Social exclusion monitor

More than one million Australians experience deep social exclusion

Social exclusion occurs when someone experiences multiple, overlapping problems, such as unemployment, poor health and inadequate education, which stop them fully participating in society. Tackling social exclusion helps make Australia a better place to live for everyone.

The social exclusion monitor is a new approach to measuring social exclusion in Australia. Developed by the Brotherhood of St Laurence and the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (MIAESR), it uses the annual Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey of 13,000 people. The monitor will be updated with each new wave of the HILDA survey.

Based on the newest data from 2010, the monitor finds that more than one million Australians deal with deep social exclusion. This means that they experience at least four different sorts of disadvantage in their lives, such as being on a low income, having little work experience, not being involved in community clubs or associations and not being socially active.

You can use the monitor to better understand who is missing out in Australia and to gauge the effectiveness of government social policy.

Click on the photos to find out how different groups of people experience social exclusion.

If you would like to be notified about updates to the social exclusion monitor, please subscribe to Brotherhood Update, the regular enewsletter from our Research and Policy Centre.