A Century of Poverty in England and Wales, 1898-1998: A Geographical Analysis

Abstract

This paper analyses trends in relative poverty between 1898 and the present by assembling statistics for infant mortality, overcrowded housing and unemployment for Rowntree’s times (1898 or 1901), the inter-war depression (1928 or 1931), the ‘never-had-it-so-good’ post-war boom (1951, 1958 or 1961) and the present (in practice, c.1990 or 1991). The technical limitations to these results are discussed in the main text, but they show clearly that relative inequality tended to increase as absolute levels of hardship improved.