Do Forms of Social Exclusion Accumulate in the EU Countries?
No 2000-06, IRISS Working Paper Series from IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD Abstract: Instead of unemployment or poverty the European Commission has focused on ‘social exclusion’. It has been made the biggest challenge for the social and employment policies of the EU that are still in the process of being developed. Through the European Union this rhetoric has diffused to the national political programmes of the EU countries. Difficulties in integrating with the labour market are seen as the main cause for social exclusion. It is also assumed that one form of social exclusion increases the risk of other forms developing. This widely dispersed but poorly studied assumption influences e.g. the discussion on how the unemployed can be activated. The article studies this assumption empirically. The European Commission Household Panel (ECHP) data is utilised to analyse whether a weak labour market integration, and the poverty that often follows, affect a household’s level of activity in associations a
