Understanding social exclusion

While income plays an important role in social exclusion, there are other contributing factors beyond the minimum wage and welfare benefits.

In order to research a new holistic approach to understanding social exclusion in Australia, the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (MIAESR) has joined forces with the Brotherhood of St Laurence.

“We’ve always known that poverty and disadvantage is quite complex and can come about by a number of different reasons, so it’s important to take account of this combination of issues when you’re trying to determine who is experiencing disadvantage,” says Project Co-ordinator Dr Rosanna Scutella.

Dr Scutella says the way we have defined poverty in Australia can be charted by these varying approaches to understanding and measuring disadvantage.

“The progression of differing approaches to poverty can also be understood as a story about the changing face of Australian communities and the way we should treat the most marginalised members of society,” she explains.

During the 1960s and early 1970s, the Henderson poverty line was the prevailing measure of disadvantage. The poverty line was set at the disposable income necessary to support the needs of a family of two adults and two dependant children.

This scheme has fallen out of favour and the idea of simplifying poverty to monetary issues is increasingly seen as unsatisfactory.

The ‘Basic Needs’ approach to poverty came next, and suggested that poverty is the deprivation of certain requirements, necessary for human needs.

For example, if a household doesn’t have access to sufficient drinking water then this fails the basic needs test. According to this approach, the lack of water as a basic requirement is the problem, not necessarily the lack of money to pay for water. The approach also attempts to address some of the complexities between private income and publically provided or subsidised services.

This shift between the poverty line and the basic needs approach runs parallel with Australia’s development away from a rigid class structure where money was the ticket to opportunities. As Australia became wealthier as a nation, governments increasingly subsidised social services, education and health. Poverty was identified as about access to resources rather than solely understood in terms of personal finances.

The next approach to surface is broadly concerned with social exclusion and the suite of factors that contributes to an individual’s level of inclusion in a society. Dr Scutella’s research fits into this category.

“In order to paint a full picture of social exclusion we take into account an individual’s material resources, employment situation, educational background, participation in social activities, participation in community, health-related factors and personal safety,” says Dr Scutella.

“These separate factors can all work together to make an individual either highly functional in the eyes of society, or make it really difficult for a person to experience social inclusion.”

These criteria also place community participation as a chief principle for social inclusion, which is arguably a part of the growing recognition of communities in creating a sense of belonging, confidence and empowerment. This contrasts with the Henderson poverty line, according to which community is eclipsed by financial means in determining disadvantage.

According to the social inclusion measure, individuals are located on a continuum.

People are not simply above or below the poverty line, but we now have a more sophisticated way of understanding and approaching different elements that contribute to social disadvantage.

“We found that Indigenous Australians, in particular, are excluded on a range of measures. Many of the Indigenous Australians covered by this research had lower rates of employment, lower rates of education and lower levels of income on average. Their health status is generally not as good as the rest of the population,” says Dr Scutella.

“We also found that people with lower educational qualifications, in particular those who haven’t finished high school, are inclined to be disadvantaged. There’s a significant difference in levels of disadvantage between those who havn’t finished year 10 compared with those who have finished year 11 or 12.”

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