“So, is that your ‘relative’ or mine?” A political-ecological critique of census-based area deprivation indices

Mengzhu Fu, Daniel J. Exeter and Anneka Anderson

Social Science & Medicine, 2015, vol. 142, issue C, 27-36

Abstract: Census-based deprivation indices have been widely used in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada and UK to measure area-based socio-economic inequalities. This paper examines the indicators used in census-based area deprivation indices using a political ecology approach. We question whether the current indicators of deprivation derived from census data are meaningful for the all age groups and minority groups in the population, with a particular focus on deprivation indicators used in New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. We comparatively reviewed methodological papers and reports that describe the indicators of deprivation in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada and the UK from 1975 to 2014. We consider the relationship between the notion of standards of living and measurements of deprivation and explore how hegemonic cultural constructs are implicit in measures of deprivation that privilege a Eurocentric, ageist and gender normative construction of statistics.

Keywords: Deprivation; Political ecology; New Zealand; Canada; UK; Living standards; Health inequities; Ethnicity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.07.036

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