Poverty In Ireland Research Articles

Overcoming socioeconomic adversity: Academic resilience in mathematics achievement among children and adolescents in Ireland.

Although socioeconomic disadvantage is linked with academic underachievement, many children from low-income backgrounds perform well in school. Which modifiable factors predict this academic resilience? We examine between- and within-person predictors of one important academic metric - mathematics performance - across adolescence in 1715 (796 male, 919 female) youth living in poverty in Ireland, using data from three waves (9, 13, and 17/18 years) of the Growing Up in Ireland study. Using linear mixed models, math performance was worse when adolescents had more socioemotional and behavioural difficulties, more child-parent relationship conflict, parents had lower expectations of the adolescent's educational achievement, and when primary caregivers had less education. Adolescents who had better intellectual self-concept and attended a non-disadvantaged school had greater math performance. This research adds to the growing body of work suggesting academic resilience is dynamic and multisystemic; it provides potential targets at multiple levels to promote such resilience.

Policy Silences and Poverty in Ireland: An Argument for Inclusive Approaches

Policy documents shape and inform policy but they are not neutral objects. Policy documents can also silence through the exclusion and omission of discrete knowledges transmitted through testimony and lived experience. Even where steps are taken to ensure inclusion, policies can be underpinned by a policy making process that also potentially omits and silences through a narrow conception of how to include the voices of those directly affected by policy in the policy making process. This article will address the phenomenon of “policy silences” in the following ways: Firstly, by taking inspiration from Bacchi’s (2009) policy analysis framework—which asks of policy documents “what is the problem represented to be?” (the WPR approach)—and focusing on question no. 4 of the WPR framework—which asks, in part, “where are the silences?”—the Irish policy document <em>Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020‐2025</em> will be briefly reviewed. Following this, the approach taken in a creative, arts‐based, participatory research project which included, mapping, photography and walking interviews as a means of exploring the lived experiences and hidden geographies of poverty will be presented as a way of demonstrating inclusive research practice and as a means of tacitly problematizing and further critiquing an anaemic understanding of inclusion which potentially creates “policy silences.” Finally, an argument for forms of inclusion that go beyond current practices to include, in creative ways, the voices of those directly affected by policy in the policy making process will be put forth.

Prevalence of food insecurity among caregivers of young children during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland.

Our objectives were to explore the prevalence of food insecurity in primary caregivers of young children in Ireland and to compare two tools for measuring food insecurity during the COVID-19 crisis. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among caregivers of children aged <2 years in Ireland in May/June 2020. Relevant survey questions were closed-ended using two established tools for measuring food poverty/insecurity; the Irish Food Poverty Indicator and the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization. Descriptive statistics were used to calculate the prevalence of food poverty/insecurity. To explore agreement in the classification of food insecurity by the Food Poverty Indicator and the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, Cohen's κ was used. Analyses are based on 716 participants; most had a 3rd-level education and were married or in a partnership. Per the food poverty index, Ireland's national measure of food poverty, 3.9% (n = 28) of our sample were experiencing food poverty. This rose to 10.5% (n = 75) experiencing food insecurity when using the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, which also measures worry/anxiety around access to food. There was low agreement between the tools, with 11.3% of the sample classified as food secure by one tool and food insecure by the other. Our current measure of food poverty in Ireland may not be sufficient to describe the food-access struggles or worry/anxiety about food access, experienced by the population, particularly during an emergency like COVID-19.

A Hidden Cost: Estimating the Public Service Cost of Poverty in Ireland

Abstract Living life on a poverty income remains commonplace in most modern welfare states. A growing literature highlights the impact on individuals, families, and communities of poverty, costs that are both current to the experience and reflecting its scarring effects. A further cost, one that is frequently hidden, is the cumulative and recurring public expenditure associated with policy responses to poverty. These costs derive from the identification of poverty as a determining factor in the need for, and demand for, a wide range of public services. Estimating the nominal value of these costs, based on an assessment of public expenditure in one EU-15 state, Ireland, is the focus of this article. The findings establish annual costs of between €3bn-€7bn and highlight for all members of society, whether above or below the poverty line, the recurring public expenditure costs incurred by society as a result of poverty.

Book Review: Uncovering Food Poverty in Ireland: A Hidden Deprivation by Michael Drew

Book Review: <i>Uncovering Food Poverty in Ireland: A Hidden Deprivation</i> by Michael Drew

The lived experience of poverty in Ireland: a commentary on the ‘Object Poverty’ exhibition

ABSTRACT This article reports on a poverty awareness project which was conducted by participants and staff based in an organisation for women affected by addiction and poverty. Through the application of material ethnography methods, this initiative led to the creation of a set of artefacts which culminated in the exhibition titled, Object Poverty. This article traces the history of this initiative and its effectiveness in building poverty awareness within and external to the host organisation.

