Changing face of local community

Poverty levels have increased, but so have the number of rich residents

The gap between rich and poor is widening across Dundee, Perth and Kinross, Angus and Fife, according to a report commissioned for the BBC.

The study by the University of Sheffield also found that residents in the area are increasingly isolated from the political process and the sense of community is dwindling.

The report looks at the changes in British society over the years.

According to the figures from 2006, the population of the area is 750,000 - some 19,188 fewer people than in 1971.

The average person is 40.3 years old; 5.2% of the population are under five; and 20.8% are of pensionable age or over - the joint highest rate in Scotland.

The poorest people in the area seem to have become poorer.

In 1970, 26.9% were classed as breadline poor, a figure which had risen to 30.5% by 2000.

However, there has also been a small increase in the number of people classed as asset-wealthy. The figure was 9.7% in 1980, rising to 14.4% in 2000.

Jim Milne, from the Dundee Anti-Poverty Forum, told the BBC Scotland news website what he thought was behind the figures.

He said: "Dundee was heavily reliant on the manufacturing industry. There was a lot of construction in Dundee in the 60s and 70s and the manufacturing industry employed tens of thousands of people in the city, and that's all gone.

"So you had people that maybe came from poorer backgrounds who moved into these skilled and semi-skilled jobs - both men and women - getting reasonable standards of living through the employment that they had in Timex, NCR, Ferranti.

During elections you'd have meetings in local schools and it'd be standing room only Norrie MacQueen Dundee University

"But it's interesting in Dundee in that we don't have a particularly low-wage economy because we still have the university, Dundee City Council and the Ninewells teaching hospital.

"There are men and women in reasonable knowledge-based jobs that earn a reasonable amount of money. But where you had that middle group previously in the manufacturing industry and the commercial sector, that doesn't exist any more.

"So there's a big gulf between the knowledge-based jobs and the people who are part-time, working for low pay, with little career prospects. That's one of the unfortunate things."

The research also highlighted an increase in the number of people who feel as if they do not belong.

The figure has risen from 19.1% in 1971 to 29.2% in 2001.

Residents are also becoming increasingly withdrawn from the political process.

In the elections of 1945, 1950 and 1951, 20.9% of people did not vote. By the time the 1997, 2001 and 2005 ballots came around the number not voting had risen to 36.8%.

'In their DNA'

Norrie MacQueen, senior politics lecturer at Dundee University, explained: "Up until certainly the 1960s, probably into the 1970s and even into the 1980s, people were very partisan towards particular political parties.

"Sometimes it was a family thing, sometimes a regional thing, but people identified with a party and would vote for a party.

"You had people who had Labour stamped in their DNA and you had people who had Conservative stamped in their DNA and they would take every opportunity to express that.

"But I think from the 1970s/1980s that hasn't been the case - there's been social mobility, there's been a sense that people are consumers of politics now, their job isn't to rush behind a particular flag it's to pick and choose as if they are in a supermarket as to what political parties offer them the most."

Dr MacQueen added that life was not as public any more, which has had an impact on political interest.

"Even in the 1960s public political meetings would be packed, during elections you'd have meetings in local schools and it'd be standing room only," he said.

"But these sorts of meetings just don't happen any more because people won't go. People get their political information from the television and that contributes to a feeling of not being part of a movement."