Human geographers should pay more attention to the issues which affect the lives and living standards in different parts of the world and less to the more obscure areas of cultural geographical theory

In the last ten years, the ‘cultural turn’ in human geography has led to an increasing interest in universities in rarefied theoretical debates which have minimal relevance to the lives of ordinary people and they world they live in.

I would like to see human geographers paying more attention to key issues of employment, housing, education, health and the like. The risk otherwise is that parts of geography could be seen by the public and policy makers as a largely irrelevant parlour game for an inward looking intellectual elite.

One of the biggest influence on the sort of lives most people are able to live is their income – whether from employment, property, savings, investment or welfare benefits. If your income is low and you have to subsist on a state pension or welfare benefits, this is likely to severely circumscribe the kinds of things that you can do and the choices you can make. Inequality has grown considerably in Britain in recent decades and a large number of people on low incomes struggle to survive.

Welfare benefits are a key element of income, particularly for low income groups. It might seem a rather dull subject, but it forms a major component of government spending in developed countries and it has a big impact on household incomes and living standards in some regions and areas.

In Britain, welfare benefits currently total about £200 billion a year or about 25 per cent of total government spending. There is also a distinct geography of welfare spending and the incidence of welfare benefits.

In poorer regions, welfare benefits form a significant share of overall household incomes. But, welfare spending is not just something that only affects poor people in poor areas. Almost every household in Britain will, at some stage, enjoy child benefit or a state pension and almost 70 per cent of households in Britain are in receipt of one or more major welfare benefits at some time.

There are, of course, major variations from region to region in the incidence and importance of key benefits. Though the incidence of pensions is, not surprisingly, highest in the south west and lowest in London – given the age structure of the two regions – the percentage of households in receipt of pensions or child benefit are fairly equally distributed by region. Where big differences emerge is in the distribution of incapacity benefit and job seekers allowance, which are far higher in the old industrial regions of the north-east, north-west, South Wales and the Scottish lowlands where unemployment is high and poor health widespread.

Similarly, the distribution of housing benefit is disproportionately concentrated in London because housing costs are much higher there than elsewhere. London accounts for about 25 per cent of national expenditure on housing benefit because rent levels are much higher in the capital.

Since the election in May 2010, the Coalition government has committed to the view that welfare spending in Britain is unacceptably high and needs to be cut back to affordable proportions. As part of this policy, government has announced significant changes to eligibility for child benefit and caps to housing benefit and the overall level of welfare benefit payments. It has also introduced medical tests for incapacity benefits. One can argue about the desirability or otherwise of some of these changes, but what is certain is that they will have marked geographical effects and will tend to affect poorer areas and people the most.

The introduction of medical tests for incapacity benefits will inevitably have a bigger impact in areas like South Wales or Yorkshire where such benefits are disproportionately found, while introduction of the housing benefit cap will have a disproportionate impact in London. Perhaps the biggest impact of all will stem from the introduction of the overall benefit cap, which the government has set at £500 per week for families or median households post tax income.

This is not a small sum and the DWP estimated that perhaps 80,000 households could be affected. The actual number may be lower, but what it important is that it is estimated that almost half of households affected would be in London, and a large proportion will be single parents with three or more children.

There is a distinct geographical impact and human geographers should perhaps spend more time looking at issues like this and less at obscure theory. Geography has always thrived on its ability to address real world issues. It would be a great pity if it were to slip into social and political irrelevance.

Chris Hamnett is a Professor at the Department of Geography, King’s College London