Explaining Social Vulnerability

Abstract

The aim of this final chapter is to identify the main social, economic and institutional factors responsible for social vulnerability. Social vulnerability is considered as a multi-dimensional phenomenon affecting contemporary post-industrial societies of Western Europe as a consequence of the emergence of new social risks in the past two decades. The social risks considered and analysed in the previous chapters of this book are the following: flexibilization of the labour market, polarization in the housing market and the consequent increase in housing deprivation, income insecurity and the spread of dependency as a consequence of the ageing of the population. These new social risks have contributed to a weakening of the coordination among the three fundamental mechanisms of social inclusion that in Keynesian societies ensured the stable and organized distribution and redistribution of social opportunities and social protection: the labour market, the family and the welfare state. As a consequence, in the past decade uncertainty and insecurity have spread across the continent more than before.