Social exclusion: the concept and data indicating exclusion in Slovenia
Social exclusion: the concept and data indicating exclusion in Slovenia

Summary/Abstract: The content of the article is divided into two parts. In the first, the social exclusion concept is introduced, and different contexts of its use and some difficulties with its operationalisation and empirical observation are discussed. In the second, the relevance of the approach for Slovenia is argued for and data illustrating the current Slovenian social situation is presented. The term social exclusion is used to label the processes and situations of the exclusion of individuals and groups from the opportunities, benefits and rights that are commonly available in contemporary societies. One can actually talk of situations of social exclusion in its broad sense when there is an overlapping of exclusions on different dimensions (civic, economic, social, interpersonal) or in spheres within the dimensions. For the empirical presentation of the situation in Slovenia, disadvantages and exclusions were observed in six spheres of respondents' lives (education, employment/work, consumption, housing, access to services in the resident environment, and interpersonal integration). The emphasis was on the cumulation and overlapping of disadvantages and exclusions from different spheres and on the concentration of situations of multiple disadvantage and exclusion in some population groups. It was assumed that when individuals or groups suffer disadvantages and exclusions in many different spheres at the same time, this indicates that their economic and social participation is very low and that they run a high risk of social exclusion if this has not happened already. The picture of the concentration of situations of multiple disadvantages and exclusion, and consequentially the risk of social exclusion (if not established social exclusion), in Slovenia is rather traditional. Groups that are more often at a higher risk of social exclusion are older people, the poorly educated, people living in small places (villages), people living alone or in extended families, farmers (peasants), and the unemployed or people performing occasional jobs.

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