Social Exclusion

Social Exclusion

Author Name : Annu

INTRODUCTION There have been major shift in thinking regarding social progress and its measurement since 1960. The concept of social exclusion has increasingly replaced the concept of poverty within the EU policy. Social exclusion is a process by which individuals or households experience deprivation either of resources or of social links to the wider community or society. The notion of social exclusion has meaning only by implicit reference to normative ideas of what it means to be a member of and participate in society (Silver, 1994, 96). According to Silver, exclusion must include the following: a livelihood, secure and permanent employment, earnings, property, credit or land, minimal or prevailing consumption levels, education, skills, and cultural capital, the welfare state, citizenship and legal equality, democratic participation, public goods, the nation or the dominant race, family and sociability, humanity, respect, fulfilment and understanding. The term arose from the French political concerns of the 1960s relating to the emergence of groups who were excluded from the labour market and in danger of permanent detachment from the wider society. Since the seminal work of Rene Lenoir (1974) of France on social exclusion, it became the central theme of social policy in many European countries. However, it came to prominence on the wider European stage in the 1980s, when high unemployment returned and threatened national modes of social integration.