Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
Townsend argued that poverty is a key barrier to social participation as it limits people’s ability to participate in social activities and to maintain social relationships or networks. The results in this chapter support this argument finding that poverty acts as a barrier to social contact, particularly with friends; that it constrains participation in a range of social activities, and; that it shapes perceptions of support and satisfaction with relationships. People experiencing social and material deprivation have less social contact than they would like, and attribute this to cost or affordability problems, although other factors such as health or caring responsibilities can play a role too. That said, the importance of contact with family in particular emerges clearly in this analysis. For those groups where there are likely to be additional needs for support as a result of poverty, caring roles or health problems, contact with family tends to be significantly higher - likely reflecting the importance of family as both the central source of financial resources and of practical and emotional support. Households in these groups who lack access to such family networks may face particular disadvantages. All in all, the study finds that people experiencing poverty are often in effect excluded from widely accepted norms of social participation in the UK today.
This chapter makes the case for reasserting the importance of gender to poverty and social exclusion.We argue that gender matters to understanding poverty, given the continued relevance of gender to involvement in paid and unpaid work, and caring responsibilities, across the lifecourse. However, academics and policy makers need to reconfigure gendered poverty as more than simply studying ‘poor women’. Our analysis explores the circumstances of both women and men, and how gender intersects in significant ways with age and household type. We also show that gender differences emerge not in relation to deprivation but also in economising practices that men and women adopt to protect their living standards with women more like to cut back than men. Finally, our work highlights the need for poverty researchers to acknowledge the importance of both household and individual level measures.
A string of reforms over recent years has left disabled people at heightened risk of poverty and social exclusion. This chapter presents an analysis of PSE2012 data in relation to disabled people during the period 2010-2013 in the UK.The results are hard-hitting. The odds of a disabled adult being in poverty were more than three times those of a non-disabled person when risk estimates were adjusted for age and gender. The odds of disabled people being socially excluded from a range of indicators were significantly higher than for non-disabled people for each of the 11 indicators. Comparable data suggests that between 1999 and 2012 the experiences of deprivation and disadvantage for households with disabled people have considerably worsened. Disabled people now appear to be among the ‘poorest of the poor’.
The discussion in this short chapter, meant as an overview of both the findings and the theoretical framework, is organised mainly in terms of the four elements of the theoretical framework that guided the study. To begin, and to set the larger context for the study, the chapter outlines the predictions around poverty in Northern Ireland in the coming period. Following this, the main findings are set out and the insights yielded for the reconceptualisation of family from this study of family life in a context of poverty and low income are discussed.
This chapter explores further the everyday processes of family life in conditions of low income, with special attention to cognitive and cultural processes relating to the meaning of family. The chapter has four sections. The first focuses on the sets of understandings around family that prevail and the ways in which everyday activities and interactions contribute to realising prevailing senses and ideals of family. The second part examines some instances whereby people engage in family building (e.g., Christmas and birthdays) or construct family life. The third and fourth parts investigate people’s sense of their capabilities to realise the personal and family lives which they would like to have and the impacts of living on a low income on people’s sense of themselves and their capabilities.
The recent radical cutbacks of the welfare state in the UK have meant that poverty and income management continue to be of great importance for intellectual, public and policy discourse. Written by leading authors in the field, the central interest of this innovative book is the role and significance of family in a context of poverty and low-income. Based on a micro-level study carried out in 2011 and 2012 with 51 families in Northern Ireland, it offers new empirical evidence and a theorisation of the relationship between family life and poverty. Different chapters explore parenting, the management of money, family support and local engagement. By revealing the ordinary and extraordinary practices involved in constructing and managing family and relationships in circumstances of low incomes, the book will appeal to a wide readership, including policy makers.
This chapter probes the everyday reality of life on a low income through considering the family as a unit of expenditure and consumption. The chapter opens by first outlining how money and need are viewed and where the priorities lie in these regards. This leads to a discussion of how people organise their budgeting, especially their essential spending on fuel, housing and food. The chapter then moves on to consider more existential elements, detailing how money is part of individual and family mood and frame of reference. The remainder of the chapter enquires into patterns of money management, the distribution of resources and the general patterning and practices of family life in these regards.
This chapter introduces the respondents and outlines key elements of their living situation. The chapter concentrates mainly on the objective or structural conditions of people’s lives, detailing family composition and make-up, economic status, income, employment, housing and health. The chapter also conveys a sense of the nature and trajectory of people’s lives. Vignettes of five real stories, chosen to represent different situations and intended to give a sense of personal trajectory, are presented at different points of the text so as to give greater depth and meaning to the more quantitative information.
This chapter outlines the background to the research and sets out the study’s aims, theoretical orientations and methodology. Having reviewed some of the relevant literature, the chapter presents the theoretical framework, and clarifies the approach taken to defining and conceptualising both family and poverty. In addition, a theoretical model is presented of how family and poverty are related. This four-fold framework centres on the structural, cultural, relational and representational aspects of the relationship between family and poverty. The chapter also details how the respondents were obtained, the main features of the interviews and the information gathered. The chapter also outlines the main limitations of the research and the book’s structure.
This chapter explores the modes of relating within respondents’ families, with relationships with children to the fore. The chapter investigates the extent to which children are the source of their parents’ most meaningful relationships and the hopes and expectations that parents have for their children and their childhood. It also hears parents’ accounts of their parenting practices and considers the impact of poverty and low income on how people parent. The ethics around parenting in such circumstances are also considered. The chapter also considers the lives of the children living in these families and aspects of the relationships that children have with parents.
