Poverty in the United Kingdom: A Survey of Household Resources and Standards of Living, 1967-1969

<p>Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.</p>This is a qualitative data collection. This study aimed to collect comprehensive information on all forms of resources (including income and assets) and indicative information on deprivation and style of living in order to define and measure poverty among a representative sample of the population of the United Kingdom.<br> <br> This major study was the result of fifteen years research. In 1964 the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Trust agreed to finance pilot studies on fatherless families, large families and unemployed and disabled people which were then to be followed by a national survey of poverty. In 1967-68, following pilot work, interviews were completed with 2,052 households (6,045 people), in 630 parliamentary constituencies throughout the United Kingdom. Another 1,514 households (3,539 people), were later interviewed in a poor area of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales to secure information about the populations of the poorest areas. <br> <br> There were mixed reactions to the book's publication in 1979. The concept of relative deprivation provoked much discussion but the issue of multiple deprivation experienced by individuals and families was largely ignored. Comparatively little attention was paid to certain forms of deprivation - such as deprivation at work and environmental or locational deprivation - although the report gave data about multiple deprivation drawn from 60 indicators.<br> <br> Nearly 50 years later this study was reanalysed in a project funded by Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The 'Advancing Paradata' project looked at shifts and continuities in the social process of gathering household survey data about poverty. In part it does this through analysis of survey paradata from the 1968 Poverty in the UK survey. Paradata captures the gamut of by-products of the collection of survey data and is of interest in understanding and improving survey quality and costs. The main focus has been on automatically captured macro items, but this is now expanding to include interviewer-generated observations. For the 'Advancing Paradata' project, information available only on paper questionnaires at the UK Data Archive was converted into digitised form and related metadata was created. A sample of 100 survey booklets has been selected for this collection. These booklets were chosen because they have significant quantities of marginalia written on the booklets. These booklets are available via the UK Data Service <a href="http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/QualiBank" title="QualiBank">QualiBank</a>, an online tool for browsing, searching and citing the content of selected qualitative data collections held at the UK Data Service. Names of survey respondents have been removed to protect confidentiality.<br> <br><B>Main Topics</B>:<br> Variables:<br> (i) Housing and living facilities: exact composition of household; adequacy of basic facilities; degree of overcrowding; deficiency of bedrooms; overall household facilities; degree of satisfaction with facilities and environment.<br> (ii) Employment: 'work record' of each individual over previous twelve months; educational background.<br> (iii) Occupational facilities and fringe benefits: type of facilities provided for indoor and outside employment; eligibility for fringe benefits (e.g. sick pay, occupational pension); value of fringe benefits in kind received during the year (e.g. meal vouchers, subsidised meals, use of vehicles).<br> (iv) Current Monetary Income: information on total cash income in (a) previous week, (b) previous twelve months, from any source of each income unit in the household. Questions on earnings, income of self- employed, government social security benefits, and miscellaneous sources of income. Also questions on housing costs and house value.<br> (v) Savings and assets: information on the value of savings and assets owned by the household, including housing and household or personal possessions.<br> (vi) Health and disability: general assessment of health of household members; details of any illnesses or disabilities; capacity to undertake ordinary personal and household activities;<br> (vii) Social services: utilisation of services including periods in hopital and visits to doctors and dentists. Information on welfare benefits received e.g. free school meals, educational maintenance allowances.<br> (viii) Income in kind: questions on goods and services received in the previous twelve months from relatives and friends.<br> (ix) Style of living: leisure time activities including holidays; questions on diet, clothing and fuel supply; assessment of own financial situation; arrangements for payment of housekeeping and bills; whether manage to have savings; feelings about 'poverty'.<br> <br> In addition to the questionnaire and data codebook, the documentation for this study also includes qualitative information of various kinds about the original survey, including interviewers' documents, sampling information, survey documents (including meeting notes), reports and papers. These items were originally held separately by Qualidata, and have been added to the study during 2002 to enhance the available documentation