Measuring Social Quality in Asia and Europe:
with Particular Reference to Socio-economic Security
Dr David Gordon
戈登 大卫/戴维
Professor of Social Justice
School for Policy Studies
University of Bristol
2nd Asian Conference on Social Welfare & Sustainable Welfare Societies
Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences
National Taiwan University, 28th – 29th March 2007
Web Site: http://www.bris.ac.uk/poverty/
Dimensions of Social Quality
Socio-economic security - the command of adequate resources over time in
the domains of financial resources, housing and the environment, health and
care, work and education.
Social cohesion the extent to which social relations, values and norms, are
shared in the domains of trust, integrative norms and values, social networks
and identity.
Social inclusion the ability to participate in the normal social, cultural and
economic activities of a society in the domains of citizenship rights, labour
market, public and private services and social networks.
Social empowerment the ability to act in the context of social relations in the
domains of knowledge base, labour market, openness and supportiveness of
institutions, access to collective action and cultural activities and support for
personal relations.
Socio-economic Security
Socio-economic security depends not only on having
enough income to live decently (social security) but
also on having access to necessary services (utilities,
transport, education, health, housing, etc.) and the
fulfilment of economic, social and cultural rights (eg a
safe work environment).
Adequate socio-economic security is a prerequisite for
inclusion and citizenship and it is a much broader
concept than social security which is often defined in
narrow terms relating to social insurance and a basic
income guarantee.
Socio-economic security:
Housing & Environment Indicators
Housing and
environment
Housing security
1.Proportion of people who have certainty of keeping
their home
1.Proportion of hidden families (i.e. several families
within the same household)
Housing
conditions
1.Number of square meters per household member
1.Proportion of population living in houses with lack of
functioning basic amenities (water, sanitation and
energy)
1.People affected by criminal offences per 10.000
Environmental
conditions (social inhabitants
and natural)
1.Proportion living in households that are situated in
neighbourhoods with above average pollution rate
(water, air and noise)
The Origin of Social Indicators
In 1962,NASA commissioned the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences to explore the
potential side effects of space exploration on
American society. Would the space program
threaten or disturb the social fabric? Would new
social problems arise?
Social indicators were "statistics, statistical series,
and all other forms of evidence that enable us to
assess where we stand and are going with
respect to our values and goals"
(Bauer 1966: 1)
The Politics of Statistics
“In the original sense of the word,
‘Statistics’ was the science of Statecraft:
to the political arithmetrician of the
eighteenth century, its function was to be
the eyes and ears of the central
government”
Sir Roland Fisher (1938)
Social Indicators
Social Statistics (UN Sienna Group) – Statistical time series that
provide information on social goals, such as indicators, measures
and indices.
Social Accounts – assumes the existence of a holistic
interrelated social system in which the relationship between social
goals is understood.
Sub-system variables – social indicators are output and input
measures which can be used to judge ‘progress’ towards social
goals (e.g. progress in health, education, inclusion, etc.). A causal
model is implicitly assumed to exist.
Quality of life – Objective and subjective indicators of
individual’s (and sometimes societies) sense of well-being.
Social Justice:
The outcome of socio-economic security
“the
most general meaning of justice is parity of
participation… justice requires social
arrangements that permit all to participate as
peers in social life. Overcoming injustice
means dismantling institutionalized obstacles
that prevent some people from participating on
a par with others, as full partners in social
interaction.”
Nancy Fraser (2000)
Dimensions of (In)Justice
 Maldistribution dimension – This is the economic class dimension which
can be implemented by looking at insecurity by occupational group/social
class and educational attainment/SES – socio-economic insecurity can result
from occupations with low earnings or a lack of earnings due to
unemployment, landlessness or low educational attainment.
 Misrecognition dimension: This can be implemented by looking at socioeconomic security by gender, disability, ethnicity/language spoken and
religion – insecurity and inequality can result from discrimination against low
status ethnicities, religions, etc.
 Misframing dimension: This is the geographical dimension which can be
implemented by looking at socio-economic security by country, urban/rural
status, etc. Insecurity can result due to a lack of resources in a geographic
location. However, geographic location is often a proxy variable for
historically contingent factors which cause poverty such as current or
historical violence, colonialism, underdevelopment, etc.
