A recent press release from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which may be of
interest to some of you
- a brief summary of findings can also be viewed on-line
http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/D20.htm
David McDaid
LSE Health and Social Care
School standards improve for poorest children -
but income and health inequalities persist
Disadvantaged families in Britain are benefiting from rising
standards in schools
and falling unemployment. But there has been no
corresponding reduction in
income or health inequalities, according to the latest
available statistics.
The improvement in key education indicators and continued
reduction in
working-age adults claiming means-tested benefits are
identified in the third
edition of Monitoring poverty and social exclusion, the
independent annual guide to
trends compiled by the New Policy Institute and published by
the Joseph
Rowntree Foundation. But it highlights other measurements -
notably the millions
of children and adults living in households with less than
half average income - that
emphasise the undiminished scale of the Government's task in
tackling family
poverty.
The report is the most comprehensive and up-to-date of its
kind and brings
together information on 50 different indicators relating to
income, children and
young people, working age adults, older people and
communities. Most of the
series data extends as far as 1999 or 2000. However, the
most recent set of
official figures on low income households ends in March 1999
- just before
important anti-poverty policies like the Working Families
Tax Credit, the national
minimum wage and the minimum income guarantee for pensioners
came into
force.
Income poverty
The 1998/9 figures show no reduction in the 4 million
children living in households
with less than half the national average net income (after
allowing for housing
costs). Around 2 million children were living in families
where no adult was in paid
work. The same statistics identified 14 million adults in
households with less than
half average income - nearly a million more than in the
early 1990s, and more than
double the number in the early 1980s. They included 8
million adults in homes
where disposable income was less than 40 per cent of the
national average - half
a million higher than in 1996/97. The indicators also show 1
million older people
(23 per cent of single pensioners and 8 per cent of couples)
with no income other
than their state pension and benefits.
Education
The proportion of 11-year old children failing to achieve
the expected standards in
English and maths fell by a quarter between 1996 and 1999.
Schools in
disadvantaged neighbourhoods shared these general
improvements. A similar
improvement applied to the number of 16-year olds obtaining
GCSE passes at
grades A-C. The number of pupils excluded from school also
fell sharply in 1998/9
with a proportionately greater drop among children from
minority ethnic groups.
Even so, 150,000 pupils are leaving school each year without
GCSEs above grade
D and exclusion remains four times as common for black
Caribbean pupils than
for whites.
Employment
Although the 'headline' count of unemployed people has
fallen since 1993 from 3
million to 1 million, official surveys have identified a
growing number of
'economically inactive' people who say they want work. The
net effect is that the
number of people who are not working but would like to work
has fallen more
slowly from 5 million to 4 million. There has also been an
increase in the number
of households where no one has worked for two years or more
from around 1
million to 2 million over the same period. The continuing
economic vulnerability of
young adults is indicated by the half a million 16 to
24-year olds who were
unemployed earlier this year and another million in work
paid less than half the
male median hourly wage. Thus, more than a third of
'economically active' young
people at this age appeared to be either unemployed or on
low pay.
Health
The 'premature' death rate among under 65s continues to
fall. However, there are
widening geographical variations. The number of local
authorities where rates are
significantly above average has grown by half since 1995.
Obesity, chronic
sickness and mental illness all show significant
inequalities between social
classes. The number of accidental deaths has fallen
continuously in the past ten
years, but children whose parents are manual workers are
twice as likely to die in
accidents as those from non-manual classes. Girls in the
manual classes are five
times as likely to become mothers in their teens as those in
non-manual classes.
Suicide rates among 15 to 24-year olds are similar to a
decade ago, but
increasing numbers of young people are being treated for
problem drug use.
Housing
Levels of overcrowding have almost halved in the last ten
years. The proportion of
low-income households without central heating has also
declined in the past five
years from 15 per cent to around 10 per cent. Although the
number of
home-buyers more than a year in arrears with mortgage
payments dropped from a
peak of 150,000 in 1993 to around 30,000 in 1999, this
number was still more than
double that of a decade ago. The number of families living
in bed and breakfast
and other temporary accommodation has been rising since 1997
and has regained
the peak levels of the early 1990s.
Social polarisation
Around two-thirds of heads of households in council and
other 'social' housing in
1999/2000 did not have a paid job, compared with a third in
other tenures. Three-
quarters of social housing residents were on weekly incomes
of less than £200
compared with a quarter of those living in other tenures.
One in six of the poorest
households in 1998/9 did not have any kind of bank or
building society account
compared with one in twenty households with average incomes.
The six years up
to 1999 saw a significant reduction in the number of
pensioner households getting
any help from their local authority to live independently at
home.
Guy Palmer, Director of the New Policy Institute, said: "Our
analysis shows that
while people who are disadvantaged have generally shared in
the overall
improvements in education, this does not yet appear to be
the case in income,
health and other areas. Clearly many of the problems of
poverty and social
exclusion continue unabated. Equally clearly, the Government
has introduced a
range of important initiatives to tackle the problems whose
effectiveness cannot
yet be assessed. A fair evaluation will require continued
monitoring to establish
whether general improvements in living standards and the
quality of life are being
shared by those on low incomes. At worse, we should be
looking for inequalities
in areas such as health to get no worse. At best we should
hope to see them
eliminated altogether."
Note to Editors
Monitoring poverty and social exclusion 2000 by Mohibur
Rahman, Guy Palmer,
Peter Kenway and Catherine Howarth is published by the
Joseph Rowntree
Foundation and available from York Publishing Services, 64
Hallfield Road,
Layerthorpe, York YO31 7ZQ (01904 430033) price £16.95 plus
£2 p&p.
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