Projects
Regional poverty and social exclusion
We have recently completed a study analysing the specific characteristics of rural poverty and social exclusion in the East of England.
Rural poverty and social exclusion is a much misunderstood subject. Some people ignore it, mistakenly believing that the problems only exist in inner cities. Others try and give it a very particular flavour -focused on the problems of farming - whereas actually, many of the problems are similar to those in urban areas. It is this context that the East of England Development Agency and the Eastern Region Public Health Observatory jointly commissioned us to carry out a study of poverty and social exclusion in rural East of England.
View/download the executive summary.
View/download the full report.
The report's main focus was the quantitative analysis of all available statistics, using both national and local sources. Some points on the overall scale of the problem include:
- Almost a sixth of the rural population live in households with an income below that which the government defines as the poverty threshold.
- Half of these people are living in households where someone is working, showing that low income is not just about lack of work, but also about low pay.
- Lack of work is not about just about official unemployment - many people are economically inactive, wanting paid work - the largest group being older people with a limiting long standing illness.
- A quarter of all children fail to achieve basic educational qualifications (no GCSEs at Grade C or above).
- Around a half of all people living in rural East of England live more than 2 kilometres away from their nearest supermarket, secondary school, library, or bank; around a quarter are over 4km away. This feature of rural poverty presents particular problems for those without a car, and those with a greater pressures on their time - for example, lone parents.
In the past we have undertaken a series of presentations and workshops undertaken around the country to discuss issues of poverty and social exclusion that are pertinent to the locality in question. The workshops were organised by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and each was attended by a mixture of local businesses, politicians, voluntary organisations and other interested parties. They discussed both differences between regions and differences within the region.