An edition of Poor Britain
(1985)
Poor Britain
by Joanna Mack
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A comprehensive account of poverty in Britain based on a major survey by MORI and the experiences of the poor themselves, originally researched for the LWT television series Breadline Britain. The authors develop a new and original measure of poverty – the consenual approach – which has since become a standard for objective measurement of poverty in different societies.
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Book Details
First Sentence
"For most of the postwar period, poverty has been largely a forgotten problem."
Table of Contents
List of figures
Page xiii
List of tables
Page xv
Preface & acknowledgments
Page xix
Foreword by Professor AH Halsey
Page xxiii
Introduction.
1.
Going Down
The growing ranks of the poor
Page 3
The growth of ‘poverty’
Page 4
The debate about ‘poverty’
Page 7
The Breadline Britain survey
Page 9
Poor Britain
Page 11
I.
Poverty in Britain in the 1980s
2.
How Poor is too Poor?
Defining poverty
Page 15
The search for an ‘absolute’ poverty line
Page 16
The use of relative health standards to define poverty
Page 21
Viewing necessities as socially determined
Page 26
Can poverty be measured objectively?
Page 29
The Townsend poverty study
Page 31
A new approach to poverty
Page 37
Defining poverty in terms of a consenual view of need
Page 45
3.
To live or to exist?
The survey’s findings on today’s necessities
Page 49
The survey’s design
Page 49
The public’s perception of necessities
Page 53
The homogeneity of views throughout society
Page 59
Necessities and norms of behaviour
Page 65
The influences on people’s perceptions of necessities
Page 69
The role of moral judgements
Page 78
A culturally specific view of poverty
Page 83
A minimum standard of living for Britain in the 1980s
Page 86
4.
The other Britain
The extent of deprivation
Page 87
The lack of socially perceived necessities
Page 88
The income measure
Page 91
Controlling for taste
Page 92
An enforced lack of necessities
Page 99
Levels of deprivation
Page 105
A wider view of the extent of deprivation
Page 113
The question of ‘fecklessness’
Page 117
Other influences on living standards
Page 127
The extent of deprivation
Page 132
5.
Just existing
The impact of deprivation
Page 134
Living in a rubbish dump
Page 137
Going to bed to keep warm
Page 143
Eggs, eggs and more eggs
Page 146
Living in other people’s cast-offs
Page 149
Furnishing the home from the rubbish tip
Page 150
Santa is dead
Page 152
A lonely living
Page 154
Yet more problems
Page 156
Failing to make ends meet
Page 157
Feelings of despair
Page 162
Feeling poor
Page 167
Just existing
Page 169
6.
Measuring poverty
The implications of the findings on deprivation
Page 171
The principles underlying the measurement of poverty
Page 172
An enforced lack of necessities
Page 175
The effects of deprivation
Page 178
The extent of poverty
Page 181
The people in poverty
Page 185
The problems in estimating an adequate income level
Page 190
The measurement of an ‘income threshold’
Page 191
The impact of rasing the minimum income level
Page 194
The implications of the findings for policy
Page 196
Poverty in the 1980s
Page 199
II.
Attitudes to anti-poverty measures
7.
The will to act?
Public attitudes to the poor and to equality
Page 203
The persistence of poverty
Page 203
Attitudes to the causes of poverty
Page 205
The deserving and undeserving poor
Page 209
The waning of the welfare backlash
Page 213
Attitudes to redistribution
Page 221
The New Right’s commitment to inequality
Page 225
The failure of the Labour party
Page 228
The will to act – in principle
Page 231
8.
The collapse of welfarism
Shifts in policies for the poor
Page 232
The foundation of the welfare state
Page 233
The impact of the welfare years
Page 235
The growing crisis for welfare spending
Page 239
Welfare under Thatcherism
Page 241
The current direction of government policies
Page 243
The road from welfare
Page 247
9.
The defence of welfarism
Public attitudes to welfare spending
Page 248
Attitudes ot welfare spending in the latter half of the 1970s
Page 248
Current attitudes to welfare spending
Page 253
Attitudes to spending on the poor
Page 257
Attitudes t0 social security benefits
Page 263
The low-paid
Page 269
The growing support for welfarism
Page 271
Conclusions
10.
The future
What hope for the poor?
Page 275
The public’s definition of unacceptable living standards
Page 276
The public’s support for policies to help the poor
Page 278
The future
Page 282
Appendix A.
The likely accuracy of the findings
Page 287
Appendix B.
The questionnaire
Page 291
Appendix C.
Income: concepts and problems
Page 308
References.
Page 315
Index.
Page 319
Edition Notes
Bibliography: p. [315]-318.
Includes index.
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| December 27, 2020 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
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| December 4, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Added subjects from MARC records. |
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