Towards New Indicators of Disadvantage: Deprivation and Social Exclusion in Australia

Concern over the reliability of conventional poverty studies has focused attention on the need to demonstrate that those identified as poor are actually experiencing hardship. This paper takes a step in this direction by examining poverty using a living standards approach derived from the literature on deprivation and social exclusion. Deprivation – defined as an enforced lack of socially perceived necessities – has emerged as a way of identifying who is missing out on what the community regards as the necessities (or essentials) of life. Social exclusion – which exists when individuals do not participate in key activities in society – has opened up new areas of inquiry relating to a lack of connectedness between individuals, the communities in which they live, and key economic and social processes. The findings indicate that many Australians face deprivation and exclusion in numerous aspects of their lives, and that those defined as poor in income terms are different from those who are deprived or excluded. The low overlap between the three indicators implies that they all have a role to play in documenting the extent of social disadvantage and helping to identify the factors that contribute to its various manifestations.