Formulación de hipótesis

the Life

Cycle

Perspective

on Social

Inclusion

102 THE LIFE CYCLE PERSPECTIVE ON SOCIAL INCLUSION IN IRELAND:AN ANALYSIS OF EU-SILC

lone parenthood. As we have noted earlier, in the latter case this is to some extent a consequence of the fact that, even when benefiting from higher levels of education or participation in the labour market, lone parents continue to experience distinctive difficulties. More positively, for older people the impact of redistribution through the welfare state, the continuing importance of family support systems and the buffering effect of high levels of home ownership are factors that seem to contribute to low levels of consistent poverty and multiple deprivation and rather weak forms of socio-economic differentiation. Older people provide a striking positive example of an outcome entirely inconsistent with the cumulative disadvantage thesis.

The NESC advocacy of the life cycle approach and the associated call for differentiated thinking in relation to income supports, activation measures and services at different stages of the life cycle and for the development of tailored universalism can be seen as one example of efforts to develop policy responses to interlinked dynamic risks in a manner that promotes a complementarity between competitiveness and social cohesion. It involves recognition of the manner in which economic and social objectives are interlinked. There is a particular focus on the critical role that services must now play in addressing social exclusion, enabling participation, enhancing capabilities, supporting work/life balance, meeting care requirements. It also emphasises the need for service provision to respond to both new and old social risks in both a broader and more dynamic fashion than was traditionally the case. The NESC vision of tailored universalism foresees tailored access to high quality universal services that form constituent elements of tailored packages of supports that facilitate exit from social exclusion. The implementation and evaluation of such an approach requires an ability to map life cycle patterns of social inclusion/exclusion and the manner in which they combine with other socio-economic characteristics. Hopefully, the analysis we have presented involves a step in this direction. Full exploitation of the analytic potential of the perspective will be fostered by the development of appropriate data bases such as EU-SILC, the Growing Up in Ireland Study and TILDA and the development of the kind of analytic perspectives methodological tools that are required to successfully address the complex issues relating to interlinked and dynamic risk with which we are confronted by the life cycle perspective.

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G

LOSSARY

‘At risk of poverty’ thresholds: Income thresholds derived as

proportions of median income, for example, 60 per cent of the median income in a sample.

Consistent poverty: Originally, a measure of poverty of those who were ‘at risk of poverty’ and deprived of at least one out of the following 8 items considered necessary to ensure a basic standard of living:

• Two pairs of strong shoes.

• A warm waterproof overcoat.

• Buy new not second-hand clothes.

• Eat meals with meat, chicken, fish (or vegetarian equivalent) every second day.

• Have a roast joint or its equivalent once a week.

• Had to go without heating during the last year through lack of money.

• Had a day in the last two weeks without a substantial meal due to lack of money.

• Experienced debt problems arising from ordinary living expenses. Now a measure of poverty of those who are ‘at risk of poverty’ and deprived of at least two out of the following 11 items:

• Without heating at some stage in the past year due to lack of money.

• Unable to afford two pairs of strong shoes.

• Unable to afford a roast joint (or its equivalent) once a week.

• Unable to afford a meal with meat, chicken or fish (or vegetarian equivalent) every second day.

• Unable to afford new (not second-hand) clothes.

• Unable to afford a warm waterproof coat.

• Keep the home adequately warm.

• Presents for family or friends at least once a year.

104 THE LIFE CYCLE PERSPECTIVE ON SOCIAL INCLUSION IN IRELAND:AN ANALYSIS OF EU-SILC

• Have family or friends for a drink or meal once a month.

• Have a morning, afternoon or evening out in the last fortnight, for entertainment.

Economic vulnerability: A measure of the economic situation of a

household that combines information about whether the household is below the ‘at risk of poverty’ threshold, experiencing enforced basic deprivation, and having difficulty making ends meet.

Equivalence scales: A set of relativities between the needs of

households of differing size and composition, used to adjust household income to take into account the greater needs of larger households.

EU-SILC: European Union Statistics on Income and Living

Conditions; in Ireland an annual survey carried out by the Central Statistics Office since 2003.

Household equivalent (or equivalised) income: Household income

adjusted to take account of differences in household size and composition by means of equivalence scales.

Household reference person: In a household survey context, term

used to refer to one individual, often the person responsible for the housing costs.

Labour force participation: The labour force participation rate is a measure of the proportion of the working-age population that engages actively in the labour market, either by working or looking for work.

Lone parent: A parent who has primary custody of a dependant child and is not living with the other parent.

Median: The value that divides a sample in half, for example the

income level exactly in the middle of a scale of income from highest to lowest.

‘New’ social risks: are more associated with younger stages of the life cycle and are mainly to do with entering the labour market and with care responsibilities at the stage of family building.

‘Old’ social risks: tend to involve mainly horizontal distribution across the life cycle from working age groups and older people.

Quintile: One-fifth of a sample divided into five equal parts to show how income, for example, is spread throughout the population; each quintile represents where a person’s or household’s income is located.

‘Risk of poverty’: A term used by the European Union to denote

whether a household falls below the 60 per cent median income threshold.

Social welfare transfers: Cash paid from various social welfare

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