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The creation of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights presents a real opportunity to re‐assess the impact of group stereotypes on social policy and service delivery. This paper consider possible impacts of ageist stereotypes of older people on community safety thinking and delivery, including perceptions of older people's levels of fear of crime, risk of victimisation, and offending behaviour. It also explores possible associations between inter‐generational relationships and anti‐social behaviour, and how elder abuse is positioned in comparison to other forms of abuse and domestic violence.

The purpose of this paper is to engage with the debate on social exclusion in the e‐society from the human development perspective, which goes beyond inequality in distribution of technological goods and services to emphasise the options, choice and opportunities related to accessing and using information.

This is an interpretivist study. It draws on Sen's capability approach (CA) to conceptualise social exclusion in the e‐society as capability deprivation, both in well‐being and agency freedom. A framework of the core aspects of the CA is used to analyse two empirical studies in South Africa and China which serve to illustrate social exclusion manifested as capability deprivation in different “spaces”.

The paper demonstrates the relational features of social exclusion and different types of capability deprivation in e‐society; highlights “unfavourable inclusion” which can be masked by technological diffusion.

This paper is an early attempt to apply the capability approach to social studies of information communication technologies in developing countries.

The paper provides implications for government policies to go beyond technological provision and pay attention to socio‐political, cultural and institutional aspects in ensuring effective utilisation of information and channels of communication, which should serve to enhance people's opportunity to better participate in economic, social and political activities.

The paper is a novel attempt to apply concepts of the CA in information systems, which provides a conceptual lens to address the complexity and multiplicity of social exclusion in the e‐society.

Italy has become a migrant receiving country and it has to face with the problem of social inclusion of immigrants. The purpose of this paper is to measure the gap on poverty and deprivation between immigrants and natives since manifest conditions of both of them are an important signal, although not exclusively, of social exclusion.

Poverty analysis typically relies on a single monetary variable such as income and it is characterized by a simple dichotomization of the population into poor and non-poor. In this paper the authors stress the importance of using a multidimensional and fuzzy approach in order to study disparities between immigrants and natives. The authors cover several of the multifaceted aspects of resources necessary to maintain adequate living standards in a developed country. With the fuzzy methodology, the authors also overcome any limitation of the conventional approach based on the simple dichotomization of the phenomenon.

The empirical analysis is based on data from two official surveys. The authors find that between Italian and immigrant households there are significant differences in poverty and deprivation levels, with a strong disadvantage for the latter. The authors argue that any serious attempt to reduce poverty and deprivation must now include comprehensive reforms in the nation's immigration policies if they are to be taken seriously.

The paper makes an original contribution to the understanding of inequality between immigrants and natives, by studying a complex phenomena such as poverty and deprivation in a multidimensional perspective using a fuzzy approach.

Examines work investigating the impact of the crisis on social welfare policies two Asian countries — Hong Kong and Korea, and argues that these two states were not prepared for the crisis. States that Hong Kong is adopting a neoliberal approach to social welfare, contrasting this with Korea taking unprecedented steps to restructure the social security system, after its economy nearly collapsed, taking a more developmental approach to social policy. Posits that only time will tell whether Korea’s momentum of change can be sustained, while in Hong Kong social security policy will still be dictated by a neoliberal agenda in the near future.

This paper discusses an original theory of information exclusion and information inclusion, which explains how information interactions can be structured in ways that either exclude or include people seeking asylum.

This theory was developed through an ethnographic study of the information experience of people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom. Fieldwork involved participant observations, participatory research workshops and semi-structured interviews, analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach.

People seeking asylum are confronted with two main information environments: the asylum system and the local third sector. Each environment frames contrasting information access, sharing and literacy practice modalities: the former produces information deprivation, information sharing agency denial and a fracturing information literacy practice; the latter facilitates multiple information affordances, information sharing agency promotion, and both local and heritage information literacy practice promotion. Our theory of information exclusion and information inclusion describes how through these modalities, an information environment can either promote or preclude inclusion.

