The Comparative Spatial Deprivation Project
Several attempts were made to map spatial variations in multiple deprivation in Ireland in the 1990s using indicators dreived from census data. These supposedly objective comparisons of the level of deprivation in different areas are more problematic than they might at first appear. However, the situation becomes especially complicated if one wishes to make cross-border comparisons. Given a trend towards increased cross-border co-operation, and therefore a growing need for reliable comparative information, a project involving three colleagues in the University of Ulster at Coleraine (Sally Cook, Adrian Moore and Mike Poole) and myself was established in 1996 with funding from the Combat Poverty Agency in the Republic and the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust to explore the methodological issues associated with attempts to objectively measure variations in deprivation on an all-Ireland basis.
The geography of deprivation in Ireland in the 1990s was examined at different spatial scales, for urban settlements of different sizes, and for rural areas in terms of their peripherality relative to urban centres. This analysis indicated that different deprivation variables have quite different spatial distributions. It is argued that it would be an extremely hazardous undertaking to try to create a composite deprivation index that would be suitable for both core and periphery areas, for both the inner city and outer estates in the metropolitan areas, and for different settlement sizes. The creation of a meaningful cross-border composite deprivation index would be especially problematic. Different forms of deprivation require different solutions. It is argued that many forms of deprivation could be tackled more effectively through cross-border co-operation.
A report was prepared for the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust mapping various deprivation indices in the border region, whilst the methodological issues were explained in more depth in a more substantive report submitted to the Combat Poverty Agency. This report was subsequently published (with minor variations), along with a short summary report, by the European Union Programme for Peace and Reconciliation.
The major recommendations arising from the project were as follows:
- There should be closer co-operation between the census authorities in the two jurisdictions to produce a closer correspondence in the topics to be included in the census, the precise wording of the census questions, and the way in which the information collected is subsequently classified and presented.
- An attempt should be made to collect income data on an areal basis. This would enable one to explore the relationship between poverty and deprivation, as opposed to having to assume that one can simply be substituted for the other.
The feasibility of collecting data on other forms of deprivation for small areas from sources other than the census should be explored (e.g. health data).
- Composite indices of deprivation should if possible be avoided, or at least treated with a high degree of caution as they tend to confuse the situation by mixing together different forms of deprivation, generated by different causal processes.
- Deprivation analyses should, as far as is practical, be confined to actual, as opposed to potential, deprivation.
- The Central Statistics Office in the Republic should be encouraged to provide small area statistics for smaller areas. More importantly, these areas should be more similar in size than at present. In particular, the large urban DEDs in the medium sized towns need to be replaced by a larger number of smaller areas.
- Cartograms and other innovative cartographic devices should be used by researchers to supplement more traditional choropleth maps to reduce the potentially misleading impact generated by large sparsely populated areas.
Copies of the published version of the full report Comparative Spatial Deprivation in Ireland and the shorter Cross-Border Deprivation Analysis: A Summary may be obtained from the European Union Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Monaghan.
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