This is our first issue since we took over from Gill Main and Rod Hick as co-editors of the Journal of Poverty and Social Justice (JPSJ) and we’d like to thank them for all their help in the transfer period. Over the five years in which Gill and Rod were co-editors, substantial progress was made in terms of increasing the journal’s reach and impact. There were more submissions, a wider international distribution of submissions and a wider range of topics covered. This continued the broadening of the journal from its original focus on welfare and social security systems to include a greater range of factors underlying poverty and social justice. Most notably, the journal gained a Journal lmpact Factor award.

One of our first jobs, on becoming co-editors, was to help oversee the appointment process for a new position, that of Associate Editor. The aim of this role was to bring in new people to broaden the range of expertise and international experience that could be called upon to help direct the future of the journal. The quality of applications was high and we are delighted to welcome the successful candidates: Enrique Delamónica, UNICEF’s Senior Adviser Statistics and Monitoring (Child Poverty and Gender Equality), in its Data and Analytics Section – Division of Data, Research and Policy; Luis Renato Vedovato, Human Rights Professor at the State University of Campinas and the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas, Brazil; Shatakshee Dhongde, Associate Professor of Economics at Georgia Tech and a research affiliate with the Institute of Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA; Alba Lanau, post-doctoral Fellow with the Beatriu de Pinos Maire-Curie programme at the Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics in Barcelona, Spain; and Julia Gumy, lecturer in Policy Studies with Quantitative Research Methods at the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, UK.

Between them, they have conducted substantive research on poverty and social justice, in many countries across the world and will help extend the journal’s global reach. They combine a wide-ranging set of professional experiences and expertise and will strengthen the journal’s ability to develop into new areas of importance to poverty and social justice. They also bring a strong appreciation of how research, policy and practice intersect which will further strengthen its global relevance in understanding and addressing poverty and social justice.

We have taken over the editorship at a time of enormous global challenges, making it ever more important that scholarly research is published that helps us understand what is needed to improve the day-to-day lives of those who need it most and helps inform and promote the policy and practices to achieve these aims. To further the scholarly impact of JPSJ, we are looking to strengthen the theoretical and methodological foundations of the peer-reviewed research articles that form the core of the journal. To this end, we are looking to ensure that:

1. articles based on quantitative data analysis have a clear theoretical foundation, address policy-relevant questions and are accessible, with statistical analysis presented in a way understandable to a lay audience;

2. articles based on qualitative analysis of small-scale studies are clear in the methodology adopted, transparent about strengths and limitations and have a wide policy relevance beyond the specific circumstances of the study; and

3. articles making a theoretical contribution are clear about how they are adding to existing literature and understandings of poverty and social justice and the policy implications of the contribution.

We will be re-writing the author guidance to make these requirements clearer and these new guidelines will be published on the Policy Press website under the Instructions for Authors.

We will also be looking to strengthen the foundations of the Policy and Practice articles. These shorter articles form a distinctive feature of the JPSJ by providing an opportunity for publishing overviews of policy ideas and practical developments in the field on a timely basis. While these articles are not expected, or required, to have been the result of a full research study, and while they do not go out for peer review, they are expected to be of a suitable standard for an academic journal. To further this aim, we will also be clarifying the guidelines for these submissions to encourage authors to set out clearly the basis of their work, whether it be, for example, knowledge exchange, iterative or reflective practice, or a small-scale study. We would particularly like to encourage practitioners to consider the JPSJ as an outlet for their experiences and ideas. As articles for the Policy and Practice section do not go out for peer-review, they are able to have a shorter turn-around time making them an ideal outlet for innovative new policy ideas and for initial assessments of changes to policy and practice.

In the coming year we will also be introducing a new section aimed at encouraging and promoting debate on how to tackle the global challenges being faced. We will be publishing more details on this new section in the coming months.

Perhaps our most important task, however, will be to ensure that the coverage of the journal adapts as different policy developments and priorities arise and as research focuses change. JPSJ has done this over its history. While it has continued to explore in depth issues surrounding its initial focus on the impact of changes to welfare and social security systems – and, in particular, in the last decade the impact of austerity policies – it has also introduced a greater focus on the economic roots of poverty. As the nature of employment has changed to become more casualised, insecure and precarious, the journal has looked at the impact of these trends, for example in the special issue on ‘Self-employment and social protection in Europe’ (Caraher and Reuter, 2019).

