Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
April 15, 2020
Summary:
This paper uses data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) to examine whether poverty dynamics changed in rural and urban Britain between 1991 and 2008, prior to the economic crisis. In addition to descriptive statistics, poverty exit and re-entry hazard models are estimated to assess the effect of household and personal characteristics, place of residence and participation in social policy programmes (benefits) on the time spent in poverty. Particular attention is paid to the election of the ‘New Labour’ government in 1997 and the impact of its social policy reforms. The analysis reveals that rural poverty is not a rare experience with half the population of rural Britain experiencing poverty at some point over this period. While the risk of poverty affected a much higher proportion of the rural population than previously thought, both rural and urban poverty fell from 1999 when Labour began to introduce its spending programme and reforms, with rural poverty falling further than urban. Our analysis suggests these policy reforms played an important role in rural dwellers' increasing mobility out of poverty and in decreasing mobility back into poverty during 1999–2007.
Published in
Journal of Rural Studies
Volume and page numbers
Volume: 75 , p.216 -228
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2020.02.003
ISSN
7430167
Subjects
#567983