| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
Minimum income standards and household budgets
— (Social Policy Association prize-winning paper) | | Author(s) | Chris Deeming |
| Corporate Author | Social Policy Association |
| Journal title | IN: Social Policy Review, 22, Chapter 5, 2010 |
| Publisher | Policy Press, Bristol, 2010 |
| Pages | pp 97-117 |
| Source | The Policy Press, University of Bristol, Fourth Floor, Beacon House, Queen's Road, Bristol BS8 1QU. http://www.policypress.org.uk |
| Keywords | Income [older people] ; Food expenditure ; Expenditure [elderly] ; Nutrition ; Poor elderly ; Social surveys. |
| Annotation | This inquiry attempts to determine food poverty lines for an older population. The author uses data on household expenditure and food consumption from the Office for National Statistics' (ONS) Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS), a particularly useful source as each member of households participating uses 2-week diaries to record all food spending. 3 years of EFS data (2002-2005) provide a sample of 5,500 households aged 60+ (3,000 older singles and 2,500 older couples). The author aims to determine budget adequacy by considering the total level of household expenditure required to meet minimum dietary standards for good health. Using a logistic regression model, he finds that the budget line of £110 per week for singles corresponds to the point where 90% are expected to meet the minimum dietary standard; and for couples, £170 per week corresponds to nearly 80% predicted to meet the standard. Further modelling with discriminant function analysis (DFA) helped to confirm these findings. It is suggested that the Pension Credit guarantee could be sufficient to keep most pensioners with low incomes out of "absolute" poverty. The author concludes by noting that ONS is integrating a number of national surveys including the EFS into a single household survey. This new Integrated Household Survey (IHS) should allow us to examine aspects of poor nutrition and other forms of material deprivation in more detail. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-100728001 A |
| Classmark | JF: J7: J3: CF: F:W6: 3F |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|