Understanding Coastal Economies
This is part of a collaborative project between ODI Leeds and UK Major Ports Group on coastal economies. As part of this project Tom Forth has been asking “Is the UK coast poor?”. The question is imprecise and introduction of precision is controversial.
The first problem is how to define coast. Then there is the problem of how to define poor for small areas across different countries. Tom has written about how the data were collected and how the coast was defined. Tom mentions the following issues:
- Income for small areas is measured and reported differently in different countries and thus can’t be compared. For example Northern Ireland only publishes income deprivation rankings for its SOAs, Ireland only publishes median income, while England and Wales only publish equivalised mean income.
- Small areas vary significantly in size and population, both across countries and within countries.
- Methods for comparing income across countries, especially ones with different governments, tax and benefit systems, price levels, and currencies, is very difficult.
- Methods for comparing income within countries is not much easier.
- Some small areas in France and Belgium have such small populations that income data is not published.
Working with income quintiles reduces these problems, but many still remain. It is relatively easy for people to incorrectly interpret the data e.g.
- “Look at how much richer Cardiff is than Bristol”. This is not true - Cardiff is a rich place for Wales and Bristol is a high-middle-income place for England, but England has higher average incomes than Wales. Average incomes in Bristol are higher than in Cardiff.
- “Look at how poor France is”. This is not true, it’s just France’s richer places tend to be in and near cities whereas England and Scotland’s richer places tend to be suburban or rural. This makes the map of France look poorer and the maps of Scotland and England richer.