Rural Lives Understanding Financial Hardship and Vulnerability in Rural Areas
Rural Lives Understanding financial hardship and vulnerability in rural areas Mark Shucksmith University of Newcastle Polly Chapman Impact Hub Inverness Jayne Glass and Jane Atterton Rural Policy Centre, Scotland’s Rural College March 2021 Rural Lives Understanding financial hardship and vulnerability in rural areas Contents Executive summary 2 1 Introduction 5 2 Experiences and impacts of financial hardship 7 2.1 Changing rural economies 7 2.2 The welfare state in rural areas 10 2.3 Voluntary and community organisations in rural areas 13 2.4 Families, friends and neighbours 15 2.5 Housing, fuel poverty, cost of living, digitalisation and social care 16 2.6 Debt, savings, agency and coping strategies 19 2.7 Place and narratives of change 22 2.8 Rural poverty within a pandemic 25 3 Conclusions: Challenges and policy opportunities 25 3.1 The importance of cumulative and complementary support 25 3.2 The need to combine person-based and place-based measures 27 3.3 Policy challenges and opportunities 28 Glossary 35 Acknowledgements The authors are indebted to all those who participated in this research, whether through offering us advice and information, or by agreeing to be interviewed. Your names are not listed anywhere in the report to preserve confidentiality, but we are immensely grateful: we hope we have done justice to your stories. We also wish to thank the members of our distinguished Advisory Group for their comments, advice and support throughout the project. Members of the Group were: Margaret Clark, Nicola Crook, Derek Egan, Tim Goodship, Rebecca Graham, Vanessa Halhead, Linda Hutton, Sarah Kidd, Karen MacNee, Coinneach Morrison, Angus Murray, Anne Murray, Michael Nixon, Norma Robson, Carol Tannahill and Ellie Thompson.
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