Projects
Poverty and social exclusion in rural 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.
Countryside Agency
We undertook a major analysis of analysis of rural poverty and social exclusion for the Countryside Agency, the Government’s statutory adviser on rural issues. Our report was published on 3rd December 2002.
View/download the full report.
Alternatively, to view all the graphs and indicators on our poverty website, click here.
Most of the indicators reveal significant levels of poverty and social exclusion in rural England.
The overall pattern is:
-
Overall, there is less poverty and social exclusion in
rural authorities than urban authorities: the rural statistic is better than
the urban one on 30 of 51 occasions, similar on 18, and worse on 3. The three statistics which are worse in
rural authorities are:
- Proportion of young adults committing suicide.
- Proportion of older people who receive help from social services to live at home.
- Proportion of non-drivers who believe that public transport needs improving.
- Nevertheless, on nearly all of the indicators, there are significant levels of poverty and exclusion in rural authorities, both remote rural and accessible. For example the share of people living in low income households is 18% in rural England compared to 24% in urban areas – three-quarters the level.
- For some indicators, levels of disadvantage are significantly less in rural than urban areas. Examples include receipt of benefits, workless households, lack of bank accounts, burglaries, dissatisfaction with the local area and homelessness.
- Over many of the indicators, ‘remote rural’ areas are noticeably more disadvantaged than ‘accessible rural’ areas: the ‘remote
rural’ statistic is worse than the ‘accessible rural’ one on 20 of 36
occasions, similar on 22 and better on 5 (with 4 for which remote/accessible
comparisons are not possible). More specifically:
- ‘Remote rural’ areas are worse than, or similar to, ‘accessible rural’ authorities for all of the income, work, health and housing indicators.
- ‘Remote rural’ areas are better than, or similar to, ‘accessible rural’ authorities for all the crime-related indicators and most of the education indicators.
Rural East of England
We also undertook a study analysing the specific characteristics of rural poverty and social exclusion in the East of England for the East of England Development Agency and the Eastern Region Public Health Observatory.
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.