a column by Gregory Clark and Neil Cummins for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Northern England is now less educated and less productive than the south. This north-south divide is often characterised by policymakers as evidence of market failure.
This column uses surname distributions to show that the northern decline can instead be explained by persistent outmigration of talent from the north. People of northern origin perform as well on average as those of southern origin. Talented northerners, however, are now mainly located in the south, where they are an economic elite.
Continue reading
Showing posts with label north-south_divide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label north-south_divide. Show all posts
Friday, 17 August 2018
Friday, 2 March 2018
You’ve heard about the north-south divide. How about the west-east one?
an article by Will Hutton published in the Guardian
Geographical inequalities are the result of historical legacies and a fractured economy
Manchester’s economic performance has been strong.
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian
Place has always been destiny in Britain, but never more so than in 2018. Pity the child born in Weymouth, Corby or Carlisle, locked into poor schools, a lacklustre economy and few decent jobs; if he or she had been lucky enough to be born in Tower Hamlets, Hackney or Westminster, their life chances might have been transformed. Where you are born in Britain, and England in particular, is becoming ever more a treacherous geographical lottery.
Nor is the divide any more just the well-known one between north and south. So relatively strong are the performances of Bristol and Manchester, with Liverpool hard on their heels, that overlaid on the old north-south split is the beginnings of a new one – an east-west divide. Parts of the north-west such as Trafford and North Cheshire are strong economic and social performers, while the towns along the M4 and Bristol itself are doing pretty well.
Since the financial crisis, two western regions of England – the north-west and West Midlands – have been growing at twice the rate of the east. The Financial Times reported on 14 Februarythat the average output per head from the west’s workers is now a full £2,000 higher than for those in the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east – and the gap is widening. Productivity is growing faster in the west as a result, and business confidence in the north-west is much higher than the national average.
Continue reading
Geographical inequalities are the result of historical legacies and a fractured economy
Manchester’s economic performance has been strong.
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian
Place has always been destiny in Britain, but never more so than in 2018. Pity the child born in Weymouth, Corby or Carlisle, locked into poor schools, a lacklustre economy and few decent jobs; if he or she had been lucky enough to be born in Tower Hamlets, Hackney or Westminster, their life chances might have been transformed. Where you are born in Britain, and England in particular, is becoming ever more a treacherous geographical lottery.
Nor is the divide any more just the well-known one between north and south. So relatively strong are the performances of Bristol and Manchester, with Liverpool hard on their heels, that overlaid on the old north-south split is the beginnings of a new one – an east-west divide. Parts of the north-west such as Trafford and North Cheshire are strong economic and social performers, while the towns along the M4 and Bristol itself are doing pretty well.
Since the financial crisis, two western regions of England – the north-west and West Midlands – have been growing at twice the rate of the east. The Financial Times reported on 14 Februarythat the average output per head from the west’s workers is now a full £2,000 higher than for those in the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east – and the gap is widening. Productivity is growing faster in the west as a result, and business confidence in the north-west is much higher than the national average.
Continue reading
Sunday, 17 December 2017
Clergy in place in England: Bias to the poor or inverse care law?
an article by Michael Hirst (University of York, UK) published in Population, Space and Place Volume 23 Issue 8 (November 2017)
Abstract
Faith traditions frequently proclaim priority for the poor and socially marginalised, emphasising individual and collective responsibility towards those in poverty. Ordained ministers or clergy – possibly the main investment of religious organisations – play a key role in encouraging and fulfilling that commitment in their local settings.
This paper considers the availability of clergy to provide pastoral care in areas of high socio-economic deprivation. Data from the 2011 census of England are used to correlate area variations in the number of clergy with household and neighbourhood deprivation.
Findings show that clergy are distributed inversely to socio-economic deprivation at the ecological level. Fewer clergy are available or readily accessible in the most deprived areas, raising questions about their ability to respond pastorally and act politically on behalf of the poor.
Market forces that draw clergy deployments towards less deprived areas warrant further investigation.
Abstract
Faith traditions frequently proclaim priority for the poor and socially marginalised, emphasising individual and collective responsibility towards those in poverty. Ordained ministers or clergy – possibly the main investment of religious organisations – play a key role in encouraging and fulfilling that commitment in their local settings.
This paper considers the availability of clergy to provide pastoral care in areas of high socio-economic deprivation. Data from the 2011 census of England are used to correlate area variations in the number of clergy with household and neighbourhood deprivation.
Findings show that clergy are distributed inversely to socio-economic deprivation at the ecological level. Fewer clergy are available or readily accessible in the most deprived areas, raising questions about their ability to respond pastorally and act politically on behalf of the poor.
Market forces that draw clergy deployments towards less deprived areas warrant further investigation.
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
Where are the jobs?
via Centre for Cities by Rachel Smith
New employment data released today [28 September] gives us the latest picture on where jobs are located across the country.
