The Socially Excluded in the Netherlands: The Development of an Overall Index

This paper focuses on the measurement of social exclusion. As an illustration, we investigate how many people are socially excluded in the Netherlands. The study also inquired about whether social exclusion is correlated with certain background characteristics, such as gender, age, ethnicity and income. We develop an index based on 42 indicators ranging over four dimensions: (1) participation; (2) material deprivation; (3) access to basic rights; and (4) value orientations. The four dimensions were captured by the Dutch 2010 EU-SILC, in which a specific module on social exclusion was added (n = 10,124). A total of 4.2 % of the adult population show very low scores on at least two of the four dimensions, and thus can be considered socially excluded.