Poverty in the Uk

Details of Research

Title: Poverty In The UK

Author: Peter Townsend

Date of Publication: 1979

Publisher of Original Study:

Outline of Research Design (210-300 words)

State the Objective

Aims

Sampling Techniques

Type of Data and how it is Analysed

Ethics

The research being analysed concerned the number of the British population that were living in or near to poverty stricken conditions.

The aims of the research were:

to estimate the number of the population in different levels of living, in particular those living in poverty

to find what the characteristics and problems of those in poverty are

Townsend began his research in 1965 when he conducted a pilot survey of the questionnaire to be used in the main study. The questionnaire, made up of 120 pages, was handed out to 150 households in and around London.

The main survey was carried out in 1968-9, the questionnaire used was 39 pages long. split into 9 sections which had been identified as important in the pilot survey. 25 trained interviewers held structured interviews on a randon sample of 2052 households within 51 constituences of the UK and 4 parallel local surveys were carried out in 1208 households within poor areas. The interviewers recorded the answers given in precoded boxes alongside each question. They were instructed to call back on those were reluctant to participate, there was also a special form which the interviewers were to use on those who refused to participate, most likely the elderly and disabled, which could be filled in with the limited information that was available about them e.g whether the house was rented or owner occcupied, the age of the householders and social class of head of the household.

Townsend measured poverty by attempting to identify deprivation on the basis of the inability to participate in activities and customs followed by the majority of the British population. He deviced 60 indices of deprivation made up of pesonal, household and social life areas. He established a poverty line by plotting graphs comparing te number of deprivations suffered at different income levels, varying it according to family size. The income as to which suffered the most deprivations was labelled as his poverty line. townsend knew that because of the variety of indivual, cultural or religious preference that different people would suffer some of these deprivations, therefore it was the total number of deprivations experienced that defined measuring poverty.

Reasons For Selection of Research Design (250-300 words)

Why did the researcher choose the used research design?

How was it useful for acieving the kind of data required?

What were the advantages to the chosen method?

How did the researcher overcome difficulties in the research?

It could be generally seen as a good idea to start of the research with using a pilot survey, this way Peter Townsend could test his questionnaire on people who share characteristics with those going to be used in the main study and see whether or not the questions would work, how people would react to them, which would provide the information they needed for the purpose of the research. The findings from the pilot research can be generalized and applied to the main survey. Also this way any misunderstandings that arise can be attended to in preparation for the main survey. Its because of the pilot survey that the questionnaire was whittled down from 120 pages to 39, the most important aspects were kept.

It would be impossible for Townsend to have research on the whole of Britain, therefore a random sampling was necessary and he went about this by stratifying areas into high,middle and low areas because he wanted to be sure to get all areas of income, which was fair of him to consider if his research to represent the whole of the UK. He then stratifyed the poulation of the selected areas according to age and family size. Townsend was so determined to get it right, he compared his sample wit the population of Britain as a whole from the registrar Generals figures and found his sample to be very representative. It shows he really did want his research to be valid, and the more valid it is the easier it will be to generalize the sample to count for the whole of the UK.

Questionnaires are a good way of producing data that can be directly compared as everyone is answering the same questions and responding to the same thing, and the information gathered can easily quantified, put into numerical data. Questionnaires are designed to measure things, in this case what is being measured is the standards of living in the UK. So using a questionnaire in this case is a good option. And the fact that its an interview format means that as well as gathering quantitive data, there will be qualative data gathered too. Researchers sometimes combine data types like this so they can check the validity of their findings, its called triangulation. Townsend wanted to know all about each individuals lifestyle and resources, which is why the questionnaire is dividied in 9 sections which all concern the living standard of the individual, their income, benefits, living facilities, savings etc. All of the information given was put into precoded boxes by the questions, coded means the answers are classified into various categories. Its an eaier way of quantifying data but can be difficult to categorize an answer if it doesn't