The current cost of living is pushing more people into poverty, with almost 68% of low income...
Families
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21/06/2012
Social Mobility and Child Poverty Review: Consultation Response
In this consultation response, the PSE: UK research team is highly critical of the Coalition government’s social mobility strategy and, in particular, its claim that the best way to tackle intergenerational mobility is to break the ‘the transmission of disadvantage from one generation to the next’. The PSE policy working paper dismisses the idea that poverty is ‘transmitted’ between generations as ‘simply incorrect’ and argues that the best way to tackle intergenerational disadvantage and low social mobility is to eradicate poverty among children and adults. Read a summary.
Category: Policy response -
18/06/2012
Extra costs of children ‘underestimated’
Married or cohabiting couples enjoy large-scale economies in living costs, new research finds, but substantial diseconomies when children or further adults are added.
Essex University researchers tried to identify the adjustment needed when comparing the incomes of any two families with a different size and structure – on the basis that poverty depends not just on a family’s income but also on their needs. To do this, the researchers analysed the relationship between income, demographic structure and subjective assessments of financial well-being by drawing on data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) for the years 1991–2008.
Category: Reports -
18/06/2012
No ‘couple penalty’ in tax and benefit system
Families on benefits are neither better nor worse off if they separate, finds a new research report. This finding is contrary to the frequently heard view that the benefits system encourages and rewards couples who live apart. Working families on low incomes are just as likely to lose as to gain from living apart, once extra costs are taken into account.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation study uses detailed research on household needs to look at how the extra income compares with the extra costs when couples split up.
Category: Reports -
07/06/2012
Indicators of Social Participation
This paper explores the definition of poverty, based on the concept that people are poor if they are prevented through lack of resources from carrying out obligations that are associated with their social role. The paper investigates which common social roles are found in social surveys and which activities are associated with these roles. It looks at ways of capturing participation in common social activities.
Category: Methods development -
29/05/2012
PSE UK Presentations at other conferences
Presentations of PSE UK research at other conferences Members of the PSE research team have presented details of the PSE UK research methodology and findings at well over a hundred conferences world-wide. Details of these presentations, with links to the presentations where available, are listed below and can also be be downloaded here. Some featured presentations 'Breadline Britain' , Stewart Lansley and Joanna Mack, Edinburgh Book Festival, 18 August, 2015Category: Presentation -
24/05/2012
Parents of disabled children going without food and heating
An annual survey has found that 14 per cent of parents caring for disabled children are missing meals, and 17 per cent cannot afford to heat their homes.
The online survey was completed by 2,312 parent carers responsible for a disabled child: 76 per cent were in a couple relationship and 24 per cent were lone parents.
Category: Reports -
20/04/2012
Flaws in the government’s troubled family strategy
Current government policy on social justice hinges on the claim that there are 120,000 ‘troubled’ families in Britain but this is deeply flawed, argues Professor Ruth Levitas in There may be ‘Trouble’ Ahead: What We Know About Those 120,000 ‘Troubled’ Families (PSE: UK, policy working paper 3). The government programme defines ‘troubled families’ as ‘characterised by there being no adult in the family working, children not being in school, and family members being involved in crime and anti-social behaviour’. But the 120,000 figure derives from households experiencing multiple deprivations, with no evidence that they are involved in crime or anti-social behaviour. Levitas, a member of the PSE: UK research team, comments:
Category: Reports -
06/04/2012
Families lose out from Coalition Budget changes
An updated analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that the combined effect of all the tax and benefit changes effective from April 2012 would be an average loss of £511 per year for households with children. In Tax and Benefit changes, excluding those affecting mainly the very rich, the Institute for Fiscal Studies takes into account a long list of changes, some announced as long ago as the 2010 Budget but only coming into force now.
It shows:
Category: News stories -
05/04/2012
Deputy Prime Minister launches social mobility strategy
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has launched the Coalition government’s social mobility strategy, Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers. The strategy focuses on inter-generational social mobility, with the aim of ensuring that everyone has a fair chance to get a better job than their parents.
The approach moves away from income measures to support disadvantaged families to family intervention and an aspiration to extend pre-school provision to disadvantaged two-year-olds.
The report outlines five broad principles that underpin the government’s approach.
Category: Reports -
28/03/2012
Parents living on a low income are under stress
A new review of research on families living on a low income finds that the recent recession has generated additional burdens for parents in these circumstances, including increased time pressures, a decline in nutrition, and higher stress levels. The review, Parenting on a Low Income, conducted by About Families, finds that women in particular bear the burden of coping.
Category: Reports
