The Poor and the Poorest, Fifty Years On

Ian Gazeley, Andrew Newell, Kevin Reynolds () and Rebecca Searle ()
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Kevin Reynolds: University of Brighton
Rebecca Searle: University of Sussex

No 7909, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We re-explore Able-Smith and Townsend's landmark study of poverty in early post WW2 Britain. They found a large increase in poverty between 1953-4 and 1960, a period of relatively strong economic growth. Our re-examination is a first exploitation of the newly-digitised Board of Trade Household Expenditure Survey data set for 1953/4. Able-Smith and Townsend used only a small part of this data source. We find that Able-Smith and Townsend substantially over-estimated the rise in absolute poverty and also substantially under-estimated the rise in relative poverty. Their and our findings on poverty reflect a large rise inequality in the distribution of expenditure among British households. This rise is related to a rise in the preponderance of pensioner households, who, for instance, account for all the poor households in the 1961 Family Expenditure survey.

Keywords: Britain; poverty; inequality; 1950s (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I32 J12 N34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2014-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-hme
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Published - published in: Journal of The Royal Statistical Society, 2017, 180 (2), 45 5- 474.

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