Dimensions of social disadvantage

This book is about three of the main forms of social disadvantage – poverty, deprivation and exclusion. It discusses what these terms mean, how we think about them, how we measure them, how they relate to each other and what needs to be done about them. It draws on international (mainly European) ideas and policy debates and although the evidence presented is Australian, the arguments, findings and their interpretation apply more generally.

Its starting point is poverty, since this is the aspect of disadvantage that has attracted most attention. However, poverty is only one dimension of disadvantage, and deprivation and social exclusion have emerged as concepts that can enrich our understanding of poverty, including how it is linked to other forms of disadvantage. Deprivation is an important marker of poverty, but it is possible to be deprived but not poor, or to be poor but not deprived. The lack of resources that reflects poverty can also result in exclusion, but this is not inevitable and factors other than lack of income can produce exclusion, so that one can be poor but not excluded, or excluded but not poor.

In order to understand the nature of social disadvantage in modern societies like Australia, it is necessary to explore the similarities and differences between poverty, deprivation and exclusion and identify the factors that connect them together in some circumstances, but not in others. Where these problems coexist, they can produce cumulative disadvantage, but addressing this issue requires a clear understanding of the complex relationships that create and sustain the different forms of social disadvantage. This complexity must be recognised, both in how social disadvantage is identified and studied and in the solutions that are devised to address it. How a society chooses to define, study and debate issues of poverty and disadvantage provides an important insight into what its citizens value and how that gets translated into government action through the political system. Combating social disadvantage involves giving meaning to its various dimensions in ways that generate concepts that can be measured and once measured, monitored and varied.

Aside from questions of definition and measurement, it has become clear that there are other important signposts of disadvantage that can exert a major impact on the life chances and opportunities available to individuals.