Poverty and Social Exclusion in Urban and Rural Areas of Scotland

The Poverty and Social Exclusion UK (PSE-UK) Survey is the largest and most comprehensive survey of its kind ever carried out in the UK. The UK study has three main objectives:

  • To improve the measurement of poverty, deprivation, social exclusion and standard of living;
  • To assess changes in poverty and social exclusion in the UK; and
  • To conduct policy-relevant analyses of poverty and social exclusion.

The PSE-UK survey makes it possible to compare estimates of poverty using a range of different measures. It also assesses levels of social exclusion, measured across multiple domains or areas of people’s lives. It is the first to look across all these domains simultaneously and so make it possible to examine exclusion in a truly multi-dimensional way.

The PSE-UK survey covered the whole of the UK, with a significantly boosted sample for Scotland. Additional funding from Scottish Government enabled the survey to have more extensive coverage of rural Scotland, particularly remote areas. (There were, however, constraints on the sample size for accessible rural areas which mean that the results for those locations need to be treated with extra caution.) Rural poverty has had a higher profile in debates in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK, due in part to the more extreme levels of remoteness that characterise some communities here (Scottish Affairs Select Committee 2000). There have been persistent criticisms that the analysis of poverty and exclusion, and hence the understandings which drive policy, have not paid sufficient attention to the particular nature or configuration of problems present in rural locations (Shucksmith 2003).

The report presents an initial analysis of poverty and social exclusion in rural and urban areas of Scotland. It highlights similarities and differences, looking at broad rural/urban differences and at differences within the rural category between remote and accessible areas. It looks at poverty or material disadvantage but also presents a broader analysis across the range of social exclusion domains. The aim is to provide an overview of the data, partly in the hope that it will encourage further analysis. Some of the key findings are as follows.

Publication Date: 
2016
Location: 
Scotland, United Kingdom