Changes in Social Exclusion Indicators and Psychological Distress Among Homeless People Over a 2.5-Year Period

Although homelessness is inherently associated with social exclusion, homeless individuals are rarely included in conventional studies on social exclusion. Use of longitudinal survey data from a cohort study on homeless people in four major Dutch cities (n = 378) allowed to examine: changes in indicators of social exclusion among homeless people over a 2.5-year period after reporting to the social relief system, and associations between changes in indicators of social exclusion and changes in psychological distress. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was applied to investigate the associations between changes in indicators of social exclusion and changes in psychological distress. Improvements were found in various indicators of social exclusion, whereas financial debts showed no significant improvement. Changes in unmet care needs, health insurance, social support from family and relatedness to others were related to changes in psychological distress. This study demonstrated improvements in various indicators of social exclusion among homeless people over a period of 2.5 years, and sheds light on the concept of social exclusion in relation to homelessness.     

Conceptualizing and Measuring Financial Resilience: A Multidimensional Framework

Financial inclusion has become a policy priority. For many countries, this has meant focusing on the delivery and practical aspects of financial products and services. This paper argues that this approach is not sufficient to improve financial wellbeing more broadly. It suggests a more comprehensive approach moving away from asking whether people are excluded or not to asking whether they have access to accessible, acceptable and appropriate resources and supports in adverse financial circumstances. A better understanding of individuals’ financial resilience: how they bounce back from adverse financial events and the resources and supports they draw on; could help determine where resources can and should be invested to assist people to cope with financial adversity, assist the development of effective policy and, ultimately, improve financial wellbeing. This paper puts forward a definition of financial resilience and a methodology for measuring it. Australia is used as a case country from which to draw conclusions using a survey of 1496 representative adults (18+). The findings indicate that over 2 million Australian adults experienced severe or high levels of financial vulnerability raising very real concerns about financial wellbeing. Implications for academics and policy makers are presented.

     

香港拾荒老人的生存境遇：以社会排斥为视角

本研究基于对96位60岁或以上的拾荒老人的问卷调查和17名老人的深度访谈,揭示了拾荒老人这一特殊群体的基本生活图景,并辨识出他们面对各种不同形式的社会排斥,包括经济排斥（缺乏工作机会与消费能力）、政治排斥（缺乏工会／机构保护其利益）、社会关系排斥（因拾荒而受到歧视或生活孤独）和福利排斥（没有领取社会保障金和无法企及社会福利服务）。     

Developmental Trajectories and Predictors of Social Exclusion Among Older Koreans: Exploring the Multidimensional Nature of Social Exclusion

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the developmental patterns of social exclusion among older Koreans over time. In addition, we identified the significant determinants that may increase the risk of social exclusion among older Koreans. The analyses were based on the panel data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing and included older adults from 2008 to 2012 (N?=?24,074) for the final analysis. Social exclusion was categorized into four different sub-dimensions: financial, social relational, social cultural, and emotional. The analysis was based on a semi-parametric group-based approach followed by multinomial logistic regression. The results showed considerable variations and different developmental trajectories by the social exclusion sub-dimensions among older Koreans; in particular, the results showed that being older, male, and less educated were significant indicators of social exclusion. This study adds to the limited body of literature on longitudinal studies of social exclusion among older Koreans, and the results will help develop interventions for older Koreans who are socially isolated.

     

Social Exclusion and Its Causes in East Asian Societies: Evidences from SQSQ Survey Data

Using data from surveys on “social quality survey questionnaires”, carried out by the Asian Consortium for Social Quality between 2009 and 2011, this study investigates the causes of social exclusion in six Asian societies. About 6,460 questionnaires were completed and the analysis of the data reveals the features and the causes of social exclusion in these societies. The study concludes that the impact of social factors (maritual status, parental relations, and personal relations with local communities) on social exclusion is stronger than the political and economical factors (including class stratification and lack of financial resources). The findings indicate that the lack of social capitals is the most significant cause of social exclusion in these societies.     

Emplaced social vulnerability to technological disasters: Southeast Louisiana and the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill

We examine the relationship between emplaced social vulnerability and impacts on mental health following the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Through joint analysis of data from Community Oil Spill Survey and US Census Bureau products, a place-based index of social vulnerability is developed to examine how emplaced characteristics engender unique susceptibility to the disaster, with specific attention on the influence of natural resource employment and community sentiment. Results show negative mental health impacts to be more pronounced at baseline compared to later time points and that shifts in negative mental health were not uniform for localities with divergent levels of social vulnerability, where places identified with high levels of social vulnerability the effectiveness of attributes associated with resilience were muted, while the effect of vulnerability attributes was amplified. These findings contribute to the understanding of vulnerability as a multidimensional concept shaped by the social attributes that characterize people and places.     