It shows that, if you draw a line horizontally across the country from London to Bristol, these cities and those to the south accounted for a staggering 42 percent of total city employment in 2011. London was the main contributor providing almost three quarters (or 5.0 million) of the 6.8 million employment positions housed in these 13 cities.
Unlike in the South and Midlands, there are more mid to large urban areas in the North, measured in employment terms. Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield together accounted for half of employment in cities north of Mansfield. That said, there were some smaller cities too. Blackburn, for example, had 15 times fewer employees than Manchester.
In sum, the data provided by the Business Register and Employment Survey shows that cities in the South dominate in employment terms. Yet these jobs are housed primarily in London. In contrast, employment opportunities in the North are more evenly spread across its cities.
View original post where you can see a map with some very large spaces with no employment levels worth recording!
New employment data released today [28 September] gives us the latest picture on where jobs are located across the country.
It shows that, if you draw a line horizontally across the country from London to Bristol, these cities and those to the south accounted for a staggering 42 percent of total city employment in 2011. London was the main contributor providing almost three quarters (or 5.0 million) of the 6.8 million employment positions housed in these 13 cities.
Unlike in the South and Midlands, there are more mid to large urban areas in the North, measured in employment terms. Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield together accounted for half of employment in cities north of Mansfield. That said, there were some smaller cities too. Blackburn, for example, had 15 times fewer employees than Manchester.
In sum, the data provided by the Business Register and Employment Survey shows that cities in the South dominate in employment terms. Yet these jobs are housed primarily in London. In contrast, employment opportunities in the North are more evenly spread across its cities.
View original post where you can see a map with some very large spaces with no employment levels worth recording!
Thursday, 12 April 2012
Is it time to challenge the north/south divide debate? …
Inequality knows no compass points
CLES (Centre for Local Economic Strategies) bulletin No 90 by Neil McInroy, Chief Executive, and Matthew Jackson, Head of Research, CLES
Background
This paper began at a recent seminar, looking at the future of the northern economy. Sitting, listening and debating, we were struck, by how similar the debate was to seminars we had attended for ten years previously – the north ‘lacked investment’, it was ‘hard done by’, the south east ‘got it all’; we needed a new northern focus. However, we couldn’t help thinking that this narrative was imprecise, as there are parts of the north doing really well and parts of the south doing really badly; there were also huge divisions in northern cities.
We left the seminar with a sense that sometimes the ability or inability to tackle longstanding social and economic issues is bound up with how we think and frame the problem; therefore, whilst it is orthodox and standard to talk of a poorer north and a more affluent south, it struck us that perhaps it may help if we had a reset and started a policy discussion which replaced this imprecise north south narrative, with something which was more in tune with inequality and divides which stretch across and within all of England. After all, whether you are in Hartlepool or Hastings, inequality knows no compass points.
This paper merely seeks to vent a sense that overly focusing on a north south divide might be hindering progressive thinking on inequality and poverty. In doing so, this paper does not deny that north/south divisions exist; however it tries to expose some of the problems inherent in this dominant narrative and, in turn, seeks to downplay its policy importance. In its place, this paper highlights the growing inequality and divisions between the haves and have nots across all corners of the UK, and suggests how a new robust localism and commitment to a redistributive centralism could address the growing divides.
Full text (PDF 7pp)
CLES (Centre for Local Economic Strategies) bulletin No 90 by Neil McInroy, Chief Executive, and Matthew Jackson, Head of Research, CLES
Background
This paper began at a recent seminar, looking at the future of the northern economy. Sitting, listening and debating, we were struck, by how similar the debate was to seminars we had attended for ten years previously – the north ‘lacked investment’, it was ‘hard done by’, the south east ‘got it all’; we needed a new northern focus. However, we couldn’t help thinking that this narrative was imprecise, as there are parts of the north doing really well and parts of the south doing really badly; there were also huge divisions in northern cities.
We left the seminar with a sense that sometimes the ability or inability to tackle longstanding social and economic issues is bound up with how we think and frame the problem; therefore, whilst it is orthodox and standard to talk of a poorer north and a more affluent south, it struck us that perhaps it may help if we had a reset and started a policy discussion which replaced this imprecise north south narrative, with something which was more in tune with inequality and divides which stretch across and within all of England. After all, whether you are in Hartlepool or Hastings, inequality knows no compass points.
This paper merely seeks to vent a sense that overly focusing on a north south divide might be hindering progressive thinking on inequality and poverty. In doing so, this paper does not deny that north/south divisions exist; however it tries to expose some of the problems inherent in this dominant narrative and, in turn, seeks to downplay its policy importance. In its place, this paper highlights the growing inequality and divisions between the haves and have nots across all corners of the UK, and suggests how a new robust localism and commitment to a redistributive centralism could address the growing divides.
Full text (PDF 7pp)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
