Insecurity comes in many forms: financial, housing, work, health. But the number of people suffering from multiple forms of insecurity at the same time has been higher in recent years than even during the Global Financial Crisis. Becky Tunstall argues that, if the Labour Government wants to promote economic growth, it needs to address this national insecurity crisis.

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Millions of UK adults are worrying about making ends meet, about keeping their jobs, paying for their housing, about their health, and their care needs and responsibilities. In 2022/23, more people were affected by multiple insecurities than immediately after the Global Financial Crisis. In other words, we are experiencing a national multiple insecurity crisis. This may partly explain two key blocks on growth: worsening mental health and rising economic inactivity.

In a report called Insecure Lives, colleagues and I have explored trends in insecurities since 2009/10. We used a nationally-representative UK survey, Understanding Society, and were able to quantify the pressures discussed for more than a decade using terms like “squeezed middle“, and “just about managing“. We defined people as insecure if they were affected by any one indicator in any one dimension.

Definitions of insecurities

• Financial: Finding it difficult or very difficult to manage financially, and/or behind with some or all household bills, and/or expect their financial situation to be worse next year, and/or in relative poverty
• Health: Longstanding illness or disability, and/or in poor self-rated health, and/or in psychological distress
• Housing: Behind with housing costs last year, and/or housing costs 30 per cent or more of income, and/or private renters
• Work: In temporary work, and/or monthly pay below 66 per cent median, and/or in solo self-employment and/or unemployed or not working because caring, ill or disabled
• Care: Providing unpaid care to an older person or a child with special needs.
• Multiple: More than one of the above

The national insecurity crisis

Individual insecurities affect large percentages of the population. In 2022/23, 47 per cent of UK adults were financially insecure. 46 per cent experienced health insecurity. 27 per cent experienced housing insecurity, 16 per cent experienced care insecurity and 36 per cent of adults of working age experienced work insecurity. “Multiple insecurity” is insecurity in more than one dimension at a time. In 2009/10, immediately after the Global Financial Crisis, the proportion of UK adults experiencing financial, housing and health insecurities at the same time was 8.1 per cent. Multiple insecurity reduced to 5.4 per cent in 2015/16, as the economy improved. However, with continuing housing cost increases, Covid, the cost-of-living crisis, and then the withdrawal of policies to deal with these shocks, multiple insecurity grew again to reach 8.5 per cent of UK adults in 2022/23. Between 2015/16 and 2022/23, the numbers of UK adults experiencing multiple insecurities grew by 1.9 million, from 3.3 million to 5.2 million.

Previous research has shown that insecurity demands attention, creates worry, and harms wellbeing. Insecurity can force a focus on crisis management, rather than planning ahead, or taking positive risks, such as getting a new job or investing in training. Rachel Reeves has described security as “the platform from which to take risks”, and as a means to promote economic growth, one of the key milestones the current Labour government wants to be judged by.

Our data shows that rates of wellbeing problems were two or three times worse than average amongst people experiencing combined financial, housing and health insecurity.

Mental ill-health and economic inactivity both act as brakes on growth, as the White Paper Get Britain Working said. However, the number of people affected by mental ill health has grown over the same period that multiple insecurities reached record levels. The number who were economically inactive grew by 1.1 million over the same period 2015-22. And our research shows evidence of links between multiple insecurities and both mental ill-health and economic inactivity.

Insecurity and mental ill health

Our data shows that rates of wellbeing problems were two or three times worse than average amongst people experiencing combined financial, housing and health insecurity. For example, 57 per cent of those with these multiple insecurities said they were “constantly under strain”, compared to 24 per cent of the population overall. 48 per cent were having more trouble sleeping than usual, due to worry, compared to 18 per cent for all UK adults. This suggests that the growth in multiple insecurity from 2015/16 to 2022/23 could account for 600,000 extra cases of both strain and sleep problems in the UK, potentially contributing to worsening mental health. Over the same period, Understanding Society data show that there were more than 2 million extra UK adults in “psychological distress”.

Percentage of UK adults with wellbeing problems, all adults and those with multiple insecurities (financial, health and housing), 2022/23

To learn more about the impacts of multiple insecurities, we interviewed 36 people on low incomes in four deprived areas in England. All 36 interviewees experienced multiple insecurities, on average in four dimensions of life.

The insecurities affecting interviewee Mary (interviewees chose their own pseudonyms) (artwork by Laura Sorvala, photo by Laura Lane)

The participants described how insecurities imposed a heavy mental and psychological load. Clara-Louise was a lone parent, with physical health problems and PTSD, on a low income in a private rented flat. She said, “it makes me anxious, it makes me stressed at times and it makes me really tired, really tired… some of these things are basic things that people shouldn’t really have to worry about”. Summer was under pressure from the Department of Work and Pensions to work more, without affordable childcare, and while facing imminent homelessness due to relationship breakdown. She said: “these last few weeks I feel ill. Like I just don’t feel great at all. I’m coming out in spots. My throat hurts. Like I feel so drained and so tired… Like people will say something to me and it will just not absorb”.

Insecurity and economic inactivity

We found that the people with the highest rates of multiple insecurities were people who were economically inactive because they were long-term sick or disabled. 32 per cent of this group were multiply insecure in 2022/23. Some interviewees said that their own fluctuating physical or mental health, or worries about care and support for their children and parents, had forced them out of the labour market. Michael had a first-class degree, but went through a breakdown after a series of jobs which did not fit with his autism and physical disability. He said, “why aren’t we empowering people, especially people on the autistic spectrum, to do something they can get paid for that makes use of their gifts?”. Mike, another graduate, had stopped work and taken a big drop in income to care for his 80-year-old mother, because council care was unsatisfactory.

The number of people affected by mental ill health has grown over the same period that multiple insecurities reached record levels.

All the interviewees who were not working wanted to work, but health problems and care responsibilities made it difficult. For example, lone parent Maddie had struggled to get the right part-time work: “They had a mum shift, 10-2, Monday to Friday, and they gave it to young people. Yeah, lads in ripped T shirt and jeans got the job”. The 1.9-million-person increase in multiple insecurities 2015/16-2022/23 is likely to have represented an increase in people facing barriers to economic activity.

Growing multiple insecurities are affecting millions of UK adults, and are associated with well-being problems, mental ill-health and economic inactivity, which contribute to low economic growth. To kickstart growth we need to address the national insecurity crisis. We need more jobs offering secure incomes, more secure affordable housing, and more confidence in NHS care and social service support. Making people more secure will give them the “platform” to achieve their potential and to contribute to growth, as Reeves has suggested.  

All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Image credit: patpichaya in Shutterstock

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