, diet, family support, etc. From this he arrived at a benchmark of 60 indicators against which deprivation could be measured. His main findings were that, despite the existence of a welfare state, the resources of a significant number of individuals fell so far below the average that they were 'excluded from ordinary living patterns, customs and activities' (in Hutton 1990; see also Mack and Lansley 1989). More recently it has been argued that poverty should incorporate factors other than just material deprivation, and Townsend's (1987) London study makes a distinction between material and social deprivation. The merits of such a methodology were quite convincingly demonstrated by the Breadline Britain research in 1983 and 1990 (Gordon and Patanzi 1997). However, poverty still remains a difficult concept to pin down. Indeed, the present-day DSS takes the view

Weighted Census-based deprivation indices: their use in small areas.

The concept of deprivation refers to the conditions experienced by people who are poor, whereas the concept of poverty relates to the lack of income and other resources that make these conditions difficult to break away from. The usual Census-based deprivation indices are often based on equally weighted (and highly correlated) variables. This is in spite of the fact that different social groups have been shown in numerous studies to have differing probabilities of suffering from deprivation. A weighted deprivation index based on individual level data and Census data produces a more accurate and more easily understandable method of estimating deprivation within an area, as it reflects the differences between social groups. This paper will describe how a technique used by Gordon (J Epidemiol Commun Hlth 1995; 49(Suppl. 2): S39-S44) can be applied to smaller areas to give estimates of the number of deprived living within them, producing a weighted index. Breadline Greenwich data together with Census data were used to estimate the percentage of poor households in Greenwich wards using similar methods to those of Gordon. The results produced were very similar to the numbers estimated using the Breadline Britain weightings but there were differences in individual weightings for some of the variables. Gordon's approach can be applied to smaller areas to give estimates of the number of deprived using the nationally derived weightings. More accurate local estimates, subject to the different local conditions, can be easily derived if a similar survey to the Breadline Britain survey is conducted locally.

'My ward is more deprived than yours'.

Increasingly, additional resources for infrastructure development and healthcare are directed at deprived areas. The commitment of the present government to reducing inequalities in health is likely to focus attention on identifying and providing special help to areas considered to be particularly deprived. This study compares the use of different deprivation measures at electoral ward level to rank wards according to deprivation and illustrates how the use of different deprivation measures may influence resourcing decisions. The 20 local authority electoral wards making up the city of Plymouth, Devon, were studied. Some of the wards within Plymouth are amongst the most deprived in England. The scores for each ward for different measures of deprivation--Townsend, Jarman, the Department of Environment's Index of Local Conditions and Breadline Britain--were calculated and the wards ranked according to the deprivation score for each measure. Decisions on funding bids and resource allocation for wards within Plymouth were reviewed in the light of the relative deprivation status of the wards according to the various measures. The ranking of electoral wards for the selected measures of deprivation showed variation according to the measure used. The measure of deprivation chosen may have influenced resourcing decisions. Measures of deprivation are closely correlated one with another. However, by judicious choice of the deprivation measure used a ward can achieve a marked change in rank order. This may exert considerable influence on the decisions made by government departments, local authorities and health authorities when allocating resources.

‘Refuse of All Classes’? Social Indicators and Social Deprivation

The development and electronic accessibility of indices of poverty and social deprivation have yet to be fully exploited by mainstream sociology, not least in the field of class analysis where it might seem likely to be taken up. While reasons for this can be suggested, there are several conceptual frameworks within sociological debates about class that might accommodate deprivation and its indicators, and also valuable empirical resources in the form of indices which are now available to researchers interested in contemporary social inequality. The potential of this approach in the UK is demonstrated by an examination of patterns of social deprivation in 1991 Census data for 391 wards in the South West of England, using the Townsend, Jarman, Breadline Britain and the new DoE Local Conditions indices. Urban and rural patterns are demonstrated in inter-pair correlations between index scores, component variable values, and social class represented as SEGs. A factor analysis similarly shows distinct patterns for urban areas, small towns and rural areas. However, in all cases class, single-parent families, and children living in low- income households show the strongest associations with other deprivation indicators. An explanation for the empirical findings may be found in two main strands of class analysis. First, following Weber, deprivation and occupational class both derive from market situations, but the reported deprivation patterns cannot be entirely explained in terms of class: other factors (such as life-cycle) need to be included. Second, while there is no clear evidence of residualization in the data, some aspects of consumption sector theory seem to be born out; for example, differential opportunities for access to consumption. In addition, it is suggested that the rural/urban differences raise issues for ameliorative policies, further demonstrating the potential for a closer integration of the social indicators approach into the techniques of sociological analysis.

Census based deprivation indices: their weighting and validation.

KEY ISSUES--Over one hundred years of social science research has shown that different social groups have different probabilities of suffering from multiple deprivation; yet census based deprivation indices frequently assign equal weightings to each of their component variables. This becomes highly problematic when these indices are used as the basis for allocating resources to local and health authorities. In order to ensure fairness and accuracy in resource allocation these indices should be both weighted and validated. STUDY RESULTS--Weightings are derived from the Breadline Britain in the 1990s survey to produce a census based deprivation index that estimates the percentage of poor households at electoral ward level. Examples of validation methodology are discussed and the estimate of the proportion of poor households is shown to be highly correlated with both low income and morbidity as estimated from the 1991 census. DATA SOURCES--The 1991 census local base statistics (LBS) and small area statistics (SAS) aggregated for the 8519 electoral wards of England. The Breadline Britain in the 1990s survey: a nationally representative survey of 1831 households specifically designed to measure poverty and multiple deprivation.

Personal Consumption and Gender

This paper reanalyses data from the `Breadline Britain' poverty survey to examine differences in personal consumption between men and women. It has been argued (a) that resource allocation in marriage reflects the pattern of inequalities in society, so that married women tend to have a lower level of consumption than married men; and (b) that women's involvement in paid work may not enhance their personal command over resources, because the extra income is absorbed by other members of the household. An index of personal consumption (as distinct from joint consumption, shared with other members of the household) was constructed from information on who had access to items which are normally consumed on an individual basis. This was related to marital status, participation and other characteristics for men and women. The analysis shows that, for women, both being married and being engaged in paid work tend to be associated with a higher individual standard of living to a far greater extent than is the case for men. Neither of the arguments mentioned above is supported.