The Links between Income Distribution and Poverty Reduction in Britain

The 1980s was a period of rapidly increasing income inequality in Britain, accompanied by growing numbers of individuals falling into relative income poverty. While child poverty rates - in at least the two previous decades - had been very similar to those of the rest of the population, it was over this same period that a pronounced gap began to emerge: overall poverty rates were rising but child poverty rates were increasing by an even greater amount. Throughout the early 1990s when the growth in inequality halted, the relative position of families in the income distribution did improve, although by the time Labour came to power in 1997, child poverty still remained significantly higher than for many other population groups, and than that experienced throughout the 1960s and 1970s.