Poverty and social exclusion in Europe: differences and similarities across regions

Elena Pirani, University of Florence
Silvana Schifini d'Andrea, University of Florence
Jeroen K. Vermunt, Tilburg University

In recent years there has been a shift in public discourses of several European countries from “poverty” to “social exclusion”, a terminology emerged with reference to problems related to a new poverty that is not just monetary. The current European debate has revitalized the path towards Lisbon 2010, making social inclusion a key element of socio-economic development. After giving an operational definition of “social exclusion” referring to different areas of human life, we propose a hierarchical latent class model in order to analyse differences and similarities about experiences and perceptions of social exclusion in European regions. Data are taken from the 2001 round of Eurobarometer Survey, and refer to the 27 countries of the enlarged European Union. The proposed nonparametric random-effect approach enables to attain simultaneously the identification of different profiles both of respondents and of regions, allowing for social exclusion to manifest itself in different ways for different subgroups.