Poverty in Perspective

Matt Barnes Research Directormatt.barnes@natcen.ac.uk

Rationale• Renewed impetus to understand poverty from a

multidimensional perspective

• Living on low income is about more than simply having insufficient money

• Many poor households face multiple & different sets of problems

• Analysis to understand and visualise the lived experience of poverty

• Promote tailored policy solutions

• Analysis based only on income might prompt income-based solutions only

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Poverty in Perspective

www.demos.co.uk/poverty

• NatCen & Demos collaboration• Funded by the Esmée Fairbairn

Foundation

•How we did the research•What we found•Implications•Relating the research to the consultation

on measuring child poverty

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Overview of methodology

Demos polling - stakeholder engagement - academic literature

Selecting poverty indicators

Qualitative interviews with familiesVerifying poverty experiences

Developing a toolkit to guide policy makers and practitioners

Solutions for each poverty typeTesting the analysis at local level

Replication with local data

Secondary analysis of Understanding Society datasetCreating poverty types

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Analysis of Understanding Society W1

Twenty indicators applied to households with income below 70% of the median

Indicators across range of domains:• Finances• Material deprivation• Work and education• Housing• Health and well-being• Social networks• Local area

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Creating poverty typesPoverty types formed by the combinations of indicators that clustered most frequently for low-income households

Higher incomes

Low income

Type 1

Type 2

Type 3

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5 child poverty types

72%

Above 70% median income

Grafters

Full house families

Pressured parents

Vulnerable mothers

Managing mothers

72%

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Describing the child poverty types

Full-house families

Tend to be very large households, containing multiple adults and young children.

Grafters

Likely to be in low paid work or recently made unemployed due to recession. Owner occupiers.

Pressured parents

Living predominantly in rented properties, are extremely deprived in terms of lifestyle as well as material measures.

Vulnerable mothers

Consisting of single parents families and, most usually, young single mothers, they are the most deprived group.

Managing mothers

Again consisting of single parent families, they tend to be slightly older mums with older children. Most feel they are ‘getting by’.

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‘Vulnerable mothers’Consisting of single parents families and, most usually, young single mothers, they are the most deprived group

• Material deprivation• No private transport• Workless• Deprived

neighbourhood• Young mothers• With young children• Social renters

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‘Managing mothers’

Again consisting of single parent families, they tend to be slightly older mums with older children. Most feel they are ‘getting by’

• Some with mental health problems

• Some working part-time

• School-aged children• Private renters• Aged 30s-40s

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Implications from the research

Prevents people from viewing people in poverty as a homogenous low-income groupRaises awareness of and tackles misconceptions about people in povertyHelps guide policy makers and practitioners to target particular groups with potentially holistic and multi-agency solutions

Provides rich source of data about different groups living in poverty

Not a new ‘measure’ of poverty…

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Government consultation on better measures of child poverty• Consultation launched in Nov 2012• Not keen on relative income as measure of child

poverty• Want multidimensional measure that reflects living in

poverty• Mentions possible indicators such as:• Worklessness• Problem debt• Poor housing or troubled area• Unstable family environment

• Government due to report on consultation after the summer?

• Attends failing school• Parents with low skills• Parents with poor

health

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Distinctions for the consultation

PovertyLacking access to necessary

material resourcesUse: Monitor progress

Drivers of PovertyDirectly (indirectly)

lead to povertyUse: Identify key causes/solutions

Poverty outcomesLater scarring effects

Use: Show consequences of poverty

Low income

Deprivation

Worklessness

Underemployment

Low wages

Low skillsPoor health

Child development

Aspirations

Well-being Debt

Characteristics of PovertyDisadvantages that can occur alongside poverty

Use: Illustrate lived experience

Bad housing

Labour marketBenefit system

etc13

Multidimensional measures of poverty drivers?• Official child poverty indicators already have a

multidimensional measure:• Relative low income• Absolute low income

• Multidimensional measure of poverty drivers?• Worklessness, low earnings, low hours, low skills, poor

health, family commitments (caring, young/many children) etc

• Those with more drivers likely to be most at risk?• Particular combinations of drivers at high risk?• Segment poverty population to improve targeting?

• Persistent low income• Low income & Material deprivation

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Further research

Can this research be replicated with local area data?

Understanding dynamics:- What factors are associated with entering a poverty type?- How do disadvantages accumulate?- How long do people stay in a poverty type for?- What factors are associated with exiting a poverty type?- Where do people exit to?

Creating indicators of poverty drivers?

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Thank you

NatCen Social Research35 Northampton SquareLondon EC1V 0AX020 7250 1866www.natcen.ac.uk

matt.barnes@natcen.ac.uk

www.demos.co.uk/poverty

www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/podcasts/2013/09