1. Conference on Indicators and Survey Methodology Vienna February 24 -26, 2010 Social capital, poverty and social exclusion. A relevant approach of their measurement. Madior Fall, INSEE Sébastien Merceron, INSEE Anna Szukielojc-Bienkunska, CSO Poland Daniel Verger, INSEE

2. Basic objectives of the research Relations between social capital, poverty and social exclusion provide an important topic for research and political debate… ‘poverty/social exclusion is multidimensional and is most appropriately measured at the individual/household level rather than at the societal level’ The aim of the research is first of all: to develop survey methodology allowing for the multidimensional analysis of the living standard, with a particular attention to poverty, social exclusion in relation to social capital, and designing multidimensional poverty and social exclusion indicators.

3. What does the innovative nature of the Polish social cohesion survey consist in? First of all, it is comprehensive and thus makes it possible to study a wide range of information at the level of an individual surveyed, the information being both subjective and objective, covering both material and non-material aspects of the living conditions… The inclusion of widely understood social relations, family relations, ‘rooting in the place of residence’, participation in non-profit organisations makes a valuable contribution to the surveys of social capital. Multidimensional social cohesion survey is ‘a combination of a number of various survey’.

4. General characteristics of the survey Main survey - for financial reasons it was postponed till 2011 The Social cohesion survey is a representative questionnaire survey of households, carried out with the use of a direct interview technique. The survey unit is a household and one selected household member at the age of 16 years and over (in pilot – aged 18 and over). The information about the household’s condition will be recorded in a household questionnaire, while that about respondents at the age of 16 years and over – in the individual questionnaire. At the stage of data processing the data from both questionnaires will be combined. In order to ensure representative survey results for the country as a whole and also according to region, the sample comprising about 27- 29 thousand dwellings will be selected. The regional sample size will range between 1200-1300 and 2500 dwellings. Source of data for presented indicators The preparation of the main survey was preceded by the pilot survey. The pilot survey performed in Kujawsko-Pomorskie voivodship in 2008 covered about 800 households.

5. ‘0perational definitions’ of poverty, social capital and social exclusion The complexity of social phenomena makes it difficult to define them clearly. The difficulties appear already at the level of concepts. Operational definitions, necessary for the statistical measurements, are still more difficult to agree upon. Generally speaking, social exclusion can be defined as a joint effect of insufficient economic resources, social isolation and a restricted access to social and citizens’ rights. The social exclusion concept implies a process. In the course of this process unfavourable social and economic factors may get accumulated. ‘A person socially excluded is the one who cannot fully participate in the economic, social and citizen’s life and whose access to income and other resources (personal, family, social and cultural ones) is restricted to the extent making their proper use impossible and whose living standard is below that generally recognised by the society ‘.(UE definition) Social capital – what is it? You may encounter various definitions of social capital, however, the principal idea is that it is focused on interpersonal relations and the ability of people to co-operate.

6. ‘0perational definitions’ of poverty, social capital and social exclusion. The adopted assumption. Both poverty and social exclusion were treated as multidimensional, cumulative phenomena (accumulation of social disadvantages). The classical monetary approach to poverty was extended by non- monetary indicators (monetary, living conditions and ‘subjective poverty’). Social exclusion can be viewed in the context of the weakness of social ties, referred to as social isolation. It was assumed that social ties provide a kind of “insurance” against crisis situations and their lack increases the risk of poverty and exclusion. The adopted definition of social exclusion describes social exclusion as the condition of a household which is affected by at least one of the three forms of poverty (monetary, living conditions and subjective poverty), being at the same time socially isolated.

7. Poverty indicators Monetary poverty For the purpose of this analysis the poverty range was estimated in accordance with the relative approach, The relative poverty lines are usually determined as certain percentages of median or household's mean incomes In our situation the monetary poverty line was set at 60% of the median of equivalent income. Subjective poverty measured in the context of household’s difficulties to cope with a budget According to our approach in the case of subjective poverty households were classified as poor on the basis of ‘a summary indicator’ being a sum of 3 component measures (indicators). For the analysis of the results of the main survey this indicator will be redefined.

8. Living conditions poverty Following the basic assumption according to which the income position is an important though not the only manifestation of poverty, other elements determining the living standards were also taken into account. In order to identify households in the most difficult situation, it is necessary to set up a ‘poor living conditions score’("poverty indicator from the point of view of low living standards") I would like to emphasise the term “poverty indicator”, because when designing a living standard indicator we need different variables to be selected.

