Understanding Social Exclusion

This book explores the issue of social exclusion. It asks three main questions: How can social exclusion be measured? What are its main determinants or influences? And what policies can reduce social exclusion? The authors aim to consider how a focus on social exclusion may alter the policy questions that are most relevant by fostering debate in government, research, and academic circles.

If the objective of creating a society with opportunity for all is to be achieved, understanding the roots and impacts of social exclusion is essential. This book is the most comprehensive attempt to examine the causes of social exclusion and the policies necessary to tackle it. It is based on recent research carried out in the ESRC Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics. This research draws on all the social science disciplines, particularly economics, sociology, demography, and area studies. It will be of interest and importance to students and teachers in the social sciences and to all those concerned with social policy in Britain and more widely. Social exclusion is not a matter solely of cash poverty, although that is an important dimension of it. The concept of social exclusion is relatively new, both in political and academic prominence. This book analyses the concept and examines the extent of exclusion measured in different ways. Contributors examine and explain the latest developments in research on income dynamics and movements in and out of poverty and low pay; links in social disadvantage across generations; the long-term effects of the growth in lone parenthood, early motherhood, and other changes in family structure; neighbourhood deprivation and community organization; and the prospects for success of government policies towards child poverty, education, and social security.

1 - Introduction
2 - Social exclusion, social isolation and the distribution of income
3 - Degrees of exclusion: Developing a dynamic, multi-dimensional measure
4 - The dynamics of poverty in Britain
5 - Social exclusion and the generations
6 - Disadvantage and Demography—-chicken and egg?
7 - Low paid work: Drip feeding the poor
8 - Social exclusion and neighbourhoods
9 - Child poverty
10 - Response and prevention in the British welfare state
11 - Preventing social exclusion: Education's contribution
12 - Community, neighbourhood and social infrastructure
13 - Does a focus on 'social exclusion' change the policy response?

John Hills is Director and Professor of Social Policy at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE), London School of Economics. Julian Le Grand is the Richard Titmuss Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics. He is Chair of LSE Health and Social Care and a co-director of the Economic and Social Research Council's Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE). David Piachaud is Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics.