Tackling child poverty - progress report 2022 to 2023: annex d - cost of living focus report

Research aims and approach

Research aims

The aim of this research is to synthetise the wide range of evidence available on the impact of the ongoing cost of living crisis for families in low incomes and identify key learnings to support future policy decisions on tackling child poverty.

The research seeks to answer the following questions:

• What is helping to support families during the cost of living crisis?
• What barriers prevent families from being best supported during the cost of living crisis?
• Where do families need more support?
• Are there specific households who require further/greater support?
• What impact does the cost of living have on wellbeing, social/familial stability and financial stability for a family in a low income household?
• What lessons can we learn which may help us to tackle child poverty in the long term?

Methodology

This report presents a review of empirical evidence on how the current cost of living crisis is impacting those families in low income households. The search of evidence covered a wide range of sources, including: Idox and KandE databases. In addition to research undertaken by the Scottish Government, stakeholder websites were also identified and searched for relevant empirical evidence to include in the review. Finally, Research Advisory Group (RAG) members, consisting of Scottish Government and external stakeholders, provided potential evidence which was reviewed to identify any additional or missing evidence sources.

The library search was carried out to gather evidence on a variety of areas that covered the research questions. This included:

• Coping strategies and new challenges faced by families for raising income for their family (through employment or by social security)
• Experiences of support provided by government, local authorities, third sector organisations and the wider community

In addition, to gather learnings regarding best practice and effective approaches to support low income households/families during a crisis, the search included key event terms of 'financial crisis', 'austerity', 'COVID-19', alongside 'cost of living crisis'. For searches on financial crisis and austerity, this was dated back to 2008 while all other key events were dated from 2020 onwards.

Peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed evidence was included in the search. The primary focus of the review was on evidence from Scotland and the United Kingdom but international evidence was also included where relevant.

In order to focus on the impact of the cost of living for families living in low income households, the primary focus for inclusion in the review was on evidence from empirical research exploring the impact of the crisis on families and for those living in poverty.

Further details on the methodology can be found in Annex A.

Limitations

This was a rapid evidence review conducted in a short timeframe. This was not a systematic review and appraisal of the research evidence.

This work reports on an on-going crisis where new evidence and insights are emerging regularly.

Due to the relatively new nature of the evidence base, the primary sources of evidence are drawn from stakeholders undertaking their own primary research or secondary data analysis. This evidence is pertinent for understanding the experiences of particular stakeholder groups. However, this means that the number of peer reviewed articles drawn upon in this report is limited.

Care has been taken to assess the robustness of each piece of evidence included, and to provide a full understanding of the impact of the cost of living crisis for families living in poverty, but it cannot be interpreted as a full and comprehensive review of all relevant and available data.