Effect of Financial Inclusion on Poverty and Vulnerability to Poverty: Evidence Using a Multidimensional Measure of Financial Inclusion

This study examines the effect of financial inclusion on poverty and vulnerability to poverty of Ghanaian households. Using data extracted from the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey in 2016/17, a multiple correspondence analysis is employed to generate a financial inclusion index, and three-stage feasible least squares is used to estimate households’ vulnerability to poverty. Endogeneity associated with financial inclusion is resolved using distance to the nearest bank as an instrument in an instrumental variables probit technique. Results showed that while 23.4% of Ghanaians are considered poor, about 51% are vulnerable to poverty. We found that an increase in financial inclusion has two effects on household poverty. First, it is associated with a decline in a household’s likelihood of being poor by 27%. Second, it prevents a household’s exposure to future poverty by 28%. Female-headed households have a greater chance of experiencing a larger reduction in poverty and vulnerability to poverty through enhanced financial inclusion than do male-headed households. Furthermore, financial inclusion reduces poverty and vulnerability to poverty more in rural than in urban areas. Governments are encouraged to design or enhance policies that provide an enabling environment for the private sector to innovate and expand financial services to more distant places. Government investment in, and regulation of, the mobile money industry will be a necessary step to enhancing financial inclusion in developing countries.

     

Is Local Financial Health Associated with Citizens’ Quality of Life?

Few studies have analysed the results of public management in terms of social welfare. However, the financial health of local governments is in decline, which means that they are no longer able to provide public services that require financial obligations. This generally results in a reduction in the quality/quantity of public services provided by local governments, thus affecting citizens’ quality of life, since the most important welfare needs are usually related to public services. This study is an original approach to understanding the importance of the financial health of local governments in relation to social welfare. We selected a sample composed of 76 Spanish cities for the period 2008–2010. The results show that citizens who live in municipalities with good financial health have a higher quality of life than others. In general, citizens from municipalities governed by right-wing parties with low political competition tend to have higher levels of quality of life.     

流动老人社会融合的概念和指标体系研究

文章阐述了流动老人社会融合概念的内涵与外延，并建构该概念的测量指标体系。流动老人兼具老年和流动的双重特征，使得老年社会学和流动人口两种研究视角交织在一条轨道上来理解流动老人社会融合的内涵。流动老人社会融合是指流动老人在流入地通过自我应对，尤其是社会支持等途径，消减遭受社会排斥的风险，建立起与其生活空间的良好互动关系，从而满足各种老年生活基本需要，实现生活质量提高的状态。从流动老人所处生活空间的角度分析，流动老人社会融合包括心理认同、家庭融洽、社区融合、区域适应、制度包融五个维度，每个维度包含若干代表性指标。     

Household Financial Access and Use of Alternative Financial Services in the U.S.: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Financial access, or the household use of formal financial services, includes the ability to access transaction, credit, and investment products and services from formal financial institutions. In contrast, households that use Alternative Financial Services (AFS), or products and services from non-bank sources, lack full financial access and are considered financially excluded. Financial access is a necessary component of strong household financial well-being. Some researchers discuss the two as opposite sides of the same construct, or “two sides of the same coin” because they are closely related features of one idea. Using national data from the 2015 Financial Capability Study (n = 27,564), this study sought to explore the nature of the relationship between financial access and AFS use using confirmatory factor analysis. Results suggest that the two concepts are weakly and positively related, which suggests that they are not “two sides of the same coin”. The determinates of AFS use are complex, and may include social factors. A holistic approach to expanding financial access may be most effective. Policy implications are also discussed.     

A Brute Indicator for a NEET Case: Genesis and Evolution of a Problematic Concept and Results from an Alternative Indicator

This article analyses the Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET ) concept and related indicators and its effects on both youth policies and the perception of young people. It is argued that a “weak version” of social exclusion is often used to explain the phenomenon. This leads both to defective policies (as a “victim blaming” approach tends to be developed instead of structural policies) and to the negative labelling of the NEET young people (as research and policies tend to focus on the individual’s deficits and thus associate them with negative values). An alternative indicator is proposed, aimed at reducing the heterogeneity of the situations the concept includes and focus on the core NEET group. This restricted concept centres on those individuals who do not seem to have any objective impediment to study or work. Figures are calculated for the Spanish region of Catalonia and results show a lower proportion of people in a NEET situation; that the NEET rates for young people and adults are similar; that the phenomenon is not new; and confirm that it is related to the risk of social exclusion. These results reinforce the need for an approach which is more sensitive to inequalities to improve our understanding of the NEET population and to avoid the stigmatisation of individuals, generations and countries.     

