Poverty and social exclusion in Europe

Book abstract:

This book sets out from the startling statistic that there is an estimated sixty million people living in poverty in the European Union. Focusing on four major 'risk' groups: young adults, single parents, the sick and disabled, and the retired, and concentrating on six European countries: Austria, Germany, Greece, Norway, Portugal and the UK, it provides both a cross-sectional and comparative study of these countries. It attempts to explain how and why poverty and social exclusion largely result from a complex and problematic relationship between education, gender, family structure, income, and state provisions.

Chapter one, on social exclusion and the life course, identifies the reason for the research as a whole and explains both the methodology and terms used, as well as providing information on the data derived from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). Chapter two, drawing on the results found in the ECHP, looks at poverty, material deprivation and 'multi-dimensional disadvantage', during the four life-stages described above, and chapter three discusses the specific transition from youth to adulthood. Chapters four, five and six deal, respectively, with lone parenthood, sickness and disability, and the progression into retirement, and chapter seven concludes the work with an analysis of patterns of social exclusion, specifically in terms of their consequences for policy and research.

The book is aimed at students and academics of economics or the social sciences, as well as policymakers.