New Report: The Effects of Occupation on Poverty Among Ethnic Minority Groups

The Joseph Rontree Foundation has published a new report: The Effect of Occupation on Poverty Among Ethnic Minority Groups.

The report provides statistical analysis on how poverty and ethncity are linked and examines why ethnic minority groups in the UK are more likely to work for less than the minimum wage.

Does Money in Adulthood Affect Adult Outcomes?

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published a new study "Does money in adulthood affect adult outcomes?"

There is ample evidence that adults with lower incomes tend to have worse outcomes including worse health, lower life expectancy and lower subjective wellbeing than individuals with more. But is money in adulthood itself important? Or are these relationships driven by other factors such as higher levels of education, underlying personality traits or the long-term impact of childhood circumstances?

This study reviews the evidence, focusing on research that tested whether the relationship between money and outcomes in adulthood is causal.

Child Poverty Set To Rise Says Social Mobility Commission

The UK risks becoming a "permanently divided" society unless "radical new approaches" are taken by the next government, a report suggests.

The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission also claims the target to reduce child poverty by half by 2020 will not be met.

Chairman Alan Milburn said the three largest Westminster parties were being "less than frank" on the issue.

He said housing costs and youth unemployment needed to be tackled.

Mr Milburn, a former Labour minister, said the current government had "discredited existing child poverty targets and failed to put in place new ones", creating an "unholy mess".

The existing targets were put in place in 2010 by the last Labour government. Currently, a child is classed as being in relative poverty if his or her family income is less than 60% of median earnings.

According to the commission's report "absolute child poverty increased by 300,000 between 2010-11 and 2012-13" and "independent experts expect child poverty to increase significantly over the next few years". It also says that "working poverty after housing costs is rising".

New Research By CPAG Says That Families Are Struggling As Child Costs Rise

According to research by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) familes are stuggling as the costs of bringing up a child have risen to £148,000.

The report which was co-funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation says costs have risen by 4% over the last year. At the same time, it claims the value of benefit payments fell in real terms.

You can read more on this story on the BBC News website here.

The full report "The Cost of a Child in 2013" is available to read here.

Free Books From PSE

The Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) website is offering 2 seminal books for FREE download:

• Poor Britain (1985) by Joanna Mack and Stewart Lansley
• Poverty in the United Kingdom (1979) by Peter Townsend

The books are available for download here: http://www.poverty.ac.uk/free-resources

Other free resources from the PSE include:

• Explore the data - gives you a chance to view (and download) data from the current and past PSE surveys on poverty and social exclusion in the UK.
• Read a summary of the first PSE: UK research report in PSE report impoverished nation or download the report 'The impoverishment of the UK
• There are 9 days left to watch the ITV ‘Tonight’ programme, ‘Breadline Britain’, featuring some of the first results from the PSE:UK research study on the ITV player. You can explore the findings on which it’s based in Facts and Findings 1: Falling Below Minimum Standards. 

Free Evidenced Based Research On Poverty & Social Exclusion

The PSE website is a free educational resource for academics, students, NGOs and policy makers interested in evidence-based research on poverty and social exclusion in the UK. 

 

It contains information on: methodology, conducting original and ethical research, research findings, international surveys, as well as up-to-date articles and a searchable digest of news stories and reports on welfare, poverty, inequality and more.

 

They will also be publishing the results of two major surveys, exclusively on this site, over the next few weeks.

New Reports On Poverty From The Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Photograph by Ed Yourdon

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has recently published a series of reports looking at poverty in the UK. They are:

• The Links Between Housing & Poverty. A study looking at housing experience and its relationship to poverty and the role of housing in enabling people to take up employment.
• Measuring Child Poverty: A Consultation On Better MeasuresOf Child Poverty. JRF's response to the Department for Education on 'Measuring Child Poverty: a consultation on better measures of child poverty'.
• Poverty And Low Educational Achievement In Wales. Looks at the evidence and considers the best measures to improve educational achievement for children living in poverty in Wales.
• Poverty And Ethnicity In Northern Ireland. This study examines the evidence on how people across different ethnic groups in Northern Ireland experience poverty and how this affects their access to work and support, including key services.
• Monitoring Poverty And Social Exclusion in Scotland 2013. JRF's sixth study of poverty and social exclusion in Scotland highlights a huge rise in unemployment for under-25s, and stark and growing health inequalities.Using the latest Government data, it assesses a wide range of indicators including unemployment, education, and health.
• Monitoring Poverty And Sociual Exclusion 2012. Is tackling in-work poverty the key for anti-poverty initiatives?
  
  
  You can find even more reports on poverty by the JRF on their website here: http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications

Poverty Film Gallery From The Joseph Rowntree Foundation

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published a poverty film gallery with a series of films bringing to life the real issues people face by living in poverty.

The films are available to view online here: http://www.jrf.org.uk/film-gallery/poverty-film-gallery

'Reality' OF UK Poverty Capatured In Online BBC Storyville Films

Three eye-opening JRF/BBC documentaries are now available to watch online.

Filmmaker Andy Glynne discusses the Why Poverty? series and explains: 

 

As a filmmaker, I'd travelled a lot, and filmed the images that we still associate with the word 'poverty': malnourished children in sub-Saharan Africa; those with no roofs over their heads or without access to water. Poverty was, I had thought, an absence of the fundamentals to live by, and we filmmakers trooped around the world highlighting the inequalities between the rich North and the poor South, bringing awareness to a problem far away, somewhere on the other side of the world – somewhere that, well, wasn't here.

Because – as the notion goes – inequalities on this scale don't exist here in the UK, do they? Well, yes and no. It was when embarking on this project that the notion of relative poverty – in which poverty can exist for those who are considerably worse off than the majority of the population – became of interest.

As we researched stories about poverty in the UK, we became aware of the ways in which being relatively poor can have a plethora of horrible consequences. And although such consequences may seem to lack the immediacy of being acutely life-threatening, they can nevertheless insidiously create physical, psychological and social inequalities on a hugely significant scale.

The three films are available to watch online on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website: http://www.jrf.org.uk/blog/2013/01/poverty-captured-bbc-storyville-films