Trends in Welfare for Vulnerable Groups, Ireland 1994-2001

September 01, 2005

News

01/09/2005



Trends in Welfare for Vulnerable Groups, Ireland 1994-2001

Embargo: 00:01 a.m. Thursday, 1 September 2005.
By Christopher T. Whelan, Brian Nolan and Bertrand Maître

This study provides a picture of how substantial groups vulnerable to poverty have fared over the years of Ireland's economic boom and how they were positioned as the boom receded, using a wide range of indicators capturing different aspects of living standards and deprivation. The groups covered are children, older people, the unemployed, the ill or disabled, and lone parents.

Key findings are:

  • Living standards rose significantly over the period from 1994 to 2001 for all these groups. However, some lagged behind average incomes so their relative income poverty rates rose.
  • Children saw a particularly marked improvement in their situation, reflecting a dramatic decline in the extent to which their households depended on social welfare.
  • Older people saw their relative income poverty rates rise substantially, but the broader set of indicators of living conditions suggested an improvement in their situation.
  • For the unemployed, deprivation and psychological distress levels remained high, but the numbers affected fell dramatically and their housing and neighbourhood environment improved relatively rapidly.
  • The ill and disabled fared relatively poorly compared with the other groups studied, as their relative income poverty rates rose sharply and their rate of improvement in other areas was typically below average.
  • Lone parents saw a significant reduction in their levels of welfare dependency but despite this continued to experience relatively high levels of consistent poverty and deprivation.
  • Standing back from these specific groups, an underlying "vulnerable class" with a heightened risk profile in relation to income poverty, basic deprivation and self-perceived economic strain was identified. The size of this class was seen to have fallen sharply over the period, from just over three out of ten in 1994 to one in nine in 2001. At the same time the profile of the vulnerable class changed so that there was an even sharper differentiation between them and the rest of the population
  • Economic exclusion was found to be associated with a variety of other dimensions of exclusion including housing, neighbourhood environment, health and social participation. However, the degree of association was modest, and the numbers experiencing multiple deprivation across all that range of dimensions was very small.
  • A significant reduction in exclusion levels was observed across the educational spectrum and across age, gender and urban-rural categories.