Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain: The millenium survey

Book Review

Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain: The millenium survey

Christina Pantazis, David Gordon and Ruth Levitas (eds)

ISBN: 978 1861343734; 2006; 512 pages; Bristol: Policy Press;

Monica Åberg Yngwe
Centre for Health Equity Studies, Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

In 1985 Mack and Lansley published Poor Britain based on the consensual deprivation method, identifying the minimum acceptable level of living in Britain by recognizing the necessities of life by public opinion. Based in this tradition, the Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) survey in 1999 examined poverty among adults and children in different social groups. The data provides a unique and rigorous mapping of poverty with its use of both consensual and more conventional poverty measures. There is richness in this investigation, holding measures that we could only hope for to find also in other studies in the future. In 2006, this anthology based on the PSE data was published, dedicated to the inventors of the consensual poverty method. Overall, the book provides a broad picture on how poverty can be measured and gives a better understanding on the processes of social exclusion. Already here I would like to point out that my critique is mainly related to documentation, power and representativity of the used data. The first chapter includes an, all too short, description of the data collection. Even though this is not supposed to be manual for the PSE data, there are several questions left unanswered due to the fact that we lack the possibility to evaluate the quality of data. The other drawback is that the sample only consists of about 1,500 respondents. Being also a follow-up sample to the General Household Survey, questions on the missing data, and how missing data is distributed in different groups, raises the question if the sample is fully representative and possible to extrapolate to the whole population. In the concluding chapter it is raised that this book is the core summary of the PSE survey methodology and findings, leaving us with only a reference to a website where we can find information on the variables.

The outline of the book is in three parts, divided into principles, processes and people. In Part One, principles, the chapters focus on theories and concepts of poverty and social exclusion. Chapter Two, written by David Gordon, is a comprehensive description on the concept and measurement of poverty, reviewing the problems and controversies with defining poverty. Three different measures, argued to hold a number of technical and theoretical advances, are here used: the consensual measurement, the income poverty measurement and the subjective measurement. All three measures produce similar results showing about 25% of the population to be living in poverty. Starting here and all the way through the book we see alarming results from Britain. Considering the fact that the book is dedicated to the founders of the consensual poverty method it is well-suited that chapter four The necessities of life by Pantazis, Gordon and Townsend is one of the best chapters in this volume, worth reading for everyone interested in this method. The breakthrough of Mack and Lansley (1985) was not only the focus on the public opinion instead of poverty lines set by experts, but also raising the importance of necessities beyond food and shelter, necessities important for the individual to participate in society. In the PSE survey they analyse differences in perception of necessities between men and women, younger and older, minority ethnic and non-minority ethnic, and social class differences, providing support for the importance of using different measures. In this chapter they are also meeting the critique that has been raised against the consensual approach. However, one could also have whished for some overall discussion on shortcomings of the PSE. There must be some considering the fact that this is a small sample consisting of 1,500 individuals. It is also difficult to interpret the effects of this being a sub-sample from the General Household Survey.

The second part, processes, is exploring the roads into poverty in Britain, starting with the chapter Does work pay? Employment, poverty and exclusion from social relations (by Nick Bailey). Employment is a fundamental resource for avoiding poverty, but this chapter extends the question to also explore whether more work leads to a lower risk of poverty or exclusion by comparing those working full-time and part-time and also analyse whether benefits of work are equally great for men and women. Opposite to what had previously been found their results showed that part-time employment was associated with lower levels of exclusion compared to full-time work and no work. This chapter present interesting results and highlight also the methodological problems regarding the risk of reversed causation using cross-sectional data, raising the idea that differences in social networks, sociability and social support might explain differences in employment status. In the end they choose to interpret the causality as mostly important from employment status to the social outcomes. They find that women gain more from work in financial terms when analysing subjective poverty measures. This is an interesting result, since objective measures do often implicitly assume an equal distribution within the household.

Further processes are analysed in the chapters Debt and financial exclusion; Social exclusion and local services; Crime, ‘disorder', insecurity and social exclusion, and finally Mental health, poverty and social exclusion. Mental health, here measured by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), is the only health effect of poverty discussed in this volume, which I find to be a bit scarce. In the chapter the author Sarah Payne discusses the causal relation between poverty and mental health. A range of different measures of poverty are analysed, among others a subjective measure which ask the respondent if he or she feels poor without defining what is to be regarded as poor. Interestingly a tenth of those answering that they ‘never felt poor' are, if fact, defined as poor when using objective measures. One explanation here is that this group has developed lower expectations. Even though to ‘feel poor' was related to mental health, the objective measure is found to be more related. Being a researcher in public health I do of course find these questions interesting and could only have wished for some more chapters on the health consequences of poverty and social exclusion. There is today a major discussion on the relation between income/poverty and health, and since the PSE hold a range of interesting poverty measures such analyses could have made an interesting contribution to this area. As far as I understand, the PSE do also include some other self-rated health measures.

The final part of the book, people, discuss and analyse the extent of poverty and social exclusion among children, youth, pensioners, lone mothers and between genders. An interesting contribution to the research on child poverty is the PSE survey list of 30 items and activities for measuring necessities among children. Asking the respondents whether the item was necessary and something no child should have to go without, almost all items were here considered as necessary by the population. In the end of the volume, an enlightening and important chapter on ‘Gender, poverty and social exclusion' is presented. As the authors (Pantazis and Ruspini) state, both poverty and social exclusion are gendered experiences, facts that are often neglected. They show that regardless of the poverty measure used, women are more likely to be impoverished compared to men. Their findings together with results from previous chapters; discussing that women and men make different priorities related to what can be regarded as necessities in life, and also highlighting the fact that distribution within households might be unequal, raise the need for a better understanding of the different roads to poverty and social exclusion, and as the authors argue more ‘gender-sensitive' policies. This issue becomes even more relevant in the following chapter where one of the poorest groups in society is analysed, the lone mothers. A larger part on policies could have been interesting, starting with describing prevailing social policies in these areas and, based on the results they found, giving suggestions on how these better could serve the poor in Britain.

The book serves the purpose of explaining the concepts of poverty and social exclusion, but holds some shortcomings to fully serve the purpose also analytically. The PSE data surely consists of several interesting measures and the presented results show at the same time alarming and enlightening figures. However, the small sample, lack of relevant information on the data and the fact that this is a sub-sample from the General Household Survey make it difficult to see through the presented analyses and raises questions on generalisability. Dividing the book into the sections on principles, processes, and people makes this volume interesting for a broader academic audience, but including parts also on public health and policy would have broadened the audience even more and, maybe even, have launched new ideas into large ongoing discussions.

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