The parenting and economising practices of lone parents:Policy and evidence

UK governments have historically viewed lone parents as a political and social problem. This article argues that present-day political discourse increasingly positions lone parents as deficient parents, suggesting that they are more likely to fail to engage with good parenting practices than parents in couple households and may lack the resource management skills of successful families. We critique claims of an association between poor parenting and lone parenthood status using data from the UK Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) 2012 survey. We find negligible differences in the parenting behaviours of those living in lone and couple households, and lone parents (who are mainly mothers) actually cut back on their own expenditure to a greater extent than other parents in order to provide for children. These findings undermine the viability of links made between ‘poor’ parenting and family living arrangements; such claims are grounded in erroneous individualised accounts of disadvantage

Applying the Consensual Method of Estimating Poverty in a Low Income African Setting

We present the first study of multidimensional poverty in Benin using the consensual or socially perceived necessities approach. There is a remarkable level consensus about what constitutes the necessities of life and an adequate standard of living. Following Townsend’s concept of relative deprivation, we show how social consensus provides the basis for a reliable and valid index of multiple deprivation, which can be used to reflect multidimensional poverty. We discuss the issue of adaptive preferences, which has previously been used to criticise the consensual approach, and provide evidence to contest the claim that the poor adjust their aspirations downwards

‘Good’ parenting practices:how important are poverty, education and time pressure?

This article examines how parenting practices popularly classed as ‘good’ are related to poverty, education and time pressure. Using the 2012 UK Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) survey we argue that parenting practices such as reading, playing games and eating meals together are not absent among those who are less well educated, have lower incomes or are more deprived of socially accepted necessities: therefore, political claims of widespread ‘poor parenting’ are misplaced. Further, we suggest that the dominant trope of poor people being poor at parenting may arise because the activities of the most educationally advantaged parents – who do look different to the majority – are accepted as the benchmark against whom others are assessed. This leads us to suggest that the renewed interest in sociological research on elites should be extended to family life in order that the exceptionality of the most privileged is recognised and analysed

Barriers to participation in education and training

This study explores the barriers and constraints young people currently face when deciding what to do at the end of their compulsory schooling in Year 11. The study conducted by the NFER, working in partnership with Triangle and QA Research, included a survey of 2029 young people who completed Year 11 in either 2008 or 2009 conducted between August and October 2009. This survey was supplemented by interviews with booster samples of 519 young people across specific sub-groups and 102 parent interviews

L'approche consensuelle de mesure de la pauvreté : une application au cas du Bénin

A partir de l’Enquête Modulaire Intégrée sur les Conditions de Vie des Ménages (EMICoV) conduite en complément à l’Enquête Démographique et de Santé (EDSB III) de 2006, cet article présente la première étude de la pauvreté multidimensionnelle utilisant l'approche consensuelle de mesure de la pauvreté au Bénin. En nous appuyant sur les travaux inspirés de Townsend et de son concept de la privation relative, nous montrons comment une approche sociale peut constituer la base d'un indice de privation à la fois valide et fiable, qui peut être utilisé afin de refléter la pauvreté multidimensionnelle. L'article aborde également la question des préférences adaptatives, une théorie souvent invoquée pour critiquer l'approche consensuelle. Nous montrons que l'idée selon laquelle les plus pauvres tendraient à sous-estimer leurs besoins ne se vérifie pas à partir des données pour le Bénin

Improving the measurement of material deprivation at the European Union level

In June 2010, European Union (EU) Heads of State and Government adopted a social inclusion target as part of the new ‘Europe 2020 Strategy’: to lift at least 20 million people in the EU from the risk of poverty and exclusion by 2020. One of the three indicators used to monitor progress towards this target is the EU indicator of severe material deprivation (MD). A main limitation of this indicator is the weak reliability of some of the items it is based on. For this reason, a thematic module on MD was included in the 2009 wave of the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey. This article assesses the 2009 EU-SILC MD data and proposes an analytical framework for developing robust EU MD indicators. It carries out a systematic item by item analysis at both EU and country levels to identify the MD items which satisfactorily meet suitability, validity, reliability and additivity criteria across the EU. This approach has resulted in a proposed 13-item MD indicator covering some key aspects of living conditions which are customary across the whole EU covering a broad range of basic (food, clothes, shoes, etc.) as well as social (Internet, regular leisure activities, etc.) necessities

The distribution and dynamics of economic social wellbeing in the UK: An analysis of the recession using multidimensional indicators of living standards - Summary Findings

Living standards in the United Kingdom are typically measured using income as a proxy. Past research into living standards focuses on how living standards have changed over time, the extent to which there are in inequalities in living standards for different groups, and the impact of the recession on living standards. To date, little research combines economic and non-economic indicators to inform living standards. Multidimensional indicators of living standards (MILS) that go beyond disposable (net) income and expenditure or consumption as a proxy are able to capture a fuller picture of living standards and better inform policy making and research