This book aims, in part, to replace in part the ‘highly successful’ Understanding Social Exclusion that provided a comprehensive analysis of the concept of social exclusion and used the framework developed to document and analyse its various manifestations (Hills, Le Grand and Piachaud, Reference Hills, Le Grand and Piachuad2002). Both books contain contributions from researchers at the LSE, primarily located in either the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) or the Department of Social Policy. The two lists of contributors provides testimony to the enduring quality of social policy scholarship at the LSE and offers a fascinating insight into the generational change that is sweeping academic institutions generally: only two contributors – Tania Burchardt and John Hills – appear on both lists.
The Preface to Social Advantage and Disadvantage notes that the concept of social exclusion ‘has slipped down the social policy agenda’. It argues that social advantage and disadvantage – which is acknowledged as having ‘no established definition’ – provides a new way of engaging with an array of concepts that capture how ‘human society can cause, exacerbate, or fail to prevent injustices, divisions, or disruptions that are harmful to some of society's members’. There are similarities between the two concepts of exclusion and advantage/disadvantage, as the many excellent contributions to this volume illustrate. Among the most significant of these is the need to identify how the many factors that contribute to both issues often co-exist and reinforce each other. But the new approach also opens up new avenues of inquiry into how existing economic and social inequalities are formed, persist, interact and restrict people's opportunities and achievements. These ideas emerge as one reads through the book's chapters, but readers (well, this one at least!) would have benefited from a coherent Introduction that sets out the main elements of the new framework and summarises how each chapter contributes to it. The Conclusion by the editors does this to some extent by identifying some of the key themes that emerge from individual contributions but, important though these are, they come too late to inform the reader (or tempt others to join them). Here, the focus is more explicitly on inequalities and how different forms of disadvantage ‘reinforce each other’ and ‘interact in distinctive ways’ to create inequalities within and between social groups. It is noted (p. 347) that income and economic differences within groups ‘dwarf average economic differences between groups’ although this is largely a reflection of the fact that the number of such groups is generally rather small relative to the number of individuals. In the extreme, for a population of N individuals, it follows by definition that all inequality is within-group if there is only one group, while all inequality is between groups if there are N groups.
Hartley Dean sets the scene for later contributions in his opening chapter by contrasting the concept of social advantage and disadvantage – a continuum – with poverty – an essentially dichotomous concept. He makes some telling points, and distinguishes (p. 6) between measures of absolute poverty that ‘focus on material disadvantage and imply judgements about how individuals or households can or should be enabled to survive’ and measures of relative poverty that ‘focus on social disadvantage and imply judgements about how society is or should be organized’. Some would take issue with this distinction, although most would resist the temptation to re-open a largely sterile debate, although there is a subtle sub-text here that seeks to shift the analytical balance away from economic factors (and the role and influence of economists) onto social factors and normative choices (and the role and influence of sociologists and philosophers). This may be appropriate, but it is perhaps ironic that the book itself illustrates vividly how both groups have an important role to play in developing better understandings of the determinants of social advantage and disadvantage.
The two most heavily economic chapters (by Stephen Jenkins on income inequality and poverty and John Hills and Jack Cunliffe on wealth accumulation) both demonstrate how robust analysis of economic data can shed important light onto the processes creating and sustaining economic inequality. Jenkins provides a masterly account of recent trends in UK inequality, highlighting the key points with some innovative and informative illustrations (see Figures 7.1 and 7.2 in particular). Hills and Cunliffe's analysis of the distribution of wealth is similarly impressive, emphasising the centrality of this topic (and of the policies that do or do not address it) to the broader debate about equality of opportunity. One minor quibble was their failure to adopt the same graphical techniques as Jenkins, as this would have made an already strong contribution even more accessible (compare their version of Pen's parade in Figure 8.1 with Jenkins’ Figure 7.1).
These are not the only stand-out contributions in what is an impressive collection. Other highly recommended chapters include Tania Burchardt and Rod Hick on capability, Kitty Stewart on family and Malcolm Torry on religion, all three of which will appeal to experts in the field as well as to newcomers keen to get across the issues. Burchardt and Hick provide a fascinating account of how Sen's capabilities approach can be harnessed to further advance understanding of social advantage and disadvantage, arguing that the distinction between functioning and capability becomes more critical as the focus is shifted from disadvantage to advantage, going on to provide valuable assessments of applications of Sen's ideas in the UNDP's Human Development Index (HDI) and more recently, the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI). Kitty Stewart provides an authoritative review of the role of family in creating and perpetuating advantage, introducing the important analytical distinction between gradients and thresholds that is a central feature of a shift from a poverty to a social disadvantage paradigm. She also emphasise the role of education as a ‘positional good’ a point reinforced by Sonia Exley in the following chapter on education and learning. Finally, Malcom Torry provides a stimulating and frank discussion of the conceptual, definitional and empirical challenges that must be confronted in assessing the role of religion (and religious activity in particular) on social advantage and disadvantage.
The other chapters are of a similarly high quality and there is an enormous menu of evidence, interpretation and argument to satisfy the largest appetites and most specific tastes. Space prevents a discussion of all of them here, but few readers will go away disappointed after working their way through this excellent collection. Does it fulfil its aim of replacing the earlier volume on social exclusion? Probably not – but mainly because social advantage and disadvantage has not yet found the same degree of purchase with policy makers as social exclusion, which was what made the earlier book so compelling. What it does do, however, is highlight the continued strength of LSE social policy, which has flourished in what has been a very difficult UK funding environment.
More substantially, this book represents significant progress towards positioning the concept of social advantage and disadvantage as a core concern of social policy scholarship and what is needed now is to convince the policy makers of the merits of the approach. One potential obstacle here – emphasised in several chapters and implicit in many others – reflects the difficulties that will be faced in tackling the complex, multiple, deeply embedded, inter-related and often mutual reinforcing determinants of people's positioning on the social advantage and disadvantage spectrum. In order to effect real change, policy will need to address the underlying issues in a sustained way that may not produce noticeable change within the political horizons of most governments. This message needs to be heard and this book takes an important first step on that journey.
