Chapter 8: Below the Breadline: Families and Food in Austerity Britain

The global economic recession, rising food prices and so-called ‘austerity’ policies in some European countries have made food less affordable for households. In this context, food poverty and insecurity have risen across Europe, albeit there are differences between countries (Davis & Baumberg Geiger, 2017; Loopstra, Reeves, McKee, & Stuckler, 2016; Pfeiffer, Ritter, & Oestreicher, 2015). This chapter examines the case of the UK where, since 2006, food banks have proliferated (Garthwaite, 2016; Loopstra et al., 2015) and the number of food parcels handed out to families has risen dramatically (Cooper, Purcell, & Jackson, 2014; Lambie-Mumford & Green, 2015).

Whilst there is evidence that the impacts of the global financial crisis and changing social policy, including welfare reform, have hit UK families (households with children) harder than those without (De Agostini, Hills, & Sutherland, 2014; Stewart, 2015), there is a lack of systematic collection of direct data about household food insecurity or poverty in the UK and, therefore, a lack of evidence about how these economic phenomena and policy changes impact families' ability to feed themselves. However, sociological research about children, families and poverty suggests that food is compromised in low-income households (Daly & Kelly, 2015) and that parents make sacrifices to protect their children (e.g. Main & Bradshaw, 2014), suggesting that an approach to understanding families and food poverty is needed that examines differences within as well as between households.