Social Inclusion: Defining and Measuring the Concept

Opening Remarks:

• George Gray-Molina, Chief Economist and Leader of the Poverty, MDGs and Human Development Unit at the Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, United Nations Development Programme.

Panelists:

• Monica Carillo, Founder and Director, Lundú
• Álvaro García Hurtado, former Chilean Minister of the Economy; Consultant, United Nations Development Programme
• José R. Molinas Vega, Senior Economist, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Latin America and the Caribbean Region, The World Bank Group
• Judith Morrison, Senior Advisor, Social Sector, Gender and Diversity Unit, Inter-American Development Bank
• Moderator: Christopher Sabatini, Editor-in-Chief, Americas Quarterly; Senior Director of Policy, AS/COA

Summary

This event, a precursor to the Spring 2012 issue of Americas Quarterly, addressed the need to develop comprehensive measures of social inclusion. The term “social inclusion” encompasses a myriad of social policy issues, including income inequality; unemployment and the skills gap; access to education, health care and affordable housing; and work-life balance.

Indexes measuring social inclusion can provide governments and multilateral organizations with knowledge of the specific barriers and hardships that the most marginalized individuals face, while also serving as a guide for how to address them. With consensus growing about the social as well as political benefits of inclusion—with some directly correlating it to the strength of democracy—developing countries have increasingly been adopting public policies intended to expand social inclusion.

Challenges for Policy Reform

García Hurtado and his team analyzed 10 social policy reforms in Latin America that had positive effects in society in order to construct a Social Citizenship Index. They identified three main defects. First, reforms are often not institutionalized; every time a new government comes to power, previously implemented policies are halted or reversed. Second, reforms often become mired in bureaucracy. Because many social inclusion reforms also require other political reform (for example, tax reform,) it is hard to promote them without facing a fair amount of political pressure and bureaucracy. Third, reforms are poorly financed. Most start out promising, but after a few years they fall into deficit. The clear conclusion from the study was that the will to implement reforms does exist, but government weakness and inefficiencies often limit the possibility of long-term success.

The Human Opportunity Index

Another way to measure social inclusion is to look at access to a particular basic opportunity with a scoring penalty given for an individual’s exclusion due to exogenous social circumstances. This is the basic framework for the Human Opportunity Index discussed by Molinas Vega.

The index, based on a philosophy of social justice, is meant to show whether pro-growth or pro-poor policies benefit all demographics equally. It fluctuates by large amounts if funds and opportunities are offered to the poorest groups of society, and identifies the sources of growth so governments can monitor their performance. Its advantages are that it is simple yet methodologically rigorous, and can appeal to both ends of the political spectrum. The final goal of this index is to create a benchmark and thus develop channels in which to push historically proven reforms forward.

The Need for Comprehensive Indices

Detailed, comprehensive indices like those presented at this program, are vital for the overall development of Latin American countries. However, it is quite difficult to collect accurate data from excluded communities (for example, from urban slums or remote, rural villages). Researchers are increasingly turning to micro-data—that is, data collected from household surveys—but gathering reliable data from a sufficiently large sample is both problematic and highly labor-intensive.

One area for which data collection is particularly complex is race and ethnicity data. Both Carillo and Morrison emphasized that the racial and ethnic dimensions of data on social exclusion have not been adequately addressed, and until they are, full social inclusion will not become a reality. Data on access to opportunities, for example, must be disaggregated by race and ethnicity in order to gain an accurate understanding of the extent to which racial and ethnic minorities are excluded—and to be able to have a positive impact on those groups. Otherwise, de facto discrimination will continue to undermine the progress made on social inclusion.

For more information on social inclusion, visit the Social Inclusion Portal of AQ Online.