Poverty is usually thought of as something that is associated with 'developing countries', not a country like Britain. Then again, anybody who has spent any appreciable amount of time in Central London will have seen the large number of homeless, and hence know that at least some poverty does exist in Britain.

A recent report has painted grim statistics of child poverty in Britain. And ethnic minorities are the worst affected. The report, titled 'Narrowing the Gap', produced by the 'Fabian Society', showed that 21% of children in Britain lived below the poverty line. Indian children were worse off than the national average with 33% suffering poverty, while the figure for Pakistanis and Bangladeshis was a startling 61%.

According to authoritative UK statistics data, approximately 20% of the entire population is living below the poverty line today. By comparison India is listed as having approximately 25% of its population living in poverty. Could it really be that the percentage of people in this country living in poverty could be only 5% less than that of India? Or that Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis living in the UK are actually worse off on average than their counterparts in their countries of origin?

Well there is a catch. Poverty is somewhat an elusive concept, and depending on the definition used the figures can vary considerably. According to the most popular definition used in Britain, a person is living in poverty if their household income is 60% or less of the average (median) household income in that year. Straight away, we can see some flaws in the use of this definition. For example, it doesn't take into consideration assets or living costs. Thus, a pensioner who owned a valuable property on which the mortgage was fully paid, would still be likely to be classed as being in poverty, because the actual income would be low. That is despite the fact that such a person's living standard may be quite high. This definition of poverty may even include you, the reader, without actually realising it!

By contrast, in developing countries the definition of poverty is the number of people who live on an income that is not enough for healthy sustenance (determined by local cost of living).

Accordingly some researchers have suggested that a better definition of poverty for Britain would be:

By this definition the number of people living in poverty may be lower, but it would still leave a hard core of two to three million people in deep poverty. Despite not being of the same kind as poverty in developing countries the problem of poverty for these families is a very real one. It puts them at higher risk of many of the most serious illnesses and much more likely to be prone to crime. Children from such backgrounds are far less likely to pursue further education and have an increased incidence of behavioural problems.

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