Keep out the cold: An analysis of potential gaps in fuel poverty policies in Ireland

Fuel poverty in Ireland is a significant issue faced by almost a quarter of the population as per government statistics. In this study, we analyse fuel poverty data in Ireland between 2008 and 2020 using the Irish subset of EU SILC data. We find that the increase in the proportion of households receiving Fuel Allowance and the decrease in the proportion of poor-quality dwellings have a significant positive impact on the decline in aggregate fuel poverty experienced. We also analyse a sample of low-income households that experience fuel poverty and compare groups that are targeted by official policies with others on key indicators. We find that the existing supports normally target lower-income households who live in energy-inefficient dwellings and are of retirement age. We also find that non-targeted larger urban families who live in rented or mortgaged dwellings experience significant fuel poverty due to difficulty paying bills. We identify some gaps in the current policies that target fuel poverty. We propose that fully funded energy efficiency retrofits and social transfers for vulnerable households to help with the cost of heating, which are policies already used in Ireland to target fuel poverty, should be expanded to effectively reach a cohort of the population that is facing challenges to keep warm.

What causes energy and transport poverty in Ireland? Analysing demographic, economic, and social dynamics, and policy implications

Energy and transport poverty have been postulated as conditions linked by overlapping causal factors such as structural economic inequality or housing stock and affecting overlapping demographics such as family size or income. The strength of the overlap of these conditions and their causal mechanisms has not been assessed across Ireland prior to this study. We apply and analyse existing and novel energy and transport poverty metrics in a survey of 1564 participants across Ireland and consider results from expenditure and consensual data examining causal mechanisms and correlations. We find that energy and transport poverty rates are broadly similar across Ireland at approximately 14% for energy poverty and 18% for transport poverty using the half-median metric, while participant knowledge of causal factors, such as lack of domestic energy efficiency and perceived desirability of potential poverty solutions, such as increased public transport provision, are low. Furthermore, we find that self-reported data concerning energy and transport expenditures and preferences do not correspond to expected outcomes. We thus conclude that ever refined targeting of individuals and households for support measures is not optimal for either decarbonisation or alleviation of energy and transport poverty conditions and suggest some salient policy implications.

Population and Poverty in Ireland on the Eve of the Great Famine

We revisit the link between demographic pressure and economic conditions in pre-Famine Ireland and harness highly disaggregated parish-level data from the 1841 census in our analysis. The results indicate that on the eve of the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s, population pressure was positively associated with two measures of poverty-illiteracy and the prevalence of poor-quality housing. Malthus mattered in the sense that our results indicate that a "no population growth" scenario between 1800 and 1841 would have led to a 6% improvement in poor-quality housing and a 4% reduction in illiteracy. However, the strength of this relationship is reduced when additional explanatory factors are considered, and factors relating to location and economic geography offer greater explanatory power. Incorporation of data from the 1821 census reveals that in the two decades before 1841, population growth was fastest in areas under less population pressure, supporting the notion that preventive check forces were at play. These findings are consistent with some elements of Malthusian theory, although ultimately they refute the notion that overpopulation was the principal cause of pre-Famine Irish poverty.

What Causes Energy and Transport Poverty in Ireland? Analyzing the Demographic, Economic, and Social Dynamics and Policy Solutions

What Causes Energy and Transport Poverty in Ireland? Analyzing the Demographic, Economic, and Social Dynamics and Policy Solutions

Measuring food poverty in Ireland: The importance of including exclusion

Food poverty is multi-faceted. While it is certainly about having enough, nutritious food, it is also about the cultural acceptability of diet and the ability to participate in customary activities associated with food. Within the Irish Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC), there are deprivation indicators that make it possible to monitor many aspects of food poverty – nutritional adequacy, absolute deprivation, cultural acceptability and social inclusion. However, within the composite official food poverty indicator, only nutritional deficiency, absolute and cultural deprivation are included. Those households experiencing only social exclusion vis-a-vis food are classified as non-food poor households. This paper analyses this group of households using Irish Survey of Income and Living Conditions data for 2015. These households – households who are not officially classified as food poor, but who cannot afford to entertain family or friends with food and/or drink once a month – are much more likely than non-food poor households to be experiencing multiple deprivations, to be unable to afford many household amenities, and, if employed, to be employed in jobs often associated with the working poor.

