Weeknotes: 4/3/19

Social Exclusion: Who, What & Where

This week we’ve been trying to calculate the number of our beneficiaries who are socially excluded. As set out in our first weeknotes, we have an ambitious target of supporting three million socially excluded people to improve their lives through digital from 2010 to 2020, so it is important for us to identify socially excluded people in a robust way. However, as we work across the UK, in Kenya and in Australia, we do not have one simple definition of social exclusion that we can apply across the board.

The key tasks for this week have been to establish the current methods and definitions for identifying social exclusion, how we can apply this to our ‘big count’ but also where we need to make changes going forward.

Social Exclusion in the UK

Our beneficiaries in the UK are defined as socially excluded if they are unemployed, disabled, in receipt of benefits, live in social housing or are homeless, or have an annual household income that defines them as in being in poverty using the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) method.

In order to identify and count socially excluded beneficiaries in this way, we collect data through demographic questions in our learner survey which is completed by people who use our Learn My Way learning platform. Based on the 5 indicators of social exclusion, if a learner falls within one or more of these categories we then class that person as socially excluded. From the sample of survey respondents, we then calculate the overall percentage of socially excluded people for the year which we extrapolate and apply across the number of beneficiaries we have supported for that year across all our UK projects (except English My Way — see below).

Problems with this approach

The main problem we have noticed with this approach is that not all of our learners complete this survey meaning the sample size is very small making it difficult to make accurate estimates.

Another problem is the indicators themselves. All socially excluded measures are self-reported yet where individuals specify they have a disability for example, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it has an adverse effect on their life. On this basis, we are currently assuming anyone with a disability is socially excluded. Without understanding the severity of the person’s disability we are unable to capture the impact their disability has on their quality of life and whether they are in fact socially excluded. This highlights that we need to review the questions within our survey to capture the right information from our users and limit inaccurate assumptions.

Despite having these indicators in place, the definition is not applied in the same way for one of our UK based projects.

The English My Way project supports people from ethnic minority backgrounds that have no or low levels of English. We assume that all of the learners registered on this project through the English My Way learning platform are socially excluded. Yet that does not mean they fall within one of the social exclusion domains previously defined.

For this project, a separate objective assumption and definition has been applied. If people do not speak English, we assume they are socially excluded in the UK as they are not fully integrated into society. Evidence from the World Bank highlights race, ethnicity, and religion as being among the most common bases of exclusion so this assumption is justified. But it is still an assumption. A discussion needs to be had over whether this is a valid approach or whether we need a method similar to our learner survey. We could avoid assuming altogether if we created a different learner survey specific to English My Way and the people on this platform. Learn My Way and English My Way have very different purposes so our learner survey would need to be adapted but this should be considered as a future option for understanding social exclusion.

It is evident that trying to measure and count social exclusion has multiple challenges, even when focusing on the UK alone. As social exclusion is context specific, we have different definitions of this for the projects we deliver internationally which introduces further complications for our count.

Social Exclusion outside of the UK

Kenya

Like our English My Way project, we make the assumption that for our project in Kenya all of our learners are socially excluded. This accounts for the high levels of inequality and economic diversity across Kenya, yet we are aware our project does not support those who are most excluded due to the delivery method. The project is delivered through the Kenyan Library Service, something that is not always free to access in Kenya. This means the people who benefit from the project have slightly higher education levels and income indicating we aren’t reaching individuals who are truly socially excluded. As a result of this, it is possible we are overestimating the number of socially excluded people we have supported if not all of our learners are in fact excluded. Despite this, within our field research, we found that a common goal for people on this project is to find employment. Now, if we consider our original definition of social exclusion for the UK and the relatively low employment rate in Kenya, we could assume those who are unemployed are socially excluded. Over the next 10 years, only one in four of Africa’s youth are expected to find a wage job (World Bank) so unemployment could be hard wired in as an indicator for exclusion in Kenya.

Australia

For Australia, we collect the number of socially excluded people through a survey similar to the UK but this is not administered in the same way. This survey goes to our partner organisations that are members of the Be Connected network rather than the learners themselves. This means the indicators that determine whether someone is socially excluded are not self-reported as network partners backdate and estimate the number of people they have supported who meet our definition of social exclusion. Clearly, not the most robust method.

Even though the process for measuring social exclusion is similar to the UK, the definition completely differs.

In Australia social exclusion is a combination of solely those who are “culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD)” or “Aboriginal/Torres islander” in line with Australian Government’s indicators. These two groups are mutually exclusive so from our survey responses, we are able to find the percentage of people who fall within either of these categories and simply add them together making the process a lot simpler. Like the UK, we gather information on the people who identify as being disabled or having an impairment/condition but as there is overlap between these groups, we are unable to limit double counting. A question needs to be asked as to whether this is good enough and if we are truly including everyone who is socially excluded in this method.

Ongoing questions

Based on the current process, we have been able to calculate the fraction of our beneficiaries who are socially excluded. We’ve also been able to break this down as an annual percentage for the UK, Kenya and Australia back to 2015. However, we have acknowledged that the definitions and methods for calculating the level of social exclusion are not robust.

It is clear that one definition does not fit all. A single definition of social exclusion cannot be applied across our projects due to the nature of working in different settings at an international level. But how do we ensure that social exclusion is comparable across our international projects? Moreover, how do we measure social exclusion for those who use our learning platform that are not based in the UK, Kenya or Australia?

One idea is defining exclusion by the limited outcomes and access of individuals rather than by fixed demographics or circumstances.

“Social inclusion is the process of improving the terms for individuals and groups to take part in society (World Bank 2013a). Individuals take part in society through three interrelated domains: markets (e.g. labor, land, housing, credit), services (e.g. electricity, health, education, water) and spaces (e.g. political, cultural, physical, social). To improve the terms on which people take part in society means to enhance their ability, opportunity and dignity.” — World Bank

Rather than defining social exclusion based on proxy demographics, perhaps we should focus on how individuals feel about their access to services instead.

Whatever definition of ‘social exclusion’ we take into the future, it clear that there needs to be a broader discussion with others, across Good Things Foundation and externally. As Caroline Fiennes made apparent, most charities do not consist of social scientists, Good Things Foundation included. Before we spend loads of time and energy working out what we mean by social exclusion and re-defining it in our context, we need to recognise that surely someone, somewhere has already done this work.