Poverty and Participation in 21st Century Britain

Observatoire sociologique du changement – 27 rue Saint - Guillaume 75337 Paris Cedex 07 http://www.sciencespo.fr/osc/fr Tel +33 (0)1 45 49 54 50 Fax +33 (0)1 45 49 54 86 Résumé : Peter Townsend déclarait que la pauvreté pouvait être scientifiquement mesurée comme un point de rupture dans la distribu tion du revenu en dessous duquel la participation à la société s’effondre. Cet article explore l’hypothèse de Townsend : (1) en élargissant les dimensions de la participation sociale telle que conçue par Townsend, (2) en exploitant de nouvelles données (Un derstanding Society, 2011; 2013, N=40, 000 ménages) et en utilisant le modèle SEM (Structural Equation Modelling) , enfin (3) en prenant en compte l’aspect pluri - culturel/ethnique de la société Britannique. La participation à la société ― définie dans un se ns large qui inclut la non - privation économique, la participation sociale et la confiance ― diminue avec la baisse du niveau de revenu puis cesse de se réduire pour les 30% des individus les plus pauvres. Ceci peut indiquer un effet de seuil de participati on, un pallier plutôt qu’un point de rupture comme le suggère Townsend, qui reste valable même pour les revenus très faibles. Finalement, nous montrerons que les personnes interrogées issues des minorités présentent un moindre niveau de participation socia le par rapport aux autochtones.Peter Townsend argued that poverty could be scientifically measured as a 'breakpoint' within the income distribution below which participation collapses. This pap er investigates Townsend's hypothesis by: (1) broadening his original measurement of participation, (2) using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) in conjunction with a new dataset including 40,000 households (Understanding Society, 2011; 2013); and (3) tak ing into account the multi - cultural/ethnic nature of British society. We find that participation - defined as lack of deprivation, social participation and trust - reduces as income falls but stops doing so among the poorest 30 per cent of individuals. Thi s may be indicating a minimum level of participation, a floor rather than a ‘breakpoint’ as suggested by Townsend, which has to be sustained irrespective of how low income is. Finally, respondents with an ethnic minority background manifest lower levels of participation than white respondents

Discovery of a Perseus-like cloud in the early Universe: HI-to-H2 transition, carbon monoxide and small dust grains at zabs=2.53 towards the quasar J0000+0048

We present the discovery of a molecular cloud at zabs=2.5255 along the line of sight to the quasar J0000+0048. We perform a detailed analysis of the absorption lines from ionic, neutral atomic and molecular species in different excitation levels, as well as the broad-band dust extinction. We find that the absorber classifies as a Damped Lyman-alpha system (DLA) with logN(HI)(cm^-2)=20.8+/-0.1. The DLA has super-Solar metallicity with a depletion pattern typical of cold gas and an overall molecular fraction ~50%. This is the highest f-value observed to date in a high-z intervening system. Most of the molecular hydrogen arises from a clearly identified narrow (b~0.7 km/s), cold component in which CO molecules are also found, with logN(CO)~15. We study the chemical and physical conditions in the cold gas. We find that the line of sight probes the gas deep after the HI-to-H2 transition in a ~4-5 pc-size cloud with volumic density nH~80 cm^-3 and temperature of only 50 K. Our model suggests that the presence of small dust grains (down to about 0.001 {\mu}m) and high cosmic ray ionisation rate (zeta_H a few times 10^-15 s^-1) are needed to explain the observed atomic and molecular abundances. The presence of small grains is also in agreement with the observed steep extinction curve that also features a 2175 A bump. The properties of this cloud are very similar to what is seen in diffuse molecular regions of the nearby Perseus complex. The high excitation temperature of CO rotational levels towards J0000+0048 betrays however the higher temperature of the cosmic microwave background. Using the derived physical conditions, we correct for a small contribution (0.3 K) of collisional excitation and obtain TCMB(z = 2.53)~9.6 K, in perfect agreement with the predicted adiabatic cooling of the Universe. [abridged]Comment: 24 pages, 24 figures, accepted for publication in A&