The Cost of a Healthy and Socially Acceptable Food Basket for Six Households in Ireland

Introduction: Food poverty is a reality for many living in poverty in Ireland with an estimated 11.5% households experiencing it in 2015 [1]. Food costs are frequently reported as a key factor in food poverty. Previous Irish research, using a consumer-led approach, established household budgets needed for a Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL)[2,3]. This included the creation of a socially acceptable and nutritionally adequate7-day-weekly menu and food basket for six household types (pensioner couple, female pensioner, single male, lone parent with two children, and two different two parent, two children households). These food baskets offered an opportunity to investigate the actual weekly household cost of food and the food costs of children of different ages for low income households. Methodology: The Irish MESL food baskets were used to estimate the cost of a total food basket and different food categories for the household types from 2014-2016.Annual inflation rates for food and non-alcoholic beverages and the individual food categories were used to update existing MESL food costs. The cost of food for children of different ages was established using the Nelson scale. Two lowincome scenarios-reliant on social welfare and earning minimum wage (or equivalent for pensionerswere used. Results: The overall cost of food decreased from 2014 to 2016. The cost of the food basket ranged from 17% and 38% of take-home income for different household types and was higher for most rural households than urban households. Households with two children had the highest food costs and costs increased for households with older children. Households on state benefits required a larger percentage of take home income for food than households with an employed adult. Meat fruit and vegetables took up the largest share of food costs. The cost of feeding a teenager was twice that of a pre-school child. Discussion: The costs identified in this research highlight the financial challenge faced by low-income households in providing a nutritious and acceptable diet.

George Cornewall Lewis, Irish character and the Irish poor law debate, 1833–1836

George Cornewall Lewis was a prominent political and literary figure in the mid nineteenth century, serving as both chancellor of the exchequer and home secretary under Palmerston. He had a wide range of interests and wrote on many topics from philosophy to philology and forms of government to astronomy. This article focuses on his views of what was called ‘the Irish character’ in the period 1833–1836, alongside the part which he believed a poor law could play in the reform of both the individual Irish peasant and the wider economy of Ireland. Lewis was an assistant commissioner on the royal commission which examined poverty in Ireland and was responsible for examining Irish migration to England and Scotland. He later wrote a confidential report to Thomas Spring Rice strongly criticising the royal commission's refusal to recommend a poor law for Ireland and also published a book in which he discussed what he saw as the main causes of, and solutions to, Irish poverty. Lewis's public and private writings provide a rich source of theory and philosophy surrounding the character of the Irish peasantry, its capacity to develop, and the central role of an Irish poor law in this process.

Lone Parent Activation in Ireland: Putting the Cart before the Horses?

AbstractLone parents and their children are the biggest group at risk of living in poverty in Ireland, and activation is regarded as the solution to this problem by policymakers. While workfare requirements are now placed on lone parents whose youngest child is aged 14 or over, we question the capacity of the current activation policy to deliver an adequate income for these families. Drawing on evidence from other countries and the current Irish context, we argue that the absence of tailored support for lone parents, low levels of educational attainment, difficulties with childcare, the efficacy of financial supports to provide income adequacy and the failure to take into consideration their parenting responsibility mean that the implementation of the policy is fraught with difficulty.

Conceptualizing and responding to poverty in the Republic of Ireland in the 1960s: a case study of Dublin

The 1960s saw reformulations and rediscoveries of poverty in the West. This article examines the experience of the Republic of Ireland, a state with a large network of religious charitable agencies and a predilection for voluntary over statutory services. While sociologists have identified an Irish rediscovery of poverty as occurring in the early 1970s, it is argued here that a reframing of understandings of poverty, and the services required to address it, was apparent throughout the 1960s, in the media, in the actions of voluntary, civic and political groups, and in attempts to gather data on social problems. This article investigates the extent to which external ideas influenced a rediscovery or reformulation of poverty in Ireland, placing developments in local, national and transnational contexts. It focuses in particular on the changes within Catholicism that were key to the Irish rediscovery. Dublin is used as a case study in order to examine experiences of poverty on the ground. The correspondence associated with a charitable agency and a maternity hospital reveal the nature of the welfare mix that existed in the capital city and the way in which poverty was managed at a local level. In examining poverty from these different vantage points, this article identifies how ideas of and responses to poverty evolved in this period. It argues that while calls for the further development of collective responses to poverty were key to its reformulation, the historical dominance of voluntary agencies and the complex realities of welfare provision on the ground limited the potential for transformative change.

