Housing Inequality in the UK - Essay Example

Running head: HOUSING INEQUALITY IN UK Housing Inequality By ____________ How Race affects quality of Housing in UK The concept of Social exclusion is not new in Britain. The condition, which is today named as 'Social Exclusion' was called 'disadvantage' and 'deprivation' some thirty years ago in UK thereby responsible for creating the concept of 'underclass'. This 'underclass' concept gave birth to economic and social class systems in Britain based on racial inequalities in the ownership and distribution of wealth, housing, jobs, resources and power. Despite numerous social changes, conditions of structural inequality have not disappeared. In fact, the gap between the richest and poorest sections of the population still exists today and has increased dramatically in recent years. Between 1979 and 1995 the net incomes of the richest ten percent of the population grew by 68%, while those of the bottom tenth fell by 8%. (Savage, 2000) From the 1970s, the emergence of rightwing neo-liberal governments in many capitalist nations including Britain, led to financial deregulation, the privatisation of some government industries and services, and tax-cutting in favour of more affluent groups. The result has been a marked polarization of wealth and income in the UK. Inequalities in the distribution of wealth increased significantly in the UK since the late 1970s (Joseph, 1995). Tax cuts and soaring stock market and property values, have allowed those who were already wealthy to accumulate their wealth massively. Wealth can be stored and accumulated in the form of investments or property and it is therefore more unevenly distributed than income. In the late 1990s, the top 10 percent of the population of Britain owned 50 percent of the nation's wealth, and during the 1990s the wealth of the most affluent 200 individuals doubled. (Savage, 2000) While studying Marx theory of social exclusion it is obvious that Marx emphasised the material nature of class inequality, and the way that class interests polarised as capitalism developed. While the main race and class divisions are rather different to those that Marx himself discussed, in general terms Marx's arguments about the entrenched nature of economic class inequality are borne out by current trends. Those trends that highlight the main economic class differences between the service class on the one hand, and the working class on the other. The class divisions between employers and employees (particularly those who possess nothing) or between professionals or white-collar workers are the best examples in this case. Secondly, Marx predicted the development of class-consciousness as workers became aware of their class situation and sought to transform this through political action. Marx emphasized that the working class were the emancipatory force who had the potential to overthrow capitalism: this claim allowed Marxists to appeal to class in order to connect with practical political struggles in many different parts of the world. (Savage, 2000) While analysing the causes of social exclusion, it is found that poverty is the main cause of social exclusion, which serves as the grounds for all fundamental societal dilemmas leading to racial and housing inequality. After poverty social exclusion is also effected by massive racial inequalities in cultural, social and economical diversified aspects, as well as huge inequalities relating to and reinforced by unequal access to information and education. It is not the case that people who are currently referred to as 'socially excluded' are financially poor, they belong to such social groups whose culture and identity holds the least amount of influence in British society. (Niace, 2000) Thus the influence of racial differences tends to be the greatest barrier in achieving a standard and quality of housing in Britain today. According to Anderson (2002), the 1997 elections in the UK escorted the housing issue in the light of housing profession to the housing inequality, to embrace the language of exclusion and inclusion. This statement's truth can be analysed and judged by considering the then social and political facts according to which the incoming labour government signaled its intention to consolidate all action against disadvantage, under the banner of social exclusion. Hence, it is proved that the language of social exclusion was readily adopted at that time in housing policy and practice. Yet, embracing this language should not be accompanied by the assumption that the housing system and housing policy play an active and important role in processes of social exclusion. (Marsh, Alex) Equally and fundamentally, framing problems in the language of social exclusion is not limited to the dilemma of housing alone. Instead it refers to all those facts that can be considered relevant in the circle of social exclusion like poverty, race, etc. Much of the dilemmas in the housing context has, perhaps, progressed from the starting assumption that housing policy and housing organisations almost by definition have a role to play in combating social exclusion and fostering inclusion. While not wishing to deny this point, it is interesting that much of what is suggested such as the need to build social capital in disadvantaged neighbourhoods is not really about housing at all. Clearly social housing landlords in particular not-for-profit housing associations are professional organisations with a local presence, and hence