Introduction and Overview

This chapter opens with an overview on social exclusion, providing two brief summaries on the main approaches to the discussion of it, and on its interaction with the economic crisis,and the labour market structure. The first one focuses on the distinction between a static and a longitudinal approach to social exclusion, and its policy implications; the second stresses the interactions between heterogeneous effects of the crisis and the structure of the economy and the labour market. Subsequently, the chapter summarizes the contributions to the book, which is organised in three parts: the first and the second deal with structural, long-term causes of social exclusion (i.e., health, education, disability, crime); the third deals with short-term causes and, in particular, the effects of the recent economic crisis. Most papers focus on unemployment, income, and education, and stress the circular aspects of social exclusion, as factors which generate it are themselves an effect of it. The papers in the third part show that the crisis has generated social exclusion for youth, low skilled workers and immigrants, therefore extending the traditional definition of fragile groups particularly vulnerable to social exclusion, such as disabled or formerly convicted people. The widening of socio economic duality, and the increased variety of its components, require specific policy interventions to fight the socio economic effects of the economic downturn.