Poverty, inequality and social mobility

The Global Agenda for Social Justice provides accessible insights into some of the world’s most pressing social problems and proposes international public policy responses to those problems. Chapters examine topics such as criminal justice, media concerns, environmental problems, economic problems, and issues concerning sexualities and gender.

Contributors including Brian Eno, Demos Helsinki, California’s Y Combinator Research and prominent academics explore the impact Universal Basic Income could have on work, welfare and inequality in the 21st century.

Lisa Mckenzie lived on the notorious St Ann’s estate in Nottingham for more than 20 years. Her ‘insider’ status enables us to hear the stories of its residents, often wary of outsiders, to give a unique account of life in poor communities in contemporary Britain.

One of the key objectives of government neighbourhood policy is to encourage a sustainable mix of tenures and incomes. This report addresses questions of why integration has been so difficult to achieve in practice and draws conclusions for future policy.

FREE pdf version available online at www.jrf.org.uk

The recent focus on reducing child poverty stems mainly from worries about the future consequences of poverty on children's later achievement. This report explores the link between childhood poverty and poverty later in life, and asks whether this link has grown stronger or weaker in recent decades. Free PDF available at www.jrf.org.uk

Much of the recent policy debate surrounding poverty in Britain focuses on income as a measure of living standards. In this report we consider one alternative to income for measuring poverty that has been largely overlooked in the mainstream poverty debate in the UK: namely household expenditure. Free PDF version available at www.jrf.org.uk

This report provides a summary of the results from a major international research project, funded by UNICEF, on child rights and child poverty in the developing world.

This is a study of the longer-term transitions of young people living in neighbourhoods beset by the worst problems of social exclusion. Based on a rare example of longitudinal, qualitative research with 'hard-to-reach' young adults, the study throws into question common approaches to tackling social exclusion. Free PDF available at www.jrf.org.uk

In the UK there is increasing acceptance that credit unions have an important role to play in providing affordable credit to all sections of society. This study identifies current patterns of credit union development, quantifies their performance and isolates factors which make some more successful than others. Free PDF available at www.jrf.org.uk

Two strategies that governments have to help people on low incomes - providing them with financial support directly, and encouraging them to earn more - generally conflict. This report provides new evidence on the trade-off between redistributing income and improving work incentives.

FREE PDF version available online at www.jrf.org.uk

Using vivid testimonies and images, Briggs and Monge document the stories and situations of the people who live in Valdemingómez , placing them in a political, economic and social context.

Using new EU-wide data, this report shows very different patterns of poverty across Europe, depending on the benchmark used. The findings have important implications for the spatial distribution of poverty within and between countries (including the UK) and for the development of anti-poverty policy across the EU.