The Impoverishment of the UK report paints a bleak picture of deteriorating living conditions and opportunities for a significant and growing proportion of the population.
It will be profiled in a special Tonight programme, Breadline Britain, broadcast on ITV tonight Thursday 28 March at 7.30 pm.
The report is part of the Economic and Social Research Council-funded Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) study, which uses a way of measuring poverty devised by Joanna Mack, Learning and Teaching producer at the OU, and Stewart Lansley, senior project officer at the OU.
This PSE approach – now adopted by the UK Government and by a growing number of rich and developing countries – identifies people falling below a publicly-determined minimum standard of living.
It was pioneered in 1983 and repeated in studies in 1990, 1999, 2002/03 and 2012. The PSE project thus provides detailed and robust information about trends over 30 years.
Joanna Mack was the principal investigator on the 1983 and 1990 research studies and she is one of the lead investigators for the current research.
The OU also developed The Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK website, which is an integral part of the overall project and which provides a major resource on poverty and social exclusion, used extensively.
Key findings of the PSE report include:
- 33% of the UK population suffers from multiple deprivation. In 1983 the figure was 14 %
- Almost 18 million people cannot afford adequate housing conditions
- Roughly 14 million cannot afford one or more essential household goods
- Almost 12 million people are too poor to engage in common social activities considered necessary by the majority of the population
Joanna Mack said: “Levels of deprivation today are worse in a number of vital areas – from basic housing to key social activities – than at any point in the past thirty years.
"These trends are a deeply shocking indictment of 30 years of economic and social policy and reflect a rapid growth in inequality. This has meant that, though the economy has doubled in size during this period, those at the bottom have been increasingly left behind.”
Professor David Gordon of the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research in Bristol, who is head of the project, said: “The results present a remarkably bleak portrait of life in the UK today and the shrinking opportunities faced by the bottom third of UK society.
"About one third of people in the UK suffer significant difficulties and about a quarter have an unacceptably low standard of living’ said ‘ Moreover this bleak situation will get worse as benefit levels fall in real term, real wages continue to decline and living standards are further squeezed.”
You can download The Impoverishment of the UK report here.
Posted 28 March 2013
