Experiences Of Social Exclusion

Any individual, group or area that experiences social exclusion has huge costs.

We can include for example underachieving educational teenagers.  They are probably from a deprived neighbourhood and as such are five times more likely to go to a failing school and consequently will be less likely to secure adequate qualifications.

Socially excluded groups have a higher likelihood of being in low paid work or on benefits with no work at all.  They also face significantly poorer access to the public sector where for example poor areas have far smaller numbers of GP’s practicing and the private sector such as legal or financial services or both.

During the middle of the 1990’s research showed that over one and a half million households were without any financial services and one Scottish low income housing estate which had flooded in 1994 contained only five percent of inhabitants who were insured.

With all the social exclusion problems they have to contend with it is not surprising that these groups suffer higher levels of stress and mental health problems than the norm.

Social exclusion can lead to much poorer physical health by way of a poorer diet, lack of opportunities for exercise plus higher rates of smoking and drug abuse.