Policy Press
4 Unequal Britain
Abstract
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation released two reports last week. One showed that the British public says the gap between rich and poor is too large. The other, which seven colleagues and I produced, mapped how poverty and wealth have been distributed and redistributed across Britain since 1968. It shows that the gap between rich and poor is currently the highest it has been in 40 years.
We began in 1968, not because it was a year of student unrest and the time of the “summer of love”, but because towards the end of that year and into 1969 the first national survey of poverty in Britain was quietly being undertaken.
A year that began with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and ended with the earth being photographed from Apollo 8 is not remembered for the surveying of British living conditions on a national scale for the first time – a survey that revealed, among other things, that most ordinary folk did not take a holiday in those years. However, 1968 was the time we began to care in earnest – and the study of poverty stopped being the preserve of the sons of rich men and became part of public policy.
This started through the efforts of Peter Townsend and his fellow researchers at the University of Essex. Townsend’s was the first national survey of poverty, and the first fully computerised census took place just a few years later. Because of this the late 1960s to early 1970s is as far back as we can go to look at the distribution of poverty using modern social science methods and modern concepts, such as social exclusion.
Abstract
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation released two reports last week. One showed that the British public says the gap between rich and poor is too large. The other, which seven colleagues and I produced, mapped how poverty and wealth have been distributed and redistributed across Britain since 1968. It shows that the gap between rich and poor is currently the highest it has been in 40 years.
We began in 1968, not because it was a year of student unrest and the time of the “summer of love”, but because towards the end of that year and into 1969 the first national survey of poverty in Britain was quietly being undertaken.
A year that began with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and ended with the earth being photographed from Apollo 8 is not remembered for the surveying of British living conditions on a national scale for the first time – a survey that revealed, among other things, that most ordinary folk did not take a holiday in those years. However, 1968 was the time we began to care in earnest – and the study of poverty stopped being the preserve of the sons of rich men and became part of public policy.
This started through the efforts of Peter Townsend and his fellow researchers at the University of Essex. Townsend’s was the first national survey of poverty, and the first fully computerised census took place just a few years later. Because of this the late 1960s to early 1970s is as far back as we can go to look at the distribution of poverty using modern social science methods and modern concepts, such as social exclusion.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Sources of extracts vii
- Foreword xi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
-
Inequality and poverty
- Prime suspect: murder in Britain 13
- The dream that turned pear-shaped 31
- The soul searching within New Labour 41
- Unequal Britain 49
- Axing the child poverty measure is wrong 57
-
Injustice and ideology
- Brutal budget to entrench inequality 63
- New Labour and inequality: Thatcherism continued? 65
- All in the mind? Why social inequalities persist 83
- Glass conflict: David Cameron’s claim to understand poverty 93
- Clearing the poor away 97
-
Race and identity
- Ghettos in the sky 103
- Worlds apart: how inequality breeds fear and prejudice in Britain 111
- How much evidence do you need? Ethnicity, harm and crime 115
- UK medical school admissions by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sex 121
- Race and the repercussions of recession 125
-
Education and hierarchy
- What’s it to do with the price of fish? 133
- Little progress towards a fairer education system 139
- One of Labour’s great successes 147
- Do three points make a trend? 149
- Educational mobility, England and Germany 155
- Cash and the not so classless society 159
- Britain must close the great pay divide 165
- Raising equality in access to higher education 170
-
Elitism and geneticism
- The Darwins and the Cecils are only empty vessels 189
- The Fabian essay: the myth of inherited inequality 193
- The return to elitism in education 199
- The super-rich are still soaring away 209
-
Mobility and employment
- The trouble with moving upmarket 217
- Britain – split and divided by inequality 221
- London and the English desert: the grain of truth in a stereotype 225
- Are the times changing back? 237
- Unemployment and health 243
-
Bricks and mortar
- Mortality amongst street sleeping youth in the UK 249
- Daylight robbery: there’s no shortage of housing 251
- The influence of selective migration patterns 255
- The geography of poverty, inequality and wealth in the UK and abroad 263
- All connected? Geographies of race, death, wealth, votes and births 291
-
Well-being and misery
- Against the organization of misery? The Marmot Review of Health Inequalities 299
- Inequality kills 307
- The geography of social inequality and health 311
- The cartographer’s mad project 327
- The fading of the dream: widening inequalities in life expectancy in America 333
- The importance of circumstance 339
-
Advocacy and action
- Mean machine: how structural inequality makes social inequality seem natural 347
- Policing the borders of crime: who decides research? 351
- Learning the hard way 357
- When the social divide deepens 363
- Ending the scandal of complacency 365
- Our grandchildren will wonder why we were addicted to social inequality 369
- Mind the gap: New Labour’s legacy on child poverty 373
- Remapping the world’s population: visualizing data using cartograms 379
- If I were king 385
- Bibliography 387
- Index 389
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Sources of extracts vii
- Foreword xi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
-
Inequality and poverty
- Prime suspect: murder in Britain 13
- The dream that turned pear-shaped 31
- The soul searching within New Labour 41
- Unequal Britain 49
- Axing the child poverty measure is wrong 57
-
Injustice and ideology
- Brutal budget to entrench inequality 63
- New Labour and inequality: Thatcherism continued? 65
- All in the mind? Why social inequalities persist 83
- Glass conflict: David Cameron’s claim to understand poverty 93
- Clearing the poor away 97
-
Race and identity
- Ghettos in the sky 103
- Worlds apart: how inequality breeds fear and prejudice in Britain 111
- How much evidence do you need? Ethnicity, harm and crime 115
- UK medical school admissions by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sex 121
- Race and the repercussions of recession 125
-
Education and hierarchy
- What’s it to do with the price of fish? 133
- Little progress towards a fairer education system 139
- One of Labour’s great successes 147
- Do three points make a trend? 149
- Educational mobility, England and Germany 155
- Cash and the not so classless society 159
- Britain must close the great pay divide 165
- Raising equality in access to higher education 170
-
Elitism and geneticism
- The Darwins and the Cecils are only empty vessels 189
- The Fabian essay: the myth of inherited inequality 193
- The return to elitism in education 199
- The super-rich are still soaring away 209
-
Mobility and employment
- The trouble with moving upmarket 217
- Britain – split and divided by inequality 221
- London and the English desert: the grain of truth in a stereotype 225
- Are the times changing back? 237
- Unemployment and health 243
-
Bricks and mortar
- Mortality amongst street sleeping youth in the UK 249
- Daylight robbery: there’s no shortage of housing 251
- The influence of selective migration patterns 255
- The geography of poverty, inequality and wealth in the UK and abroad 263
- All connected? Geographies of race, death, wealth, votes and births 291
-
Well-being and misery
- Against the organization of misery? The Marmot Review of Health Inequalities 299
- Inequality kills 307
- The geography of social inequality and health 311
- The cartographer’s mad project 327
- The fading of the dream: widening inequalities in life expectancy in America 333
- The importance of circumstance 339
-
Advocacy and action
- Mean machine: how structural inequality makes social inequality seem natural 347
- Policing the borders of crime: who decides research? 351
- Learning the hard way 357
- When the social divide deepens 363
- Ending the scandal of complacency 365
- Our grandchildren will wonder why we were addicted to social inequality 369
- Mind the gap: New Labour’s legacy on child poverty 373
- Remapping the world’s population: visualizing data using cartograms 379
- If I were king 385
- Bibliography 387
- Index 389
