Policy Press

Poverty, inequality and social justice

The issues involved in poverty, inequality and social justice are many and varied, from basic access to education and healthcare, to the financial crisis and resulting austerity, and now COVID-19. Addressing Goal 1: No Poverty, Goal 5: Gender Equality, Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities and Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, our list both presents research on these topics and tackles emerging problems. A key series in the area is the SSSP Agendas for Social Justice.

This area has always been at the heart of our publishing with the view to making the research in this area as visible and accessible as possible in order to maximise its potential impact. 

Bristol University Press and Policy Press are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. In Poverty, inequality and social justice, we aim to address the following goals:

SDG Publishers compact logoSDG 1: No povertySDG 5: Gender equalitySDG 10: Reduced inequalitiesSDG 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions

Showing 61-72 of 698 items.

Women and Welfare Conditionality

Lived Experiences of Benefit Sanctions, Work and Welfare

Drawing on a wealth of qualitative longitudinal evidence, this book casts light on women’s lived experiences of welfare and work. It uncovers the hidden gendered bias of conditional welfare reforms to challenge dominant political discourses, policy design and practice norms.

Policy Press

Theorising Justice

A Primer for Social Scientists

Justice is becoming increasingly important to climate change and economic development discussions. This book combines justice theories with their applications in policy and practice, to address the social, political, economic and ecological challenges we face today.

Bristol Uni Press

The Escape from Poverty

Breaking the Vicious Cycles Perpetuating Disadvantage

The perpetuation of poverty across generations damages lives. Drawing on a wide variety of sources and academic disciplines, along with lived experiences, this book examines why poverty is continued across generations and what needs to be done to eradicate it.

Policy Press

Poverty and Prejudice

Religious Inequality and the Struggle for Sustainable Development

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This book offers a comprehensive overview of how efforts to achieve SDGs can be enhanced by paying greater attention to freedom of religion and belief.

Bristol Uni Press

Childhoods of the Global South

Children’s Rights and Resistance

Children in the Global South continue to be affected by social disadvantage in our unequal post-colonial world order. With a focus on working-class children in Latin America, this book explores the challenges of promoting children’s rights in a context of decolonization.

Policy Press

The Future of Children’s Care

Critical Perspectives on Children’s Services Reform

Bringing together a range of perspectives from practice, lived experience and academia, this is an accessible and timely guide to children’s services reform. Critically considering the impact of the MacAlister Review, the book highlights both the positive and negative aspects of reform, before setting out alternative policy and practice directions.

Policy Press

Adult Safeguarding Observed

How Social Workers Assess and Manage Risk and Uncertainty

Applying sociological and ethnographic research to adult safeguarding for the first time, this book considers how frontline practice is developing, exploring safeguarding adults assessments and multi-agency work. The book is essential reading for those wishing to understand risk management and how current practice can be improved.

Policy Press

Contextual Safeguarding

The Next Chapter

This book shares stories from child sexual exploitation, child criminal exploitation and peer violence about what has been learnt from the Contextual Safeguarding approach to understanding harm that happens to young people in their communities and what is required to respond.

Policy Press

The Gentrification of Queer Activism

Diversity Politics and the Promise of Inclusion in London

Tracing the extensive LGBTQ+ venue closures in the 2010s, this book explores the queer politics of LGBTQ+ inclusion in London. Drawing on rich ethnographic work with activists, professionals and businesses, it reveals how gender and sexuality come to be reconfigured in the production and consumption of LGBTQ+ inclusion and its promises.

Bristol Uni Press

How Britain Loves the NHS

Practices of Care and Contestation

It is often claimed that the UK is unusually attached to its National Health Service, and the last decade has seen increasingly visible displays of gratitude and love. This book offers a timely critique of both the potential, and the dysfunctions, of Britain’s complex love affair with its healthcare system.

Policy Press

Health in a Post-COVID World

Lessons from the Crisis of Western Liberalism

At a time of global ‘permacrisis’, Sebastian Taylor applies his extensive frontline experience working with health systems and healthcare in the Global North and South to assess the concrete impact of contemporary liberal values on our welfare, development and environmental survival.

Policy Press

Social Work in Wales

Essential reading for students and practicing social workers in Wales, this book is the first to examine what makes the Welsh context unique, including the move towards joint children, families and adult provision and the emphasis on early intervention partnership considerations.

Policy Press


Related journals

Journal of poverty and social justice cover

Journal of Poverty and Social Justice

Welfare regimes in the global South: does the capability approach provide an alternative perspective?
Sophie Plagerson and Leila Patel

Basic income and a public job offer: complementary policies to reduce poverty and unemployment
Felix FitzRoy and Jim Jin

Monitoring progress towards sustainable development: multidimensional child poverty in the European Union
Yekaterina Chzhen, Zlata Bruckauf and Emilia Toczydlowska

Much ado about poverty: the role of a UN Special Rapporteur
Philip Alston, Bassam Khawaja and Rebecca Riddell

Including services in multidimensional poverty measurement for SDGs: modifications to the consensual approach
Alba Lanau, Joanna Mack and Shailen Nandy

For better or for worse: does the UK means-tested social security system encourage partnership dissolution?
Rita Griffiths

CCTs and conditionalities: an exploratory analysis of not meeting conditional cash transfer conditionalities in Chile's Families Programme
Tal Reininger, Cristobal Villalobos and Ignacio Wyman

Welfare regimes in the global South: does the capability approach provide an alternative perspective?
Sophie Plagerson and Leila Patel

Basic income and a public job offer: complementary policies to reduce poverty and unemployment
Felix FitzRoy and Jim Jin

Monitoring progress towards sustainable development: multidimensional child poverty in the European Union
Yekaterina Chzhen, Zlata Bruckauf and Emilia Toczydlowska

Is there evidence of households making a heat or eat trade off in the UK?
Carolyn Snell, Hannah Lambie-Mumford and Harriet Thomson

Leaving no one behind? Reaching the informal sector, poor people and marginalised groups with Social Health Protection
Claude Meyer, David Evans et al.

Gender, ethnicity and activism: 'the miracle is when we don't give up...'
Anna  Daróczi, Angela Kocze et al.

‘We are constantly overdrawn, despite not spending money on anything other than bills and food’: a mixed-methods, participatory study of food and food insecurity in the context of income inequality [Open Access]
Katie Pybus, Madeleine Power, and Kate E. Pickett

A consequence of a tragedy: nowcasting poverty rate in Syria
Samer Hamati

Retheorising the relationship between electricity scarcity and social injustice: evidence from Zimbabwe
Ellen Fungisai Chipango

Exploring child poverty and inequality in post-apartheid South Africa: a multidimensional perspective
Kehinde Oluwaseun Omotoso and Steven F. Koch

‘To tell you the truth, no job is legit’: an exploration of justice for Hanoi’s marginalised urban migrants
Jonathan De Luca