Matt Barnes – författare

Originally published in 2005. In Great Britain, the reduction of social exclusion has been at the forefront of New Labour's social policy since 1997. However, there is ambiguity about what the notion of social exclusion actually encompasses, caused in part by the limited extent of attempts to measure and understand social exclusion empirically. This key work addresses this problem, employing data from a nationally representative survey of British households to quantify levels of social exclusion and the composition of the socially excluded population. It also incorporates data from a European Commission-funded household survey to compare social exclusion in Great Britain with eleven other countries in the European Union. In the book, Matt Barnes argues that social exclusion refers to enduring disadvantage on a wide range of living standards, not just those that reflect economic values. As well as looking at standard measures of poverty he looks at more relational measures of disadvantage such as neighbourhood discontent and social isolation, in order to determine exclusion from the economic, social and cultural systems that determine the integration of a person in society.

Originally published in 2005. In Great Britain, the reduction of social exclusion has been at the forefront of New Labour's social policy since 1997. However, there is ambiguity about what the notion of social exclusion actually encompasses, caused in part by the limited extent of attempts to measure and understand social exclusion empirically. This key work addresses this problem, employing data from a nationally representative survey of British households to quantify levels of social exclusion and the composition of the socially excluded population. It also incorporates data from a European Commission-funded household survey to compare social exclusion in Great Britain with eleven other countries in the European Union. In the book, Matt Barnes argues that social exclusion refers to enduring disadvantage on a wide range of living standards, not just those that reflect economic values. As well as looking at standard measures of poverty he looks at more relational measures of disadvantage such as neighbourhood discontent and social isolation, in order to determine exclusion from the economic, social and cultural systems that determine the integration of a person in society.

There are estimated to be almost 60 million people living in poverty throughout the European Union. This bleak statistic underlines the value of this important book which explores the nature and extent of poverty and social exclusion in six European countries, namely: Austria, Germany, Greece, Norway, Portugal and the UK. The book focuses on four 'life course' groups who might be considered particularly at risk: young adults, lone parents, the sick and disabled, and the retired.The authors show how poverty is the outcome of the interaction between several factors including education, gender and family structure. They emphasise the importance of distinguishing between poverty and non-monetary measures of deprivation and isolation. Although the poor are more at risk of suffering from deprivation, the authors demonstrate that this relationship is more tenuous than many people suppose. Employing rigorous theoretical and methodological analyses they go on to relate their findings to the policy environment in each of the countries, which were specifically chosen to reflect differing welfare systems. In this way the authors compare the impact of government policy on both the level of poverty and social exclusion, and on who is most at risk of experiencing them.Both statistically and in policy terms this book will be essential reading for students and academics of economics and the social sciences, and policy makers at both the national and European level.