Creating and sustaining disadvantage: the relevance of a social exclusion framework

Abstract

Over the last decade, public home-care services for elderly people have been subject to increased rationing and changes in resource allocation. We argue that a social exclusion framework can be used to explain the impacts of current policy priorities and organisational practices. In this paper, we use the framework of social exclusion to highlight the disadvantages experienced by elderly people, particularly those who cannot afford to supplement public care with private services. We illustrate our argument by drawing on examples from previous studies with persons giving and receiving care in the province of Québec. Our focus is on seven forms of exclusion: symbolic, identity, socio-political, institutional, economic, exclusion from meaningful relations, and territorial exclusion. These illustrations suggest that policy-makers, practitioners and researchers must address the various ways in which current policy priorities can create and sustain various types of exclusion of elderly people. They also highlight the need to reconsider the current decisions made regarding the allocation of services for elderly people.

How Ageing and Quality of Life is Influenced by Social Relationships: An Exploration of Rural Midlife Women in Ireland

“…In order for society to "aspire to" improved social inclusion in older age, it is essential to explore the nuances around gendered rural mid-life ageing and examine the ways in which lived experiences can create social inequalities. Rather than viewing social exclusion and, by extension, social inclusion as binaries, research points to the need to identify their contributory intersecting domains, including those of exclusion from meaningful social relations along with territorial or community exclusion (Grenier and Guberman 2009;Scharf, Phillipson and Smith 2005).…”

Living on the Edge: Social Exclusion and the Receipt of Informal Care in Older People

“…Similar results have been found in research on formal care-receipt. Barrett et al [11] argue that home-based formal care contributes to a disconnectedness of the care-receiver from self, family, home, and the broader community, thereby contributing to social exclusion (see also [20]).…”

“…Negative consequences of poor health can to some extent be compensated for by access to social and health care [17], thereby helping to prevent social exclusion. A few studies have focused on access to formal care in relation to social exclusion [11, 18–20], but research on access to informal care (i.e., care provided by friends and family) in the context of social exclusion is very limited. This is surprising, since as noted previously the majority of all care for older people in the community is informal and recent research indicates that the level of informal care is increasing [21, 22].…”

Réflexions sur l’exclusion et l’inclusion sociale en lien avec le vieillissement. L’importance des enjeux de reconnaissance et de redistribution

“…Toutefois, plusieurs chercheurs, britanniques notamment, se sont réapproprié, ces dernières années, le concept d'exclusion sociale qui leur semblait incontournable pour l'analyse de certaines situations vécues par les aînés (Kneale, 2012 ;Scharf et Keating, 2012ab ;Cann et dean, 2009 ;Scharf et al, 2005). Le recours à ce concept nous conduit à questionner notre société, ses valeurs, ses représentations, ses pratiques, ses politiques, ses structures et ses institutions, autant d'éléments qui peuvent contribuer à l'exclusion sociale (Grenier et Guberman, 2009aronson et Neysmith, 2001). …”