The Political Economy of Swift’s Satires and other Prose Works

Jonathan Swift wrote perceptively about the emerging commercial society in Britain in the early eighteenth century. His particular focus was on the financial revolution and its implications for economic and political stability as well as for shifts of power between the landed and commercial classes. Following his return to Ireland Swift’s focus shifted to the developmental problems of his native country. In several pamphlets he advocated consumption of domestic products, challenged existing political structures and made trenchant criticisms of absenteeism and other dysfunctional aspects of the land tenure system. Swift’s politico-economic concerns are fully reflected in his best known work, Gulliver’s Travels but his most pointed criticism of the emerging commercial system is contained in A Modest Proposal. Written in the form of an economic pamphlet, A Modest Proposal is ostensibly designed to address the problem of poverty in Ireland. In addition to its implicit criticism of economic policy in Ireland, the pamphlet challenges the separation of economics and morality as evidenced in the writings of William Petty and Bernard Mandeville. Swift parodies Petty’s political arithmetic but it is suggested here that he also had in his sights the consequentialist reasoning present in the work of both authors but explicitly so in Mandeville.

Philanthropic Fashion: Ireland, 1887–1897

During the nineteenth century a number of aristocratic women promoted British-made textiles by wearing garments made from domestic cloth. Royalty, too, regularly endorsed this British-made cloth by wearing gowns of British manufacture frequently trimmed with English or Irish lace. Beginning in the late 1880s, however, a more organized and sophisticated relationship developed between Irish textiles and fashion and, by the 1890s, this link was both assiduously promoted and systematically marketed. The Irish Industries Association, founded by Ishbel, Countess of Aberdeen in 1886 to promote craft and alleviate poverty in Ireland, was supported by a number of British and Irish aristocrats. The Association organized exhibitions in London, established a rapport with women’s magazines, such as Lady’s Pictorial, Gentlewoman and Queen, The Lady’s Newspaper, and encouraged fashionable shops to view, buy and promote garments made from Irish wool, lace and linen. Thus Irish textiles moved from the Celtic fringe to the metropole, and from there on to the bodies of the rich and famous. It is this highly organized appeal to consumers that I shall explore here as philanthropy colluded with the market to produce fashion.

Health and Wealth on the Roller-Coaster: Ireland, 2003–2011

The 2003–2011 period in Ireland can be viewed as a roller-coaster with years of high growth followed by years of deep recession. This paper reviews developments in income and health poverty in Ireland over that period using data from the survey of income and living conditions. Income and health poverty are examined both uni-dimensionally and bi-dimensionally using sequential stochastic dominance. Conventional poverty indices are also provided and the correlation between health and income poverty is also analysed Income poverty fell up to and including 2009, after which this trend is reversed. Health poverty shows less of a trend over the period though there is some evidence of a reduction in health inequality from 2006. Movements in bi-dimensional poverty are mostly driven by income poverty, but there is evidence of a reduction in the correlation between health and income poverty over the period.

Cultural exclusion and rural poverty in Ireland and Russia

This paper investigates cultural dimensions and processes of exclusion in rural Ireland and Russia that impact upon marginalised rural people by making them poor. It employs Bourdieu and Passeron’s (1977) concept of cultural capital, which provides understanding of both structural effects of cultural discrimination and individual strategies of cultural reproduction on well-being. First, it explores the function of cultural capital as a power resource that can be used to monopolise certain cultural preferences. Second, the paper studies the function of cultural capital to mark cultural distance and to put people with less-valued cultural resources in a disadvantaged position that can limit poor people’s access to social settings and resources. Third, the paper investigates the function of cultural capital to exclude individuals by means of regulating their aspirations and cultural dispositions, which degrade social bonds and limit people’s sources of economic growth. The results of this study reveal the complexity of classificatory effects of cultural practices on poverty and argue against treating culture as a residual category in poverty studies. It takes on board the findings from this study to critically re-evaluate certain stereotypes of hardship and to articulate the need for a broader understanding of rural poverty.

Health and income poverty in Ireland, 2003–2006

Recent advances in the measurement of bi-dimensional poverty are applied to a measure of poverty which incorporates income and health poverty. The correlation between income and poverty is examined using the Receiver Operating Characteristics curve. Following from this uni-dimensional and bi-dimensional poverty indices are calculated for Ireland for the years 2003–2006. Income poverty shows a fall over the period while health poverty falls and then rises. Bi-dimensional poverty generally moves in line with the individual indices depending upon the relative weight for each dimension. The results are generally not sensitive to the degree of poverty aversion or the substitutability between the different dimensions of poverty.