Measuring Social Exclusion in Australia: Assessing Existing Data Sources

In recent times broader concepts of disadvantage have taken over from the more traditional ways of thinking about, and measuring, poverty. One approach is the social inclusion approach, which in its contemporary form has been predominantly conceived and implemented in Europe, and more recently has been taken up by governments in Australia (see, for example, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet 2009). This approach explicitly acknowledges that socio-economic disadvantage, or social exclusion, is multidimensional in nature and therefore its extent, character, causes and consequences can be understood only by examining the range of dimensions of disadvantage or exclusion that are present. This multidimensionality poses a number of challenges for those that are interested in measuring the extent of exclusion in society. The focus solely on income in the past not only reflected the view that this was the best indicator of the resources available to an individual, but also the practical consideration that it is typically easier to obtain household income information than information on other types of resources, or indeed on other (nonresource) dimensions of disadvantage. In all developed countries, household income is regularly measured for representative samples of households, whereas most other dimensions are measured infrequently or not at all. Moreover