The current cost of living is pushing more people into poverty, with almost 68% of low income...
PSE UK Reports
-
Graphs and figures
Copyright:PSE 2013How many children don't have a holiday?
What percentage of households can't heat their home?
How has it changed?
-
Families and poverty cover image
Copyright:Policy Press'Families and poverty: Everyday life on a low income' by Mary Daly and Grace Kelly.
Compelling insights into the importance of family from the PSE qualitative research.
Policy Press, £24.99
Find out more in PSE books
-
Job centre Cropped
Copyright:Rex Features33%of adults in paid work are in poverty or insecure employment.
'Britain's broken labour market' by Nick Bailey and other PSE research findings in Journal papers
-
Breadline Britain 1983 families
Copyright:ITVHow has poverty changed - or not?
Six new videos drawing on the ITV Breadline Britain series from 1983 to 2013.
-
Northern Ireland troubles mural
Copyright:jimmy harris under creative commons33%of adults in Northern Ireland have witnessed a bomb explosion.
Read the latest Key Finding Legacies of the Troubles
-
Life stories participant
Copyright:PSEVideo testimonies on 'Life on a low income in austere times' from the PSE qualitative research.
The Life Stories videos - Parts 1 to 4
In this section you will find the final reports of the PSE-UK research team. The reports that cover the main findings on deprivation, living standards and poverty from the PSE UK 2010-2014 research project are below in order of publication with those published first below and the more recent ones on the next page.
In the left hand menu, Results Analysis of attitudes, contains the reports of the findings of the PSE 'Attitudes to necessities and services' questionnaire and Policy Reponse papers covers the PSE team's reports on government consultations.
You will find details of the journal papers and books based on the findings under Publications, in the menu bar above.
The findings were presented at the The PSE UK Final Conference in June 2014 and at the PSE Scotland conference in August 2014.
The most recent reports published by the PSE_UK team (next page) cover: 'Producing the PSE poverty line', which sets out the 'steps' of analysis taken in estbalishing the PSE combined deprivation/low income poverty theshold; 'PSE reduced and responsive scales', which identifies a smaller subset of the PSE necessities that could be used to accurately identify those in deprivation; 'Poverty and local services in the midst of austerity', which examines the state of public and private services and trends since 1999; and 'Poverty and social exclusion in urban and rural areas of Scotland', which finds significant poverty in every kind of location in Scotland, with the highest levels in large urban areas.
The earlier reports (below) cover: 'The impoverishment of the UK'; 'Child Poverty and Social Exclusion'; 'Life on low income in austere times'; and 'We are sitting with the big people now'. These reports provide extensive details of the high levels of deprivation across the UK and the deep personal impact that it has on people's lives.
Reports
-
'The Impoverishment of the UK' PSE UK first results: Living Standards
The PSE: UK research identifies people falling below what the public agrees is a minimum standard of living and measures poverty and exclusion using a wide range of rigorous methods. This first report reveals a detailed picture of the extent of deprivation, low living standards and financial insecurity in the UK today.
Independent surveys of poverty using this methodology were first conducted in 1983 and again in 1990, 1999, 2002/03 and 2012. The report examines trends over this thirty year period and that the proportions of the population falling below the standards set by society at the time across a range of items and activities are higher today than in 1983, 1990 and 1999.
A short summary and the press releases accompanying the 'The Impoverishment of the UK' can be found in the News section, PSE report reveals impoverished nation.
Attachment Size 
The_Impoverishment_of_the_UK_PSE_UK_first_results_summary_report_March_28.pdf417.51 KB Category: PSE Report -
Life on a low income in austere times
This report aims to document the reality of life on a low income during the recent recession and the beginnings of austerity, by affording primacy to the ‘voices’ of those living in poverty. It is based on 62 testimonies collected in 2012-2013 in Birmingham, Glasgow and Gloucestershire. Through these insights into the lived experience of poverty, the report explore poverty as a material phenomenon, including the deprivation of the necessities of life, as well as a relational phenomenon, that incorporates the related psycho-social impacts of life on a low income. It seeks to understand the ways in which the lived experience of poverty has changed as a result of recession/austerity and conversely, the ways that it remains constant. Watch the four films on 'Life on a low income in austere times'.
Attachment Size Life on a low income in austere times_final_report.pdf1.06 MB Category: PSE Report -
Child poverty and social exclusion
This paper presents an analysis of child poverty and social exclusion in the UK, drawing on data from the 2012 Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey and is the final report on this element of the PSE project. It advances the measurement of child poverty by using three different measures: a child deprivation measure based on socially perceived necessities, the conventional income poverty measure (but with a more realistic equivalence scale) and a PSE measure which combines deprivation and low income. It finds the rates of child poverty for each measures are similar at 30%, 33% and 27% respectively. It also finds, from a new analysis of intra-household distribution, that child deprivation would be much higher if parents were not sacrificing their own living standards for the sake of their children. Analysing the characteristics of poor children it confirms that now a majority of poor children are living in households with someone in employment.Attachment Size PSE-Child-poverty-and-exclusion-final-report-2014.pdf547.66 KB Category: PSE Report -
Community engagement project in Northern Ireland
As part of the PSE UK team's commitment to encouraging public engagement, stimulating debate and informing policy, the team sought to develop new approaches to engaging with grassroots lobbying groups, community practitioners and people directly affected by poverty and social exclusion. In collaboration with the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland a pilot project was run with eight local community groups across Northern Ireland. The final report of the project's impact, 'We are sitting with the big people now', details the empowering impact this project had on the people involved. Further details can be found under Communities in Action including the videos and other outputs of the community groups involved.Attachment Size We are sitting with the big people now - PSE community engagement final report .pdf221.54 KB Category: PSE Report -
Urban and rural poverty in Scotland
This report examines the PSE-UK 2012 survey results in Scotland, comparing levels of poverty and social exclusion in urban and rural areas and between remote and accessible areas; within the rural category. Using low income, deprivation and subjective poverty measures, it finds significant poverty in every kind of location, with on most measures, poverty highest in the large urban areas and lowest in remote towns with remote rural areas showing higher poverty than remote towns.
The report finds that contrary to concerns that low income poverty measures may underestimate poverty in more rural areas by failing to take account of differences in the cost of living, low income measures appear to overstate rural poverty compared with deprivation or subjective poverty measures. People in urban areas report higher levels of indebtedness and other markers of financial stress, and lower quality of goods, none of which are reflected in income-based measures. Looking at wider measures of social exclsuion, the PSE-UK survey provides strong evidence that access to services is worse in more rural or remote locations. Transport services, the basis for accessing many other services, were particularly poor in rural areas. However, using a multi-dimensiaonal measure of social exclusion, the report finds the most excluded individuals are over represented in large urban centres and under reprresented in remote areas.Attachment Size PSE-Report-Scotland-urban-rural-poverty-March-2016.pdf1.04 MB Category: PSE Report
