Manchester’s White working class communities are experiencing social insecurity that impacts on people’s lives, their families and the wider community in a range of different but cumulative ways.

That’s the conclusion of a new report out this week from the Open Society foundation that spent a year in Higher Blackley, part of a six-city research series, Europe’s White Working Class Communities, which has examined the realities of people from majority populations in Aarhus, Amsterdam, Berlin, Lyon, Manchester, and Stockholm.

The insecurity and erosion in the sense of belonging has roots in de-industrialisation and the replacement of traditional jobs in manufacturing with low-skilled and low paid jobs in the service sector.

Endemic low pay coupled with the increases in costs of living is making life increases in costs of living is making life increasingly difficult.

The report focuses on seven areas of local policy, employment, education, health, housing, political participation, policing, and the media, as well as broader themes of belonging and identity.

Twelve focus groups were conducted with 100 local residents alongside 23 stakeholder interviews including politicians, community activists, public service providers, police representatives and religious leaders.

Higher Blackley, says the authors, has significant pockets of deprivation alongside areas of relative affluence, a majority white working class community, and a history of far-right political activity.

The area was selected as a particularly powerful example of how de-industrialization has affected the working population of Britain. At its height in 1961, the ICI plant employed 14,000 people, more than the entire population of the ward in 2011, but nearly all the manufacturing jobs have gone.

“It was easy to get a job; there was industry all over the place,” says one of the interviewees. “There’s no mill now,” another resident says, “but there is a Sainsbury’s”. Where there are jobs, they are concentrated in the service sector where low pay is endemic say the authors.

Whilst unemployment and the number of benefits recipients are relatively high in the ward, and there are low levels of academic attainment and qualifications, the report found a strong work ethic that includes people on benefits.

In education and employment; housing, health and policing; and in participation and influence, the report found gaps between the perception of the community and the reality, and sometimes the misunderstanding was on the part of the residents themselves.

The author’s found that there were extremely strong family and community bonds in social housing that provide support systems that can ameliorate economic hardships. Housing allocation is often seen to be unfair, benefitting immigrants at the expense of locally born people, even when this is not the case.We’re not racist,” said one respondent , “just resentful.”

People have found simple solutions to many everyday problems that have allowed them to survive difficult circumstances. They ask if a neighbor wants a hand. If someone is ill, they’ll pop in and help. None of this is anything the people of Higher Blackley don’t already know. As one 96-year-old resident of Higher Blackley says, “The working class were always giving back. My mother used to say, we come from Givington because they were always giving back.”

The report makes a number of suggestions, which include, an integrated approach to education and food poverty, and a democratic engagement programme to increase the connection between communities and policymaking.

It also recommends the setting up of a shared space development to increase opportunities for participation, open discussion and community-led local activities, and a partnership between the local media and key community media ambassadors to work together and report factual, interesting news and provide journalism of integrity.

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