SOCIAL ISSUES

Social Issues

Social Issues

Social Exclusion

Robert MacDonald recognize the multidimensional nature of poverty and of “being shut out, fully or partially, from any of the social, economic, political and cultural systems which determine the social integration of a person in society,” as phrased by M. Haralambos and M. Holborn. Importantly, social exclusion is a process that happens to people, rather than a process they instigate themselves (MacDonld, 2006). It therefore not only avoids the personalization of failure inherent in notions of the underclass, according to C. Murray, but also can encourage analysis of how an individual's marginalization from the mainstream is framed within a context of a globalized market society.

The concern expressed by Charles Marry in the need to tackle social exclusion is tacit recognition that union into an enlarged market economy produces social exclusion as an almost inevitable consequence (Murray, 2004). It encourages reflection on the linkages between problems that affect people, or indeed geographical areas such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor health, high crime rates, family breakdown, and bad housing. It also can adapt to accommodate the dynamic nature of mainstream society and material increases in living standards, thus avoiding the limitations of absolute standards of poverty, the thresholds of which are likely to shift over time and place. Social exclusion, while seeing economic marginalization as an important and inseparable part of social marginalization, can be invoked to explain a variety of forms of inequality, such as the circumstances of an HIV-positive individual, a member of a minority ethnic or sexual group, or an older worker unable to find employment in a post-industrial economy.

Poverty

Poverty is a social and economic condition in which access to goods and services lies below a given threshold. Often this threshold is defined according to an individual's or a household's monetary income.

Marxist analysis ...