Nancy Fraser (New Left Review, Nov/Dec 2005)
The Welfare State
The term ‘Welfare State’ was ‘invented’ by William Temple, the
British Archbishop of Canterbury (Briggs, 1994), possibly based
on a translation of the German term Wohlfahrtsstaat.
“Over the greater part of Western Europe the common values for which we
stand are known and prized. We must indeed beware of defining these
values in purely nineteenth-century terms. If we speak of democracy, we do
not mean a democracy which maintains the right to vote but forgets the right
to work and the right to live. If we speak of freedom, we do not mean a
rugged individualism which excludes social organisation and economic
planning. If we speak of equality, we do not mean a political equality
nullified by social and economic privilege". (E.H. Carr, 1940)
In the 1950S, Richard Titmuss argued that the welfare state was
a manifestation "first, of society's will to survive as an organic whole, and
secondly of the expressed will of all the people to assist the survival of some
people." (Titmuss, 1958)
Percent of non-agricultural workforce at the time of the introduction of
the second social insurance law
The Global Welfare Regimes of Wood & Gough
1) Security/Welfare states – this group comprises the ‘richer’
welfare states which make provisions which guarantee their
populations some measure of socio-economic security.
2) Informal Security states – this group of countries have
institutional arrangements where the population has to “rely
heavily upon community and family relationships to meet their security
needs” (Wood and Gough, 2006, p1699)
3) Insecurity regimes – these are states and geographic areas
which may have no functioning state and where gross levels
of socio-economic and even personal insecurity persist. In
these ‘Hobbsean’ circumstances, life may be “solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish, and short.”
Absolute and Overall Poverty
After the World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995, 117 countries
adopted a declaration and programme of action which included commitments to eradicate
“absolute” and reduce “overall” poverty.
Absolute poverty was defined as "a condition characterised by severe deprivation of
basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health,
shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to
services."
Overall poverty takes various forms, including "lack of income and productive resources
to ensure sustainable livelihoods; hunger and malnutrition; ill health; limited or lack of
access to education and other basic services; increased morbidity and mortality from
illness; homelessness and inadequate housing; unsafe environments and social
discrimination and exclusion. It is also characterised by lack of participation in decisionmaking and in civil, social and cultural life. It occurs in all countries: as mass poverty in
many developing countries, pockets of poverty amid wealth in developed countries, loss of
livelihoods as a result of economic recession, sudden poverty as a result of disaster or
conflict, the poverty of low-wage workers, and the utter destitution of people who fall
outside family support systems, social institutions and safety nets. (UN, 1995)
UN General Assembly Definition of Child Poverty,
January 2007
“Children living in poverty are deprived of nutrition,
water and sanitation facilities, access to basic healthcare services, shelter, education, participation and
protection, and that while a severe lack of goods and
services hurts every human being, it is most
threatening and harmful to children, leaving them
unable to enjoy their rights, to reach their full
potential and to participate as full members of the
society,”
Deprivation can be conceptualised as a continuum which ranges from no deprivation
through mild, moderate and severe deprivation to extreme deprivation.
Continuum of deprivation
Mild
Moderate
Severe
No Deprivation
Extreme Deprivation
In order to measure absolute poverty amongst children, it is necessary to define
the threshold measures of severe deprivation of basic human need for:
1.
2.
3.
4.
food
safe drinking water
sanitation facilities
health
5.
6.
7.
8.
shelter
education
information
access to service
Severe Deprivation & Absolute Poverty in Europe & Asia
In Europe, 40 million people (5%) suffer from one
or more severe deprivations of basic human
need and over 1.5 million (0.2%) are estimated to
be absolutely poor.
In Asia almost half the population suffers from
severe deprivation and one in four people lives in
absolute poverty (1.7 billion severe deprivation,
0.9 billion absolute poverty).
Severe Deprivation in Asia
•Over 1 billion people in Asia (27%) have no toilet facilities whatsoever.
