MEASURING SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN OLDER AGE: DEVELOPING A WORKING FRAMEWORK FOR HYPOTHESIS TESTING

Social exclusion is widely acknowledged to be a dynamic, multidimensional process; however, each dimension has the potential to be a determinant, indicator, or outcome of social exclusion, making it difficult to disentangle the pathways through which social exclusion exists. We constructed a working framework of individual social exclusion from which to directly examine some of these relationships. To enable hypothesis testing it is important to separate out determinants from indicators of exclusion and to this end we conceptualised social exclusion as reflecting the three domains of service provision and access; social relations and resources; and civic participation. Rooted in this new working framework we constructed later life social exclusion measures for use with Understanding Society - the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study. This new working framework and developed social exclusion measures provide a platform from which to explore the complex relationships between domains of social exclusion.