An analysis of media reporting on the closure of freestanding midwifery units in England

ProblemDespite clinical guidelines and policy promoting choice of place of birth, 14 Freestanding Midwifery Units were closed between 2008 and 2015, closures reported in the media as justified by low use and financial constraints.BackgroundThe Birthplace in England Programme found that freestanding midwifery units provided the most cost-effective birthplace for women at low risk of complications. Women planning birth in a freestanding unit were less likely to experience interventions and serious morbidity than those planning obstetric unit birth, with no difference in outcomes for babies.MethodsThis paper uses an interpretative technique developed for policy analysis to explore the representation of these closures in 191 news articles, to explore the public climate in which they occurred.Findings and discussionThe articles focussed on underuse by women and financial constraints on services. Despite the inclusion of service user voices, the power of framing was held by service managers and commissioners. The analysis exposed how neoliberalist and austerity policies have privileged representation of individual consumer choice and market-driven provision as drivers of changes in health services. This normative framing presents the reasons given for closure as hard to refute and cultural norms persist that birth is safest in an obstetric setting, despite evidence to the contrary.ConclusionThe rise of neoliberalism and austerity in contemporary Britain has influenced the reform of maternity services, in particular the closure of midwifery units. Justifications given for closure silence other narratives, predominantly from service users, that attempt to present women’s choice in terms of rights and a social model of care.     

Religious involvement and U.S. adult mortality

We use recently released, nationally representative data from the National Health Interview Survey-Multiple Cause of Death linked file to model the association of religious attendance and sociodemographic, health, and behavioral correlates with overall and cause-specific mortality. Religious attendance is associated with U.S. adult mortality in a graded fashion: People who never attend exhibit 1.87 times the risk of death in the follow-up period compared with people who attend more than once a week. This translates into a seven-year difference in life expectancy at age 20 between those who never attend and those who attend more than once a week. Health selectivity is responsible for a portion of the religious attendance effect: People who do not attend church or religious services are also more likely to be unhealthy and, consequently, to die. However, religious attendance also works through increased social ties and behavioral factors to decrease the risks of death. And although the magnitude of the association between religious attendance and mortality varies by cause of death, the direction of the association is consistent across causes.     

Tolerance Within Community: Does Social Capital Affect Tolerance?

Credit cooperatives are financial intermediaries that pay attention to social criteria. Thus, if such entities want to survive and thrive in the new international context, they cannot ignore their inefficiencies in both the financial and social dimensions of their activity. However, previous research on efficiency in credit cooperatives is very limited and only considers their financial activity. To date, no study has been published giving evidence through indicators on whether these banking institutions are socially efficient. This paper therefore constructs a social efficiency index of Spanish credit cooperatives during the period 2008–2014 and examines its main explanatory factors. After applying a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis approach, the results from the first stage indicate that, on average, the social efficiency of Spanish credit cooperatives reaches an acceptable level of 66.42 %. Second-stage truncated regression reveals that entities with a greater proportion of branches in urban areas are socially less efficient, whereas both their size and the number of service points have a positive effect. Interestingly, social efficiency also varies significantly depending on the regional location of credit cooperatives in Spain. As a result, our findings enable these Social Economy financial institutions to both know their performance relative to their social activity and use this information to improve their competitiveness in the future.     

Seeking safer sexual spaces: queer and trans young people labeled with intellectual disabilities and the paradoxical risks of restriction

Young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people labeled with intellectual disabilities have unique sexual health needs that are not being met. Denial by others of their right to pleasure and the exercise of heightened external control over their sexuality are commonplace. Current research indicates that these youth are at heightened risk for compromised sexual health. This study aimed to explore the ways in which social and environmental conditions influence vulnerability to adverse sexual health outcomes for this population. We used a community-based research approach to conduct qualitative interviews and focus groups with 10 young LGBT people (aged 17-26) labeled with intellectual disabilities. Participants reported multiple limitations on their autonomy that resulted in having sex in places where they did not feel comfortable and were unlikely to practice safer sex. Attempts by authority figures to protect youth through limits on their autonomy may be unintentionally leading to negative sexual health outcomes.     

