The interviews for How Does Mum Manage? were conducted at a time of recession, as the credit crunch hit and unemployment began to rise. It is therefore nor surprising that all the women interviewed expressed concern about their financial situation and were able to give examples of being careful with their money; these will be discussed in the following chapter (section 8.3). In this they are probably little different to women right across the socio-
economic spectrum. However, there was also considerable evidence that many of those in the sample were suffering serious financial hardship and material deprivation, and that their household incomes were inadequate to cover their material needs.
7.4.1 The inadequacy of household incomes
Across the sample, four mothers were classed as having moderate deprivation and seven as having significant deprivation (Table 7.10). These are high levels of deprivation, revealing that women in the study group were commonly deprived of such things as a holiday, a second pair of shoes, and a hobby. Six women also had some level of family deprivation, meaning that they couldn’t afford to properly heat their home, to decorate, or to pay for household contents
insurance. The deprivation scores were supported by evidence from the in-depth interview questions (Chapter Eight and section 9.2.1). Not all of the women in the sample were facing acute financial difficulty; for those in the ‘hardly
deprived’ group times were hard but they were managing. For the women in the ‘highly deprived’ group, however, things were rather different; all said that they sometimes struggled to find money for haircuts and clothes and some spoke of their constant struggle to keep their houses warm and to put food on the table (section 8.3.3). Most spoke of the heavy psychological burden that life on a low income brought; worry, guilt and stress were common (section 10.1). It should be stressed that these are not women dependent on benefit; they are in households with at least one full time income from paid work. Several have an additional second, part-time, earner as well. Yet many of their comments, and the strategies they adopted to cope with a low household income, were
Kempson et al 1994). This is perhaps hardly surprising considering that the average household income of the highly deprived group was only around £70 a week, or 17%, higher than for equivalent benefit dependent households.
Throughout all of the interviews, it was clear that these women were both financially responsible and financially literate. In fact all had a strong grasp of their family finances and had developed a number of sophisticated strategies designed to ensure that income stretched to cover material needs (section 8.3). There was no evidence of expenditure on non-essential items or extravagant luxuries, although the high cost of providing for the wants of children did emerge as an issue. The small number of households with problem debts had acquired them before having children, when they were ‘young and foolish’. There are no obvious new skills or strategies that these women could develop to make managing their household finances easier. It seems evident that, however well they managed their household finances, they simply did not have enough money to cover the material needs of all their family members.
7.4.2 Implications for the poverty line
If Perry’s definition of poverty is the one used ‘a person or household can be said to be poor when their resources do not satisfy their needs...’ (Perry 2002, 102), then all of the households with either ‘moderate’ or ‘significant’ levels of
deprivation were in poverty. All six of the poorest households in the study group (discounting Isobel’s) were out of official income poverty yet suffered a
‘significant’ degree of deprivation and were therefore clearly ‘in poverty’ on the Perry definition. This is entirely in keeping with the large body of literature that challenges the official poverty line, discussed in sections 2.6.1 and 2.6.4. In the remainder of the study, a clear terminological distinction will be made between ‘household income poverty’ (poor on the 60% median) and ‘material poverty’ (poor on the Perry definition).
The figures presented in Table 7.10 suggest that for families in this study a household income of around 73% of the national median may be a significant dividing line between being ‘highly deprived’ and ‘hardly deprived’. This is a household income of around £415 for a family with two children, or nearly £75
above the 60% median poverty line. Only Fiona’s household had no deprivation below this level of income. Moreover, no household in the study was able to avoid significant deprivation on a household income below 67% of the national median, about £382 a week for a family of four. The sample is too small to estimate the significance of this for the wider population, but it does suggest that it is almost impossible to avoid material deprivation at the 60% of median household income level. This has in fact been acknowledged by the third
measure in the DWP three tier poverty measure, where 70% of median income is used as the poverty threshold. But the 60% of median earnings line remains both the UK and EU headline measure of households in poverty. While such a small study cannot hope to produce a definitive ‘income threshold’ that divides more deprived and less deprived households, these findings do suggest that 70% should perhaps be used as the standard poverty line instead.
This way of exploring the relationship between material deprivation scores and household income level effectively represents a new way of measuring poverty; a fourth leg to the ‘Minimum Incomes’ school already consisting of the Minimum Income for Healthy Living, Consensual Minimum Income and Low Cost but Acceptable models (see section 2.6.4). The significance of this new
methodology will not be discussed in depth here as, unlike Deeming’s recent PhD thesis (Deeming 2009), establishing a new poverty measure was not the aim of the study. Nevertheless, this measure may prove an important addition to the understanding of the link between income and deprivation.
7.4.3 Women’s poverty and household poverty
The figures in table 7.10 show that households above the 60% of median earnings poverty line may well be in material poverty. But they also show that it is
women’s material circumstances that often make such households poor or not
poor. If women’s individual deprivation levels had not been measured, then four ‘significantly deprived’ households (those of Pauline, Hazel, Anna and Elizabeth) would not have had much evidence of deprivation, and as a result would appear to be materially ‘not poor’. Clearly, poor women may be living in households whose other members are not poor. Moreover, eleven women in the study group are individually materially poor. Unfortunately, the DWP third tier measure
largely ignores women’s individual material deprivation; of the twenty one questions asked in the FRS, ten deal with child deprivation, seven with household deprivation, and only four with individual adult deprivation (DWP 2010). As its aim is to measure child deprivation, this is understandable. However, in order to get a true picture of the nature of poverty within a household, it is essential that explicit measures of women’s poverty are
included, and these must be given equal weight to the measures used for other household members.
7.5 Conclusion
This chapter has presented a detailed analysis of the financial circumstances of the seventeen women in the sample. The sources of income coming into their households have been described and measured, and the households classified according to the relationship between gender and work. It has been shown that on average about half of household incomes in the sample come from male earning, about one sixth from female earning and about one third from state transfers. However, the exact balance of these three forms of income differs widely from household to household. Despite the importance of male earning, male breadwinner households are in a minority in the sample group.
The overall income level for each household has been approximately
established, and an assessment of the percentage of median household income for each household has therefore been possible. It has been shown that all of the households in the sample range between 60 and 85% of the median national household income; above the 60% median poverty line. Although the majority of the income of most of the households comes from waged work, only five of the households would be able to keep themselves out of poverty without tax credits. Attempts to plot the future economic trajectory of the households in the sample suggested several would be in better circumstances in a few years time due to both partners entering paid work, but a majority of households would remain within the criteria of the study group for the foreseeable future. Issues around gifts and long-term debt were discussed, with particular reference to the measurement of household income.
The material deprivation indicators from the interview schedule have been explained and converted into deprivation levels for different household
members. On the basis of their deprivation levels it has been possible to divide the households into two distinct groups; a smaller group with little deprivation (‘hardly deprived’) and a larger group with high levels of deprivation (‘highly deprived’). This division will form the starting point for analysis in the remainder of the study.
The significant material deprivation of many of the mothers in the group
justifies a key concept of this thesis; that many women in working families with incomes above the 60% median poverty line suffer a level of deprivation that is worthy of much deeper attention and analysis than has previously been the case. This concept, established quantitatively in this chapter, will be explored
qualitatively in the following three chapters, and explanations for it will be sought from the in-depth interviews. In section 7.4 it was shown that the
household income levels of most of the families in the study group are too low to allow their material needs to be met. As a result, it was argued that the official poverty line should be raised to a more realistic level; 70% of median household income rather than the current 60%. The difficulties of trying to make ends meet when household income is so limited will form the central theme of the next chapter.