Developing Deprivation Index for Leeds Using Housing Conditions and Demographic Profiling

摘要

Poverty has been significant to the community of the United Kingdom to the extent of being almost every government’s promise to combat it. The large overlap between poverty and deprivation allows us to study the latter as a proxy of the former. This study investigates deprivation in England and Wales in general and the city of Leeds in particular, by focusing on housing conditions indicator (HPC). The analyses conducted included pair-wise associations, multivariate linear regressions and formulating a deprivation index using standardised value. For England and Wales, housing in poor condition indicator was strongly associated with population size, percentage of job seekers, percentage of users of incapacity benefits, percentage of lone parent, percentage of disabled, percentage of females, Combined Living Environment Indicator (CLEI) and levels of air pollutants; whereas for Leeds, HPC was significantly associated with percentage of lone parent and CLEI. The geographic distribution of Leeds deprivation index was similar to those developed for Leeds but present more deprived areas at the peripheries of the city. Moreover, the analyses showed that gender or age distribution of the population did not play a significant role to housing deprivation in Leeds. Although the results of this study agree greatly with previous relevant research, the outcomes pose questions for future research especially the need to investigate the deprivation at the edges of the city away from the historically deprived central areas. Finally, the findings of this study call for social and environmental policy makers to regulate housing near highly polluted areas.