Introduction

Securing an adequate diet is essential for the maintenance of our health and function in society. In the UK and other modern societies we have looked to the market to manage the risks associated with food supply, yet issues to do with food poverty as insufficient purchasing power at the household level continue to be discussed as a matter of concern (see, for example, Paton et al, 1901; Lindsay, 1913; Paton and Findlay, 1926; Boyd Orr, 1936; Titmuss, 1938; Townsend, 1962; Lambert, 1964; McKenzie, 1971; Shaw, 1999; Dowler et al, 2001; Nelson et al, 2007). One way to determine the adequacy of a household budget is to observe what people in practice secure with their existing patterns of household expenditure. In this inquiry we calculate minimum income standards or budget lines for the older UK population using data from a national survey of household expenditure and food consumption. The budget line calculations are anchored to national dietary standards for healthy living, but importantly they are also grounded in the consumption habits and market prices faced by ordinary people. We may see this as a semi-normative approach to poverty assessment following the classification of poverty measures by the ‘Rio Group’ (Expert Group on Poverty Statistics, 2006). ‘Normative’ is being used here in the sense of representing the cost of satisfying an externally imposed norm or expert recommendation; grounding the budget line in empirical expenditure data makes the calculation semi-normative.

The inquiry uses a variety of statistical methods to determine the budget line, while observing age- and sex-specific dietary standards for protein, energy, vitamins and minerals (shown in Table 5.1). UK data on household expenditure and food consumption are taken from the 2002-05 Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS) (Craggs, 2003; Gibbins, 2005; Gibbins and Georgina, 2006). The sample has been restricted to older person households, people aged 60 and above, and three years of data provides a combined sample of 4,300 households. Before describing the study methods and results, and discussing their implications; semi-normative approaches to poverty assessment are discussed in more detail.

A semi-normative approach to drawing a budget line

In the UK, and in the rest of Europe, poverty is measured using relative standards, 60% of the median is the official low-income measure and this is supported by indicators of material deprivation and exclusion (Wolff, 2009).