Urbanization and Income Inequality in China: An Empirical Investigation at Provincial Level

This study focuses on the homeless population in the Netherlands, as an indicator of social exclusion. By applying the capture-recapture (CRC) methodology to three registers, not only the size of the homeless population could be estimated, but also its composition in terms of gender, age, place of living, and origin could be depicted. Because of the use of three registers and the availability of background characteristics for each of the registers, the usual stringent assumptions of capture recapture methodology is circumvented. This advanced application of CRC to estimate the homeless population on the national level, has led to official figures for five subsequent reference dates (January 1st of 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013). In 2009 the size of the total homeless population in the Netherlands was estimated at 17,767, of which 5169 were registered on one of the three lists. Between 2009 and 2012 the estimated size of the population increased, which was largely due to the financial crisis. For all reference dates, the composition of this population showed that generally more men than women were registered and that homeless people in the age category of 30–49 years old were registered more than the younger or older age groups. Compared to the general Dutch population, the homeless population includes relatively many men, many people aged 30–49 years and people with a non-western background.     

Travel Demand Management and Social Exclusion

Demand management policy and practice has been focused on the need to reduce car‐based trips and the level of congestion. Mode‐shift goals of transport policy now require a greater balance between congestion reduction objectives and the equally important policy objectives of social inclusion and safety. This paper examines transport disadvantage and social exclusion in urban Scotland. The work provides an overview of the trends and transport patterns in deprived areas. It examines the impact of income and gender on journey time and lifestyle and demonstrates the differential effects of transport access on the ability to access goods and services. The paper also looks at policies that are being developed to tackle the effects of transport disadvantage.     

Quality of Life in Older Adults: Benefits from Caring Services in Hong Kong

Many older adults are in need of care. Therefore, older people would generally benefit from the use of caring services, notably including home care, residential care, nursing, and medical services. The contributory factors underlying caring services tend to be a caring perspective that aspires to sustain older people’s social relationships and real-life involvement. To gauge the benefits from various social and health services, the present study relies on a large-scale survey of 3000 older adults in Hong Kong, using quality of life as a criterion. Results showed that an older adult who had used (ordinary or enhanced) home care services for a longer time turned out to have appreciably more improvement in quality of life. Besides, those who joined an interest group more frequently were higher in quality of life, including the health domain. On the other hand, frequent use of medical and meal-to-home services were signals that reflected problems detrimental to the older user’s quality of life. Despite this, the quality of clinics or hospitals, as perceived by the older adult, was the most beneficial. As such, caring services that foster older adults’ interests, cater to their health care needs, and embody quality can have principal contribution to their users’ quality of life.     

Settler Welfare on Tropical Forest Frontiers in Latin America

Because of urgent concerns to protect tropical forests in Latin America, social science research on them has been generally ‘forest-centred.’ This forest-centred approach considers the people who inhabit the frontier as agents of land use change and forest conversion focusing on how their actions affect forest cover. Welfare indicators for forest frontier populations (income, education, health, access to basic services) are addressed only incidentally in terms of how they influence land use. ‘People’ centred research, which asks questions from the perspective of human welfare such as, ‘Are frontier settlers better off than they were before?’ or ‘What kind of socio-economic impacts does frontier life have on the people who live there?” and “How can their lives be improved?,” has been less common. As a result, we know much about the impacts, especially adverse impacts, which settler activity on the frontier has on forest cover but little about the impacts settlement has on settlers, themselves. This paper attempts to shift discussion towards these kinds of questions and a more people centred approach by reviewing existing research that directly addresses the welfare of settlers in tropical forest frontiers in Latin America. We also review research that touches on settler welfare by considering the concept of ‘sustainability’ on the forest frontier and stakes out a comprise position between ‘forest’ and ‘people’ centred questions or concerns. Settler welfare is defined primarily in economic terms. Household income, wealth, and agricultural productivity are interpreted a proxies for welfare in most cases. We also consider welfare in terms of access to basic services (health and education) and living conditions. We particularly consider how settler welfare indicators may change over time on the frontier. Tropical forests, defined as tropical, moist, broadleaf forests, are the main ecological setting of interest. These forests are generally the largest unoccupied areas in many Latin American countries and are thus, also the main ‘agricultural frontier’ or areas of new settlement by small farmers.