We are currently developing an important new resource which will draw together questionnaires from countries (and dependent territories) around the world that have have conducted surveys using questions based on the consensual approach to measuring multi-dimensional poverty.

Social tariffs for those on low incomes have been made available by some of the biggest broadband providers, but just 1.2% of the 4.2 million households in receipt of Universal Credit have successfully applied.

UNICEF 75 report, Preventing a lost decade: Urgent action to reverse the devastating impact of COVID-19 on children and young people.

This report looks in detail at food insecurity among benefit claimants using YouGov surveys of the general public (n=2,600) and of claimants (n=6,300), both conducted for the Welfare at a (Social) Distance project in May/June 2021. We look at two measures of food insecurity:

The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 set stretching targets for child poverty reduction.  The Scottish Government published a Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan in 2018, setting out policies and programmes to support progress towards reaching the child poverty targets.  The Scottish Government

Our upcoming webinar series will bring together a range of experts to explore the context of tackling poverty in Scotland.

A recent report form the city of Buenos Aires measuring multi-dimensional poverty, using the consensual method, has found that in 2019,15.3% of households were multi-dimensionally poor, rising to 25.7% for households with children under 18 years of age. The method established will be used to measure nu,ti-dimensional poverty on an ongoing basis.

The Journal of Poverty and Social Justice (JPSJ) is looking for three to five Associate Editors to join the JPSJ editorial team alongside the newly appointed Joanna Mack (Open University, UK) and Marco Pomati (University of Cardiff, UK) who will be officially taking over as Co-Editors from the beginning of September 2021. The application deadline is 30 September, 2021.

The “invisibility” of poverty in Japanese society has long been one of the reasons for the underestimation of this social issue by the authorities. Find out more from this recent lecture organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation.

We are now delighted to offer you the presentation slides and video recordings of sessions across the three days, featuring formal presentations, interactive Q&As, networking opportunities and much more.

The Conservative Governments' Record on Social Policy from May 2015 to pre-COVID 2020: Policies, Spending and Outcomes is examined in a new report from the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the LSE. The report finds that the protective capacity of the welfare state over this period was eroded.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Steering Group on Measuring Poverty and Inequality has been tasked with producing a guide on Measuring Social Exclusion which references a lot of our PSE work.

The latest Joseph Rowntree Foundation annual report finds that those who had been struggling to make ends meet before the pandemic have suffered the most financial damage during the crisis, 

Our colleagues at Heriot-Watt University have published their latest report on destitution in the UK, which makes grim reading even before the effects of the pandemic...

Leveraging Policy Data and Harmonized Survey Data to Protect Health and Economic Security: Strengthening Frameworks to Leave No One Behind During COVID-19 and Beyond  webinar takes place on Friday 9 October at 13:00 UK time, featuring PSE's Profes

UNICEF Innocenti Report Card 16, gives the UK an overall ranking of 27 among 41 EU and OECD countries on children’s health, academic and social skillsets. According to the data analysis, the UK ranks 29^th for mental well-being, 19^th for physical health and 26^th for skills.

‘Home sweet home’ no longer tenable as new report shows spaces are becoming physically and emotionally suffocating for most African girls.

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the stark implication os the millions of children across the African continent trapped in poverty. In 'What works for Africa's poorest children', Practical Action bring together cutting edge examples on what can be done.

The origins of modern welfare was published in July 2010, by Peter Lang.  The publisher and I agreed at the time of publication that our contractual agreement would expire after ten years, and the rights would revert to me.  I am taking the opportunity now to make this w

The final report by UN special rapporteur, Philip Alston, argues that there has been a failure to tackle extreme poverty. Condemning the reliance on the World Bank's line, he calls for its replacement with measures based on an adequate standard of living.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has adopted a Guide to Poverty Measurement and data disaggregation which is now formally endorsed by the Conference of European Statisticians (CES). 

50 per cent of UK households believe they will struggle to meet their financial commitments over the next three months. In the first three weeks after the UK government introduced the ‘lockdown’, an estimated 7 million households had lost their earned income... 

A new Office for National Statistics release has compared the Covid-19 death rates in England and also in Wales finds that the mortality rate in the most deprived areas is around twice as high as in the least deprived areas.

An overview of the various global and regional analysis on the impact of COVID-19 on poverty from the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty finds that millions more will be pushed into extreme poverty worldwide.

