Councils should make better use of localised data to identify ways to help struggling low-income families escape poverty, new research has suggested.
A study issued today by the think tank Demos, based on an analysis of 40,000 households, concludes that economic factors such as redundancy and squeezed wages are more associated with child poverty than social factors alone.
Entitled Poverty in perspective the study matches 20 economic, social and environmental factors – which included poor health, ability to pay bills, neighbourhood and family support – to give researchers a better understanding of the everyday experience of low-income households.
Five main types of child poverty emerge from their findings. The most common of these, ‘grafters' - representing one third of low-income families - are those where parents are recently unemployed or in low-paid work.
Other main groups include ‘full house families' - who are large households with multiple adults and children living in cramped conditions. ‘Pressured parents' living in social housing with little or no spare income and more likely to be unemployed and suffering from physical and mental health conditions also feature prominently.
The report criticises obstacles preventing councils from accessing local data, and urges the Government to help with the collection, sharing and funding of poverty indicators.
New data-sharing powers, contained in the Welfare Reform Act and relating to the troubled families programme, should be used as a test run to combating child poverty, the report further recommends.
Claudia Wood, deputy director of Demos and co-author of the report said: ‘This research is a real breakthrough that lays out a clear template to help local authorities understand poverty at a household level and get to grips with the unique combination of problems that families are facing everyday in their area.'
