UK’s largest ever poverty and social exclusion research project
Posted on 27 May 2010
The ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) has funded the 42-month, £4.3 million pound investigation designed to refine poverty and social exclusion measurement. The research team is the most experienced in poverty measurement methodology ever assembled in the UK.It is a major collaboration involving researchers from the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at York, University of Bristol, Heriot-Watt University, the National Centre for Social Research, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, Open University, Queen's University Belfast and the University of Glasgow.
There is too little practical scientific research into ending child poverty and more must be done as a matter of urgency
Professor Jonathan Bradshaw
Every decade since the late 1960s, UK social scientists have attempted to carry out an independent poverty survey to test out new ideas and incorporate current state of the art methods into UK poverty research.
The 1968-69 Poverty in the UK survey, the 1983 Poor Britain and 1990 Breadline Britain surveys and the 1999 Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey and its 2002 counterpart in Northern Ireland, introduced new methods, ideas and techniques about poverty measurement and helped to keep UK academic research at the forefront of academic research.
This major initiative will:
- Improve the measurement of poverty, deprivation, social exclusion and standard of living.
- Measure the change in the nature and extent of poverty and social exclusion over the past ten years.
- Produce policy-relevant results about the causes and outcomes of poverty and social exclusion.
Professor Jonathan Bradshaw, of the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at York and the UK’s leading expert on child poverty, said: “The British Government has committed itself to ending child poverty, forever, by 2020.
"All political parties have agreed to this by supporting the Child Poverty Bill. The academic community must rise to this challenge and provide the high quality research and policy advice that the government (of whatever complexion) will need. There is too little practical scientific research into ending child poverty and more must be done as a matter of urgency.”
Professor David Gordon, Director of the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research at the University of Bristol, said: “Poverty and exclusion are once again an issue in a General Election. All governments and political parties claim they want to eradicate poverty.
"Billions of pounds are spent each year in the UK on trying to reduce poverty and yet poverty rates remain stubbornly and persistently higher than during the 1960s and 1970s. Wages and benefits are too low and too much money and talent is wasted on ‘socially useless activities’ in the financial sector.
“A radical re-think is needed on how to end poverty and exclusion once and for all. This major new study will provide politicians with the high quality scientific evidence they will need.”
Professor Bradshaw added: “The UK now stands at a crossroads in terms of adopting effective measures to stop and reverse the damaging structural trends that have resulted in high levels of poverty and social exclusion for over 30 years.
"High rates of social deprivation have the effects of worsening health, education, and job skills, as well as relationships within families, between ethnic groups and across society as a whole.
"If the UK is to become an inclusive society in which everybody has a stake and is able to participate then the most important task facing government is the ending of poverty and social exclusion.”
Notes to editors:
- Further details can be found at www.poverty.ac.uk.
Contact details
Keep up to date
Subscribe to news feeds