A new United Nations food assessment of 17 West African countries - made before the potential impact of Covid-19 - finds more than 19 million people in the region will go hungry during the upcoming lean season.

Help families facing Covid-19 crisis: social policy academics and the PSE say raise Child Benefit to £50

The Food Foundation has just released the results of a YouGov survey on the impact of Covid-19 on food access. (See here ) They found that;

The Government claimed that Universal Credit would reduce unemployment by 200,000 and save the tax-payer £8 billion.

Research has just been published which unfortunately shows a growing gap in the quality of health care in England between the poorest and richest areas.

The numbers currently used by the UN to estimate malnutrition underplay the true extent of the problem. New analysis of data from 18 countries in the West and Central Africa shows that conventional estimates of malnutrition for the region effectively overlooked millions of malnourished children.

Fact check: the Prime Minister's claim that "there are 400,000 fewer children in poverty than there were in 2010"  (Andrew Marr Show, 1 December, 2019) is not supported by Government statistics. Read the actual figures....

Current benefit payments are at their lowest level since 1948, finds a new report from the IPPR. Further analysis suggest it could even be relatively lower than the Elizabethan Poor Laws.

On this World Children’s Day, please see this important report focussing on the role of child rights in addressing child poverty: ‘Protecting the Child from Poverty: The Role of  Rights in the Council of Europe’.

The implementation of the consensual method of multi-dimensional poverty measurement is simple and straight forward.

The EU has revised its material deprivation index from the existing 9-item to a new 13-item index following analysis of data from around 50 material deprivation items, derived from the UK Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey indicators and collected in EU-SILC 2009. Read more about the analyses behind this new index.

National proportions of deprived children vary hugely across EU countries, from 5 to 10% in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Luxembourg and Slovenia to around 70% in Bulgaria and Romania. Read more about the new European Union child deprivation index - adopted in 2018.

People in Mexcio have a relative and a wide view of what should constitute a minimum standard of living, covering essential services such as a pension, nursery care and housing credit as well as durables such as a fridge and computer.  Read more.

The Social Disadvantage, Well-being and Health project (SDWH-HK), follows on from the 2013 PSE-HK project. While official measures of poverty in the territory use just income, SDWH-HK, like PSE-HK, uses wider measures of deprivation and social exclusion, as well as income.

A new study using a combined income and material deprivation poverty line found that around 10% of the child population in South Korea are in poverty. This is twice the rate of the official Korean child poverty rate which is based only on household income and suggests that conventional income only measures insufficiently identify poor children.

Researchers from the University of Campinas, the University of Sao Paulo, the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Faculdade de Direito do Sul de Minas, the Pontifical Catholic University and the University of Londrina are collaborating with Cardiff University on measuring multi-dimensional poverty using the consensual approach. 

In 2016, the Solomon Islands included a module on multi-dimensional deprivation in their national survey aimed at finding the necessities of life for all people of the Solomon Islands. The survey found that there is widespread consensus in the population about the importance of these items to the lives of people in the Solomon Islands today.

The first ever of multidimensional poverty in Benin using the consensual or socially perceived necessities approach, found a high degree of consensus on the essentials for living in Benin. The needs of 33% of households were 'not satsified at all' for four or more of these essentials. 

The government of Uganda has successfully introduced measures of multidimensional poverty based on socially-perceived necessities into its national household survey. The research finds high levels of deprivation and will help target resources to where needed.

Tonga has pioneered a multidimensional poverty measure to meet its SDG goals, which builds on the Consensual Approach. It combines low income with measures of deprivation - based on socially perceived essentials - to identify the poor. One in four adults and on in three children are in poor.

This year’s theme for the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty focussed on child and family poverty. A key theme was prioritising access to quality social services.

Going beyond income

This statistical briefing note explains the research behind the BBC1 Panorama programme 'Too poor to stay warm' broadcast on 21 March, 2016. The programme highlighted the problems of fuel poverty in the UK and was based on calculations produced by the PSE project team.

Poverty Research Methods Course

Date: 15^th - 19^th July 2019

Venue: University of Bristol

Deprivation scales are becoming increasingly familiar in reseach and in official statistics on poverty. They have been included in a number of UK surveys, including the Family Resources Survey, the Scottish Household Survey and the UK Household Longitudinal Study, for example.