it makes good sense for them to carry out community development work where needed. But the fact that they are housing organisations may be of less significance. (Marsh, 2004) Lee et al. (1995) has identified several housing-related problems that serve as a notion for concerning the British regarding housing dilemmas like homelessness; high social housing rents causing poverty and benefit traps; poor physical conditions and overcrowding in parts of the stock; constraints on mobility barring households from improving their circumstances by relocating; and children living above the ground floor in flatted accommodation. They have discussed processes of residualisation, affordability problems and problems along with the management of social housing. These problems have led to the poorest households having no choice other than to survive in such adverse conditions. The policy responses always advocate to ameliorate these conditions relate to housing finance and rent levels; location of housing, security and tenure, cost and affordability; tenants' services, rights and security; and the need to coordinate housing policy with investment in education, training, transport, child care and other services. (Lee et al, 1995) The position and experience of ethnic minorities in the housing market has been well documented by academics, local authorities, the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) and non-governmental organisations over the last twenty-five years but it seems as if the ethnic minorities are not willing to admit them. The earliest accounts revealed how newly arriving immigrants had little choice but to occupy the bottom end of the market, ending up in poor private rental properties or, in the case of Asians, purchasing cheap, deteriorating inner city terraced housing abandoned by the suburbanising whites (Rex and Moore, 1967). Valerie and Deborah state the circumstances as "Distinct ethnic clusters have emerged in the inner cities, the product of a number of often inter-related factors, namely: the immigrants' poverty and lack of knowledge of the housing market, their job opportunities, their desire for clustering for social and cultural reasons, and the blatant discrimination of the early post-war years. The pattern at this time was one of racial deprivation, segregation and inequality". (Valerie and Deborah, 2001) In fact, it is shown by Crawford (1994) has shown in his comprehensive study that price changes induced either by indirect tax changes or otherwise have made remarkably little difference to relative real living standards. In other words, the price inflation faced by various family types and parts of the income distribution have been similar over prolonged periods. The major exception to this rule has been the exceptionally fast growth rate in the price of rented housing, which has impinged severely on some groups in the lower part of the income distribution. These contingent findings need not apply over any other periods or any other population than those to which they were applied. But they should inform a good deal of what follows. For much of our work on the income distribution over time, we need not concern ourselves with differential price indices and therefore with changes in the indirect tax system. The exceptional case of housing has already been considered separately since the beginning of this issue. (Blackstone et al, 1998) The breakdown by age group is only one of numerous possible ways of decomposing the population to reveal its constituent parts and their contribution to the overall picture of inequality. The population is broken down by family type, and the distribution of different types of family within the overall income distribution is examined. The distribution of income within each family type is also considered. So far, the dominant characteristic of individuals that has affected their place in the income distribution has been their employment status. Another characteristic that is closely correlated with people's place in the income distribution is their housing tenure, though of course this relationship is not causal in the same way as that between employment status and income position is. Indeed, the direction of causality is likely to be the reverse, in certain circumstances. One can see how strong is the relationship between income and certain types of tenure. Average incomes among social renters (council and Housing Association tenants) are very much lower than those among the other groups, especially on the AHC measure in which Housing Benefit is effectively netted off income. Private renters form a middle group between the social renters and owner-occupiers, but they are also noticeably more unequal than the other groups, especially on the AHC measure of income. Some in the private rented sector are very much like social renters, especially some of those who still have old tenancies covered by fair rent agreements and those others who are still housed in the private rented sector but whose rents are effectively being paid by Housing Benefit. Others in this sector are much more like owner-occupiers, though younger. The greater inequality on the AHC measure will reflect the fact that Housing Benefit has always been in bringing the incomes of the poorer renters up nearer those of the richer ones. (Goodman et al, 1997) When using the examples of housing tenure, housing conditions and homelessness to illustrate the lack of clarity in the way in which the concept 'social exclusion' has