The poverty of holidays.

I travelled to and from Manchester at the end of this past week. As usual I went by train and to say the least the stations in Glasgow and Manchester were busy – if not mobbed. I wasn’t surprised because it is of course holiday season and whether it’s English schools now being closed meaning visitors coming to Scotland or Scottish families getting away in the last few weeks before the schools re-open, as is always the case the period of late July and early August is very busy.

As I was travelling I couldn’t but recall a passing conversation I had with a care worker last weekend on the very topic of holidays. She had spoken to me of the fact that in her own words she ‘hated’ the holidays because as the sole parent of a couple of children it meant that an already challenged situation was made a lot worse because of trying to organise and pay for care and support for her young family given that she had no relatives living close by and that she, whilst she said she was paid more than some in the care sector, she was still not able to pay for the support her kids would like. Worst of all she said she hated not being able to give her children the holiday experiences that their friends had. It was for her a stressful and depressing times.

The reality of what has come to be termed ‘holiday poverty’ is nothing new. This past week a new study has shown that 39.7 million workers, 14% of the EU’s population, couldn’t afford to go on holiday for a week in 2022.

Importantly this research underlines that holidays are not or should not be something which only those who can afford them should have the right to take – holidays are fundamental for our emotional, psychological and physical health and wellbeing, not least for children. As the European Trade Union Confederation General Secretary, Esther Lynch stated a few days ago:

“It’s also unsafe for workers, they need to have time to recuperate… it is important for addressing burnout and making sure that you come back to work restored and refreshed… a holiday is not a luxury, having time away with family is key for protecting the physical and mental health of workers along with providing valuable experiences for children.”

As the report highlights one of the very real social developments which has benefited millions in the last century has been the recognition that vacations and holidays were a fundamental importance for the whole of society and not just for those who can afford them. We need the benefits of switching off, of de-escalation and relaxing, to re-charge our batteries and help us live and work better. In some sense we seem to be going backwards rather than moving forwards in regard to the health and wellbeing of our workers and society as a whole.

Sadly, there is nothing new in such reports – as long ago as 2017 in a significant report called ‘Hungry Holidays’ a Westminster Cross Party groups of peers and MPs warned that the life chances of up to three million children in the UK were under threat due to their risk of going hungry during school holidays. The children’s charity, Children in Scotland stated at the time that this reality was influenced by high childcare costs, and that:

“Going to school hungry and struggling through the long school holidays not only impacts children’s happiness and wellbeing, it severely limits their mental and physical development with long-lasting and wide-ranging consequences. They are most likely to suffer from type 2 diabetes, obesity and to have a healthy life expectancy of 23 years less than their most affluent counterparts.”

Data from various surveys and research indicate that the prevalence of food insecurity among families with children rises notably during school holidays. For example, a survey conducted by the Food Standards Agency highlights that food insecurity affects various demographics and has led to increased reliance on food banks and other emergency food provisions especially during the holiday period.

Whilst the care worker I spoke to last weekend was focussed on the summer holidays, holiday poverty is not just something which happens during the summer because school holidays make up around a quarter of the year – that is a significant amount of time for someone to be stressing about how her children are cared for and supported.

As well as the impact on individual workers and employing organisations who try to be as flexible as possible in re-organising shifts and patterns of work, there is a wider impact of holiday hunger upon the social care sector which often goes unrecognised, namely an increased demand for care and support. And all this is happening at a time when local support initiatives and projects are being bled of funding because of austerity and cost-of-living pressures.

Overall, the lack of systematic, widespread support during school holidays exacerbates existing inequalities and places a significant burden on Scotland’s social care sector, highlighting the need for comprehensive policy interventions to ensure all children have access to adequate nutrition year-round.

A society that allows children to go hungry in front of our eyes, a society which makes a mother feel useless because she cannot provide what she wants to for her children, despite working and giving of herself in a social care role, has a lot to ask of itself. And yes, at the risk of constantly repeating myself it is a society that needs to recognise the fundamental value of care and support through proper pay, terms and conditions for those who care and that such recognition has to be the foundation of any action.

As I watched the crowds at the train stations queue and jostle to ‘escape’ on their holidays I could not but think of those left behind, with too many adults and children hungry and stressed in a time of ‘holiday.’ Holiday poverty is a reality that seems not to have departed.

The poet Edwin Morgan as I have mentioned before in this blog used to come to my school in Glasgow and read some of his poetry to the classes. All his poems were direct and spoke to many in the room about the realities they knew only too well. As the city of Glasgow struggled to re-design and re-build itself the realities of those left behind were never lost to Morgan, and sadly today whilst the scenes may be different, I think there remains a sad resonance to today’s poverty in his poem Glasgow Sonnet i

A mean wind wanders through the backcourt trash.
Hackles on puddles rise, old mattresses
puff briefly and subside. Play-fortresses
of brick and bric-a-brac spill out some ash.
Four storeys have no windows left to smash,
but in the fifth a chipped sill buttresses
mother and daughter the last mistresses
of that black block condemned to stand, not crash.
Around them the cracks deepen, the rats crawl.
The kettle whimpers on a crazy hob.
Roses of mould grow from ceiling to wall.
The man lies late since he has lost his job,
smokes on one elbow, letting his coughs fall
thinly into an air too poor to rob.

From Collected Poems (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1990). Taken from Glasgow Sonnet i by Edwin Morgan – Scottish Poetry Library

Photo by Niklas Ohlrogge on Unsplash

Donald Macaskill