Since 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken an enormous toll on people’s health and livelihoods. Worldwide, the number of deaths (at the time of writing) has reached nearly, 5.6 million;¹ in the UK at least 150,000² to 175,000³ people have died, the highest number of deaths of any European country.⁴ It has had profound economic impacts on countries across the globe and sharply exposed the impact of social inequality within and between countries. The World Bank estimates that the pandemic has led to 97 million more people being in extreme poverty (that is living on less than $1.90 a day) worldwide.⁵ Progress towards meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which was already lagging in many low-income countries, has been thrown into reverse and will require large-scale additional external financing to get back on track.⁶ In Europe, despite unprecedented government and EU support for individuals and businesses cushioning its impact, the pandemic led to severe social and economic hardship.⁷ In the UK, low-income households bore the brunt of the financial impact of the pandemic, dragging many into deeper debt,⁸ lowering living standards and widening inequality.⁹

Serious academic analysis of differential impact of the pandemic is vital for building an equitable recovery. This would include the success, or otherwise, of different interventions and the role that the underlying state of the economy and government services played in determining its outcomes when COVID-19 struck. In recent issues of the JPSJ, it has exposed how existing systemic problems in the UK welfare systems has exacerbated the problem (Pybus et al, 2021); how policies to support businesses in developing countries have sidelined the informal, small business sector, so important to the livelihoods of the poor in developing countries (Iwuoha et al, 2021); and how pandemic policies have opened up the already marginalised labourer communities in India to further exploitation, degradation and discrimination (Chakraborty and Yadav, 2021); and, in this issue, Noam Tarshish and colleagues at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem add to our knowledge of what is needed for the successful implementation of burden-reducing policies, by exploring how attempts to increase accessibility to unemployment insurance (UI) during the COVID-19 crisis in Israel fared. We will continue to be looking for articles that add to the scholarly output on the pandemic’s impact on poverty and social justice and assessments on what now needs to be done.

The IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels examined the impact of such a rise on efforts to eradicate poverty (Joyashree et al, 2018). It concluded that global warming would disproportionately affect disadvantaged and vulnerable populations through food insecurity, higher food prices, income losses, lost livelihood opportunities, adverse health impacts and population displacements. Some of the worst impacts are expected to be felt among agricultural and coastal dependent livelihoods, indigenous people, children and the elderly, poor labourers, poor urban dwellers in African cities, and in the Small Island Developing States. It estimated that 122 million additional people could experience extreme poverty, mainly due to higher food prices and declining health, with substantial income losses for the poorest 20 per cent across 92 countries. These impacts are not just in the future – they are already beginning to be seen.

In the transition to net zero, carbon reduction strategies need to be equitable. While some policies (such as public investment in clean energy or insulation) are likely to be progressive, others (such as a variety of carbon taxes) are likely to be regressive unless mitigating measures are taken (Cabrita et al, 2021). It is crucial that carbon reduction policies do not have a negative impact on people with lower incomes, pushing them further into poverty. Achieving lasting sustainability and climate neutrality will require addressing these issues and putting social inequalities at the centre of policy.¹⁰

At the same time, poverty reduction strategies need to take account of, and integrate mechanisms towards, environmental sustainability. We are looking for contributions that add to our knowledge of the potential impact of climate change on poverty, human rights and living standards, of how carbon reduction policies have an impact on poverty and social justice, and of how poverty reduction strategies can be made sustainable.

In the meantime, we are sure you will find this issue of interest. As well as Noam Tarshish and colleagues’ (2022) examination of attempts to increase accessibility to unemployment insurance (UI) during the COVID-19 crisis in Israel, Traute Meyer and Paul Bridgen (2022) investigate the poverty risks for migrant workers with children under the UK points-based immigration system; José Juan Vázquez and Sonia Panadero (2022) provide new insights into the influence of political ideology on stereotypes and meta-stereotypes and causal attributions of homelessness through a study based in Madrid, Spain; and Ingul Baek, Kyung-Jin Choi and Sanha Noh (2022) look at the effectiveness of home equity liquidation policies in reducing elderly poverty in South Korea, a subject of increasing interest for many developed countries with their ageing populations.

Joanna Mack and Marco Pomati,

January 2022