Social exclusion in childhood: why and how it should be measured? Some thoughts from Britain
Laura Adelman
Centre for Research in Social Policy, Loughborough University, UK
Contact Email:   l.p.a.adelmanlboro.ac.uk

When the Labour Government came to power in Britain in 1997, a major consequence was that poverty and social exclusion were back on the policy agenda for the first time in almost two decades. Indeed, one of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s first actions was to establish the Social Exclusion Unit within the Cabinet Office, at the heart of Government.

Child poverty is a key policy area for the British Government, with the commitment to eradicate child poverty by the year 2020. But how and where does social exclusion fit in to the Government’s agenda? And how do children fit into a concept that, in European Union terms at least, is highly equated with exclusion from the labour market?

This paper has three main aims.
- To explain how childhood social exclusion is being defined and tackled by the British Government;
- To describe some of the developments in recent research to try and operationalise and measure social exclusion in childhood in Britain; and
- To establish the degree of overlap between measures of poverty and social exclusion in childhood. Is it the same children that experience both these phenomena?

The evidence presented will reveal the ‘added value’ of using measures of social exclusion in childhood, in conjunction with poverty measures, in order to develop a better understanding of how children’s lives are affected by poverty and social exclusion.

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Copyright © 2003 Social Policy Research Centre.