Centre for Social Justice says UK in danger of sliding back towards Victorian era
Think tank the Centre for Social Justice has used evidence from Understanding Society in a report on poverty in the UK.
Two Nations, published in December 2023, investigates issues such as family breakdown, addiction, worklessness, and debt to shed light on “the exacerbated challenges faced by the most deprived communities”. The Centre says the report shows “The UK is in danger of sliding back into the ‘Two Nations’ of the Victorian era”.
Understanding Society was one of many organisations, including Citizens Advice and the Home Office, to submit evidence to the report’s authors, and research using our data was used in Two Nations to show the impact of life in the UK on families in recent years.
In particular, looking at aspects of family life, the report says Understanding Society shows:
- in a section on “family fragility”, “that at any given time between 19 and 25 per cent of families are lone parent families but over a six-year period 33 per cent of families have been a lone parent family. Therefore, the number of lone parent households at any given time does not reflect the full extent of the number of children not living with both biological parents.”
- although “children from families on the lowest incomes appeared to be less likely to bounce back from their lockdown experience … 25 per cent of parents reported that their relationship with their children had become better during the lockdown compared to less than 5 per cent who reported it had become worse”.
The report also examines economic vulnerability, domestic abuse, and “poor quality, expensive, and insecure housing affecting the most deprived disproportionately”, among other issues contributing to “a widening gulf between mainstream society and a depressed and poverty-stricken underclass”.
Read the full report
This report refers to research using Understanding Society Waves 1 to 7, and to our Covid briefing on family relationships
Family and householdsFindings and impactIncome and expenditureMoney and finances
