Poverty and Participation in 21 st Century Britain Emanuele Ferragina (with Mark Tomlinson & Robert Walker) Assistant Professor of Sociology Sciences Po Paris 11 November 2015

Agenda The Puzzle and Main Findings Method and Data Results Conclusion

The Puzzle & the Contribution Townsend argued that poverty could be scientifically measured as a 'breakpoint' within the income distribution below which participation collapses (1) Indicators of social participation and trust in addition to classical deprivation measures (2) Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) & Understanding Society (2011; 2013) (3) Multi-cultural/ethnic nature of British society

Results Definition of participation: lack of deprivation, social participation & trust We find that participation reduces as income falls but stops doing so among the poorest 30 per cent of individuals There may be a minimum level of participation, a floor rather than a ‘breakpoint’, which has to be sustained irrespective of how low income is Respondents with an ethnic minority background manifest lower levels of participation than white respondents

Method and Data SEM treats multidimensional phenomena as underlying concepts that are measured indirectly my means of related variables directly observed Combination of a third order CFA, to develop an individual measure of participation based on 30 survey items and three dimensions, with a series of regressions, to test the effect of each predictor Data from around 40,000 households

Overview Results (1)Participation as a multi-dimensional concept (2)Townsend’s breakpoint (3)Mapping the individual determinants of participation (4)Participation among ethnic groups

Results: Fit Statistics

Results: Effects of Income on Participation (Twentieths) (1/2) Taking into account the individual characteristics, we suggest the existence of a minimum level of participation, a floor (30% of the population), below which participation does not fall Rather than participation collapsing as Townsend anticipated, people necessarily have to maintain some basic level of consumption and engagement in society

Results: Effects of Income on Participation (Twentieths) (2/2) The patterning of the coefficients suggests that the breakpoint below which a participation floor is evident occurs at a slightly higher level with respect to social participation and trust than for deprivation* Potential explanations*: People begin to withdraw from social participation before they experience real financial stress and deprivation, perhaps in a deliberative attempt to avoid material deprivation by cutting social involvement People may retreat from social contact to avoid their precarious financial position becoming public knowledge, and furthermore that they may be actively shunned by their more prosperous acquaintances and friends (see Chase and Walker, 2013)

Results: Ethnicity and Participation Overall participation is greatest among white respondents followed by people with a mixed backgrounds, and then respectively by those of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Black Caribbean origin Explanations (from the literature): (1)Value based way of measuring participation (2)‘Exclusivity’ of certain networks: ‘ethnic penalty’ ? Finally the floor exists also for ethnic minorities, but we find it around the ninth rather than the sixth vigintile

Conclusion and Recap (1/2) Our interpretation of the participation floor is that people have to continue to operate in society even if their income falls below some critical level. They are bound by social obligations and expectations to continue to try to participate Three out of ten people in Britain share characteristics typically associated with the experience of poverty: difficulty making ends meet, limited possessions, constrained social activities and limited trust in other people However it is hard to use these findings to define a ‘scientific measurement’ of poverty

Conclusion and Recap (2/2) Salience of Townsend’s intuition for the political debate The participation floor demarcates, as perhaps, it did over 30 years ago, a major fault line in British society. Unlike 30 years ago, it is necessary to recognize that the fault line is likely to find subtly different expression across the various ethnic communities However, irrespective of subtleties participation is underpinned by level of income. Above the floor, a change in income is associated with a substantial difference in participation; on the floor, the returns from additional income are much less clear