Previous information studies of migration tend to conceptualise social ex/inclusion as a linear journey. Our theory originally frames this as a non-straightforward and conflicting process, allowing to better understand the experience of people who are not simply either socially excluded or included, but may experience both states depending on context. It also shows that exclusion is not a matter of fact and is not fundamental to asylum systems: it is produced by specific policies and procedures and can therefore be changed. Thus, this theory provides conceptual tools for researchers to investigate the information experience of individuals moving between conflicting information practices, and for civil society actors and policymakers to document exclusionary information practices and design inclusive ones.

Poverty is one of the most significant economic and social problems that European countries have to face. In recent years, it has become widely accepted that poverty is a multidimensional concept and now many studies use indicators of deprivation to examine the phenomenon. The focus on financial resources alone does not capture people’s quality of life as being poor means a lack of access to resources enabling a minimum standard of living and participation in the society within which one belongs. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Using a longitudinal component (2006-2010) of EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions data on 26 European countries, the author apply a second-order confirmatory factor analysis to estimate deprivation. To describe the patterns of change over time and to evaluate the role of household characteristics in deprivation level, the author employ a set of multilevel growth curve models.

Three findings clearly stand out from my analysis. First, there is great variability in deprivation between European countries. Second, European countries show various patterns of change in deprivation over time. Third, households with different characteristics have quite different deprivation levels; moreover, the impact of household characteristics on deprivation can vary over time and between countries.

This paper sheds light on the importance of analysing deprivation from a longitudinal perspective and that financial resources alone does not capture people’s quality of life.

Comprehensive poverty measures are increasingly gaining importance since people's deprivations and needs cover aspects beyond income. For this reason, the goal of this article is to propose a methodology to measure poverty that includes objective social deprivation, income deprivation and subjective social deprivation, using Mexico City and its municipalities as the study context. In order to show areas of intervention of public policies, the authors discuss the dimensions and indicators used in the multidimensional measurement.

Using the Social Welfare Survey (N = 2,871), the authors measure poverty with the Alkire-Foster methodology. The applied concept of poverty includes objective and subjective deprivations, and income.

The interaction between objective and subjective deprivations shows that income, social cohesion, built environment and public insecurity are important areas for the redesigning of public policies.

The employed method to measure poverty emphasizes the relevance of including subjective deprivations in interaction with objective deprivations and income. It evidences the need for the implementation or strengthening of public policies.

Ageing of population means for society facing new challenges and one of the main challenges is how to ensure quality of life of elderly and prevent their exclusion from the society. This position of elderly is intrinsically linked to the welfare system and policies that are applied to prevent and tackle social exclusion of vulnerable individuals and groups. The focus is on Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, which are in research often piled in the same group. However, in the article the authors wish to also focus on differences between them.

Social exclusion as a concept for observing vulnerability of elderly enables observation of vulnerabilities in various areas/dimensions at the same time, and also enables comparison of particular populations with other groups and enables determining their position within the society. In this article the authors observe social exclusion of the elderly in several areas: health and access to health care, poverty and material deprivation, housing and local environment and interpersonal relations. Comparative analysis of CEE countries is based on data from European quality of life survey (2007).

The analysis has showed that elderly in CEE are significantly more excluded than the rest of the population, and the most problematic areas were material deprivation, health and interpersonal exclusion. Furthermore, the exclusion of the elderly in CEE is significantly higher than in other European countries, further characterized by a much higher difference in the level of the exclusion of the elderly than the population in general, as compared to the other European countries. This indicates that the so-called post-socialist welfare states do not promote inclusion of the elderly to a satisfactory degree.

Due to a lack of comparative analyses of social policy issues in CEE countries the originality and value of the article is a comparative analysis of social exclusion of the elderly in the CEE countries in comparison to the development of welfare systems in these countries.