Since 2021, UK households have experienced an unprecedented rise in the costs of living. Global and domestic events including the pandemic, invasion of Ukraine, and the UK’s 2022 Mini- Budget, have caused economic shocks, supply chain issues, interest rate rises and inflationary pressures. The resulting cost-of-living crisis created by these sustained pressures is commonly understood as a fall in real disposable incomes that has left many households struggling to pay for food and energy. Policy responses to the crisis have included one-off cost-of-living payments, increasing warm homes discount for vulnerable households, energy bill and Council tax rebates, and a reduction in basic rate income tax, among other measures (Brown, 2022).
In this paper we argue that while these initiatives have provided crucial support to struggling households, they offer only temporary relief and do not address the underlying problem of persistent livelihood insecurity that leaves households vulnerable to shocks and stresses. We make this argument based on almost a decade of mixed methods research in east London, investigating with local communities their lived experiences of socio-economic changes linked to regeneration, and determinants and obstacles to prosperity. Since 2015, three waves of neighbourhood-based research carried out by citizen scientists – residents trained to work as social researchers in their communities – have identified livelihood insecurity as the main obstacle to prosperity for people living in east London (Moore and Woodcraft, 2023; Woodcraft and Chan, 2022; Woodcraft and Anderson, 2019).
Critically, this research identifies that livelihood security requires more than simply work and income. Households draw on a range of assets, services, and networks for their livelihoods including affordable housing, food and energy security, internet access, affordable local childcare, and public transport (Moore and Woodcraft, 2023). Local networks of family, friends, and neighbours play a crucial role in helping people cope with insecurity, providing informal childcare to enable people employed on zero-hours contracts to work irregular shift patterns and enabling informal and community-led savings networks to operate (Woodcraft and Anderson, 2019). A new survey of 4,000 households in east London shows livelihood insecurity is widespread, persistent, and does not map in a straightforward way onto employment status and household income (Woodcraft et al., 2024). Levels of income security, financial stress, debt burdens, food and energy security, and access to childcare and public transport vary significantly within areas that report similar levels of income. Preliminary analysis of prosperity levels by gender, age, and for different ethnic groups shows complex patterns of livelihood insecurity.
This research shows that tackling livelihood insecurity and the cost-of-living crisis requires policy responses that go beyond promoting employment and income growth. Addressing the underlying causes of insecurity, in particular, how multiple insecurities intersect to create pressures for specific groups and places at certain times, will increase the resilience of communities to economic shocks. In this paper, we set out an approach to understanding livelihood insecurity through the lived experience of communities in east London. We provide guidance on how to use publicly accessible secondary datasets to measure levels of insecurity at the hyper-local (Lower Super Output Area) level to enable this approach to be replicated in other areas of the UK.