9. Poverty indicator from the point of view of living conditions The construction of such an aggregated indicator of low quality of life was based on the general assumption that the score should be an expression of non-satisfaction of different sorts of needs widely promoted in the society and recognised by the majority as indispensable. The selection of variables was as far as possible done according to the two principles: "control by frequency" and "control by consensus". We were considering whether or not, according to the theory, a certain item belongs to ‘normal goods’ (dependence on income). The living conditions score set up for this analysis accounted for housing conditions, equipment with durable goods and different type of deprivation (concerning consumption, ‘live style‘). Both objective and subjective variables were included.

10. ‘Poor living conditions indicators’ The summary indicator is constructed in accordance with a simple formula of summing up ‘partial’ indicators (component measures)/equal weight to each/ First step ‘The summary indicator 1’ =sum of 46 elementary indicators (items) Final version In order to avoid overrepresentation (especially in the case of substitution type of goods and services) and thus assigning excessive significance to elementary indicators in different areas, we have designed aggregated variables (component measures). 46 elementary indicators => 24 component measures (domain indicators) ‘The summary indicator 2’(Final) = sum of 24 component measures (domain indicators) Cronbach’s alpha value obtained confirms its good quality (0,83). With all the negative features concentrated in one household the maximum ‘summary indicator’ would amount to 24. The poverty threshold was set at 10.

11. Poverty rate (% of poor households) Kujawsko-Pomorskie voivodship in 2008 Monetary poverty – 15% Living conditions poverty – 10% Subjective poverty – 24%

12. Social isolation indicator A household is considered to be socially isolated when its members do not maintain relations (frequently enough) with their social environment, external to the household. Thus the intensity or frequency of contacts and relations within the households are not taken into account. The social isolation indicator is constructed based on data regarding an individual, randomly selected out of all the household members. Therefore, we assumed that the behaviour of one person surveyed accurately reflects the behaviour of all the other household members.

13. Social isolation indicator The summary indicator is constructed in accordance with a simple formula of summing up ‘partial’ indicators (component measures)/equal weight to each/ The summary indicator of social isolation = sum of 7 component measures Symptoms of social isolation: no or limited contact with the: family (3 component measures), friends, no involvement in religious life, a person did not talk to anybody outside the household, a person has nobody to ask for help If all the social isolation symptoms were noted - the aggregated value would reach 7. For the purpose of this analysis at-risk-of-social-isolation line was adopted at the level of 3. In consequence 8% of households were recognised to be at the risk of social exclusion.

14. Social exclusion indicator While designing a social exclusion indicator, we assumed that the risk groups are people affected by poverty and those with limited social relations, i.e. those socially isolated. The summary index of social exclusion = at least one form of poverty (monetary, living condition,' subjective) + social isolation Assuming that a socially excluded household is the one affected by at least one of the three forms of poverty and socially isolated, there are 4% of households fulfilling this criterion.

15. Who are the people affected by social exclusion? Analysis of Maximum Likelihood Estimates Standard Wald Parameter DF Estimate Error Chi-Square Pr > ChiSq Intercept 1 -2.8630 0.7083 16.3371 <.0001 iscor1 1 -0.6712 1.1930 0.3165 0.5737 iscor2 1 -0.8274 1.1897 0.4836 0.4868 iscor3 1 0.0137 0.6073 0.0005 0.9821 iscor4 1 -0.3312 0.6626 0.2498 0.6172 iscor5 1 0.2054 0.5115 0.1613 0.6880 dip1 1 0.8393 0.4716 3.1671 0.0751 dip3 1 0.1263 0.5946 0.0451 0.8317 dip4 1 -11.6679 272.0 0.0018 0.9658 age1 1 -1.2385 0.8019 2.3853 0.1225 age3 1 -0.3313 0.5053 0.4298 0.5121 age4 1 0.0997 0.5668 0.0309 0.8604 tm1 1 0.5741 0.6498 0.7807 0.3769 tm2 1 -0.0392 0.6353 0.0038 0.9508 tm4 1 -0.00299 1.1213 0.0000 0.9979 tm5 1 0.3305 0.5413 0.3730 0.5414 com1 1 0.0451 0.4110 0.0121 0.9126 sante1 1 -0.9866 0.3691 7.1440 0.0075 chom1 1 1.0588 0.4525 5.4763 0.0193 (note : sante1= indicatrice de bonne santé) Uneducated, unemployed, disabled

16. To conclude… It should be kept in mind that the data have been released based on the pilot survey performed in one region and may not fully reflect the situation of the whole country. The presented concept of the construction of ‘summary’ indicators of poverty, social isolation and social exclusion is just preliminary. The adopted assumptions will be revised based on the main survey results. The proposed approach to designing multidimensional poverty and social exclusion indicators on the basis of the pilot survey results just prompts one of the possibilities of the analysis of social phenomena, which will be carried out with the use of the data from the main survey of social cohesion.

17. Thank you for your attention.