been used in housing debates, should be clear to question that first, should private and public renters be considered socially excluded On the other hand if we consider the opposite of social exclusion to be inclusion in 'the mainstream' then, given that owner occupation is the majority tenure in England and it is the tenure to which most people aspire, one might draw the conclusion that renters are all by definition socially excluded. It is often observed that renters have been portrayed and considered under prevailing social norms as injured citizens whose full citizenship is associated with home ownership. An alternative route, as followed by Burchardt, Le Grand and Piachaud (1999), who view one dimension of social exclusion to be low wealth. While their concern is not with housing directly, one consequence of the inclusion of low wealth as a dimension of social exclusion is that most social or private rented sector tenants will be deemed socially excluded because of their lack of both liquid and property assets. (Marsh, 2004) Here Marsh highlights, the undisturbed residence and security of tenure in accommodation of acceptable standard are to be seen to denote 'the mainstream' then it draws attention to the fact that some of those in the most precarious positions or poorest housing conditions live in the owner occupied sector. Hence, changing the definition of 'the mainstream' results in the tenure profile of the 'socially excluded' changing significantly. This leads to the conclusion that tenure position may or may not indicate social exclusion, depending on how social exclusion is conceptualised. (Marsh, 2004) The second issue to consider is the dilemma of housing conditions. A minority of the English population experiencing poor housing conditions, as measured by any absolute standard refers to the government's own statistics suggestion that 1.5 million of the 20.5 million dwellings in England (7%) have failed to achieve the current fitness standard as of 1996. (Marsh, 2004) These conditions further refer towards the dilemma of unhygiene and disadvantaged position of households, in such properties carries implications for mental and physical health and well being. Undoubtedly, there is a case for considering policy intervention. But the question arises as to what extent the poor housing conditions represent a symbol of 'social exclusion' If the argument is developed further, it would not be wrong to say that experiencing poor housing conditions particularly in childhood can lead to ill health, poor educational performance and hence impairment of social participation and achievement in later life. The account becomes more specific when instead of judging in the light of poor housing conditions, poor housing conditions in childhood are examined and analysed. It would be necessary to identify comparable implications for older age groups to sustain the conclusion that poor housing conditions by definition represent social exclusion. In the housing literature these sorts of connections are sometimes left implicit, or are treated as self-evident, whereas the explanations are sharper enough to leave the connections elaborated. (Marsh, 2004) Similarly, homelessness is certainly a disadvantaged housing position, which is seen as a constitute, cause, or result of social exclusion Much of the discussion here focuses upon rough sleeping, for which it could be argued that social exclusion usefully captures important dimensions of the problem. A similar case could be made regarding those who find themselves in temporary accommodation and forced to relocate frequently. Here it is the difficulty in accessing services, instability in children's education and disconnection from established social networks that accompany the lack of housing security, rather than poor housing conditions, that are the main issues. Homelessness refers to a range of those housing circumstances, which further tends to be the grounds for major dilemmas like women leaving a violent relationship, leaving behind crime and corruption.(Marsh, 2004) References Anderson, H.S., 2002. "Can deprived housing areas be revitalized Efforts against segregation and neighbourhood decay in Denmark and Europe", Urban Studies, 39 (4), 767-790. Blackstone Tessa, Parekh Bhikhu, Sanders Peter, 1998. "Race Relations in Britain: A Developing Agenda": Routledge. Place of Publication: London. Burchardt, T., Le Grand, J. & Piachaud, D., 1999 "Social exclusion in Britain 1991-1995" in "Social Policy and Administration", 33 (3), 227-244. Crawford, A., 1994, "Measurement biases in the Canadian CPI: a summary of the evidence" in "Do UK Price Indexes Overstate Inflation" Goodman Alissa, Johnson Paul, Webb Steven, 1997. "Inequality in the UK": Oxford University Press. Place of Publication: Oxford. Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1995. "Inquiry into Income and Wealth", 2 vols, York, Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Lee, P., Murie, A., Marsh, A. & Riseborough, M., 1995 "The Price of Social Exclusion", London, NFHA Marsh Alex, 2004. "Housing and the Social Exclusion Agenda in England" in Australian Journal of Social Issues. Volume: 39. Issue: 1. Mike Savage, 2000. "Social Exclusion and Class Analysis" Niace, March 2000. Article from < http:// www.niace.org.uk > Rex, J. and Moore, R., 1967. "Race, Community and Conflict: A Study of Sparkbrook". London: OUP. Valerie Karn and Deborah Phillips, 2001. "Race and Ethnicity in Housing: A diversity of Experience" Read More