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On Social Exclusion and Income Poverty in Israel: Findings from the European Social Survey

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Poverty and Social Exclusion around the Mediterranean Sea

Part of the book series: Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion and Well-Being ((EIAP,volume 9))

Abstract

Although there is a growing awareness for the need to take a multi-dimensional approach to the measurement of poverty, most of the research on poverty in rich countries still relies mainly on a traditional income- or expenditures-based approach. This is also the case in Israel where only a few studies have taken a look at other aspects of poverty such as social exclusion. The goal of this chapter is to measure the extent of social exclusion in Israel and compare the results obtained with those derived from a traditional income-based approach to poverty measurement. Also, an analysis of risk factors for social exclusion in Israel is presented. The empirical analysis is based on the first round of the European Social Survey- 2002, a database which provides several indicators of social exclusion. These indicators are aggregated into a single score, which is a weighted average of the various elementary indicators. The measure of social exclusion of the individuals in the survey is then compared with their income data from the survey, and linked to various factors assumed to have an impact on income poverty and social exclusion. The results, as might have been expected, do not show a strong correlation between income poverty and social exclusion. Still, known risk factors for poverty such as a low level of education, young age, poor health, cultural and religious sectors, and female gender have a strong impact on social exclusion. A cluster analysis reveals the existence of three subgroups in Israel which could be labeled as “rich”, “middle class”, and “poor”. While there is a significant income gap between the “rich” and the other two clusters, when looking at social exclusion the main gap is between the “poor” and the other two clusters. These findings seem to confirm that social exclusion in Israel is a distinct phenomenon that deserves to be measured and addressed in addition to traditional poverty.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Furthermore, the NII also publishes expenditure based poverty calculations, such as those proposed by the American National Academy of Science and the Canadian Market Basket Measure.

  2. 2.

    This study, as a lot of the studies on social exclusion, is based on a cross sectional survey. Regretfully, this limits the possibility of measuring a process and so we focus on the state of social exclusion rather than on the process.

  3. 3.

    Actually, the poorest population group in Israel is the Bedouin population in the south. Data on this group are insufficiently collected by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. Abu-Bader and Gottlieb (2009) used a specially collected unique database to come to this conclusion.

  4. 4.

    Cronbach's Alpha reliability test results ranges from 0.00 to 1.00. Alpha greater than 0.6 is considered high enough, taking into account that these are indicators from a survey not designed especially for the study (Berthoud et al. 2004).

  5. 5.

    The regression was also performed against the original social exclusion index, where the results were almost identical.

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Acknowledgments

This Study is a part of a Dissertation research project supervised by Prof. J. Silber and Dr. M. Monnickendam, Bar-Ilan University.

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  1. School of Social Work, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

    Naama Haron

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  1. Naama Haron
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Correspondence to Naama Haron .

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  1. Faculty of Law and Economics, University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, Av. Doyen Trotabas, Nice, 06050, France

    Valerie Berenger

  2. University of Orleans, rue de Blois, 45 067 ORLÉANS CEDEX, BP 26 739, France

    Florent Bresson

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Haron, N. (2013). On Social Exclusion and Income Poverty in Israel: Findings from the European Social Survey. In: Berenger, V., Bresson, F. (eds) Poverty and Social Exclusion around the Mediterranean Sea. Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion and Well-Being, vol 9. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5263-8_9

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