•Almost one in five people (19%) are severely educationally deprived –
they have never been to school and are illiterate.
•Over 650 million people (18%) live in squalid dwellings which are
seriously overcrowded or which have mud flooring.
•Half a billion people (15%), lack access to any source of information at
home – they do not have access to any radio, television, telephone or
newspapers.
•Over 250 million people (7%) are using unsafe (open) water sources or
have a 30 minute or greater round trip to walk to water, collect it and return
home.
•One in thirteen young children and women aged 15 to 49 are severely
malnourished.
• One person in twenty five is so severely health deprived that they have
no access to any medical care when seriously ill or pregnant.
The idea that poverty can be ended is over 200 year old
The French enlightenment philosopher Marie Jean Antonine
Nicolas de Caritat, Maquis de Condorcet argued in Sketch for a
Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (published
posthumously in 1794 by the government of the new French
Republic) that poverty was not a result of natural laws or divine
will but was caused by ‘the present imperfections of the social
arts’
He argued that poverty could be ended by the universal provision
of pensions, grants to the young, sickness benefits and state
education
New Lanark, Scotland, 1816 – The First
Eradication of Poverty?
In 1816, Robert Owen established for his workforce and their
families the first free infants school (the World's first infant and
junior school), the first crèche, the first co-operative shop (the
World's first), a sick fund with free health care at the point of use,
gardens and parks and leisure activities (free concerts, etc.),
decent housing (by the standards of the day), free adult education,
etc.
"What ideas individuals may attach to the term "Millennium" I know
not; but I know that society may be formed so as to exist without
crime, without poverty, with health greatly improved, with little, if
any misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a
hundredfold; and no obstacle whatsoever intervenes at this
moment except ignorance to prevent such a state of society from
becoming universal".
Extract from Robert Owen’s "Address to the Inhabitants of New Lanark"
New Year’s Day, 1816
Robert Owen and New Lanark
At the end of the 18th Century, New Lanark mills was the largest single
industrial enterprise in Scotland. The workforce was predominantly made up
of children – over 1,200 people were employed and over 800 were children,
450 had not reached their teenage years.
“Nor will there be any distinction made between the children of those parents
who are deemed the worst, and of those who may be esteemed the best
members of society: indeed I would prefer to receive the offspring of the
worst, if they shall be sent at an early age; because they really require more
of our care and pity and by well-training these, society will be more
essentially benefited than if the like attention were paid to those whose
parents are educating them in comparatively good habits". (Address to the
Inhabitants of New Lanark, 1816)
“The working classes may be injuriously degraded and oppressed in three
ways:
1st When they are neglected in infancy
2nd When they are overworked by their employer, and are thus rendered
incompetent from ignorance to make a good use of high wages when they
can procure them.
3rd When they are paid low wages for their labour ".
(On the employment of children in manufactories, 1818)
Japan – Potential Population Change 1900 to 2100
Source: Japan Statistics Bureau & NIPSSR (2002) Population Projections for Japan
The Future of Japan’s population?
In 2004, over 1 million people in Japan were aged 90 or
over.
In 2005, Japan became the oldest society in human
history
In June 2006, Japan’s population is predicted to reach
its maximum size of about 128 million people.
In 2007, Japan’s population is projected to begin falling
If current trends continue by 2100 the population of
Japan will be between 40 to 45 million people – about
the same size as in 1900
Sustainability, Redistribution & the Welfare
State
Raising Children is expensive in Japan
The financial cost of raising children is the biggest
reason women give for not having more children –
78% of women under 35 and 57% of women over 35
believe that the costs of raising children and education
are prohibitive.
National Lifestyle White Paper 2005
Conclusions
In order to produce comparable measures of Social
Quality in European and Asian countries, a considerable
amount of both theoretical and empirical research
needs to be undertaken. However, survey data are now
available to measure socio-economic security in Europe
& Asia.
Welfare States & Welfare Societies can both provide
effective socio-economic security for their populations.
However, in Welfare Societies the cost of raising
children can be high and mainly falls on the family, this
may result in low fertility and problems of long term
social sustainability (without mass immigration!)