Finn Dymond-Green, Service Director for ImpactWhat is the difference between poverty and deprivation? How can they be measured and understood? How can data help policymakers find ways to reduce their effect on the lives of people in the UK, especially given the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic? In this post, Finn Dymond-Green examines measures for deprivation. In their next post, Finn investigates how poverty can be measured.
Measuring deprivation Indices of Deprivation
In the UK, figures on deprivation have been calculated for poland rcs data England by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (and its predecessors) since the 1970s. A key part of the indices is the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) which defines deprivation in terms of a range of living conditions or domains of deprivation, namely:
Image: the seven different domains, their weightings and supplementary indices (HM Government)
The IMD is a measure of deprivation, which the government defines separately to poverty. As stated in the September 2019 Statistical Release of the English Indices of Deprivation:
People may be considered to be living in poverty if they lack the financial resources to meet their needs, whereas people can be regarded as deprived if they lack any kind of resources, not just income.
The Indices of English Deprivation are based on 39 indicators, organised across the seven domains of deprivation. They are then weighted to calculate the IMD down to the level of Lower-layer Super Output Area (LSOA), roughly speaking a neighbourhood of 1000-3000 people. All LSOAs across the country are then ranked by their level of level of deprivation relative to other areas.