Transcript No Slide Title

The use of social inclusion
indicators at EU level
Technical seminar on the Revision of
Poverty Indicators and Measures
Dublin - 20/09/2005
Isabelle Engsted-Maquet
DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Outline
• The policy context:
OMC on social inclusion, Streamlining, Refocused Lisbon,
OMC evaluation, the new Sustainable Development Strategy
• The current Laeken list and the role and use of
indicators
• Areas in development
– recent developments
– the example of material deprivation
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
POLICY CONTEXT
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
The Open Method of Coordination
• Fixing common objectives/guidelines for all
Member States;
• Translating the common objectives/guidelines into
national policies through NAPs;
• Establishing indicators and benchmarks as a
means of comparing best practice;
• Periodic monitoring, evaluation and peer review
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Streamlining
• May 2003: Commission communication on
streamlining the OMCs on inclusion and pensions to
be implemented by 2006
• The stated aim is:
– To strengthen the social dimension of the Lisbon strategy;
– ensure a positive interaction with the Broad Economic
Policy Guidelines and the European Employment Strategy;
– explore more fully the synergies between the different
strands of work on social protection.
• Spring 2006: a new set of integrated common
objectives covering social inclusion, pensions and
health and long-term care;
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Refocused Lisbon
• Refocus Lisbon objectives on Employment and Growth
– No direct and detailed focus on social protection and social inclusion issues
– SI and SP issues have a role to play in some of the new Integrated Guidelines
• Reporting in the new Lisbon
– Integrated guidelines on Growth and Jobs (Council June 2)
– National Reform Programs (15 October 2005)
– Commission Annual Progress Report (Spring 2006)
• "Next steps in implementing the revised Lisbon strategy",
– OMC remains the main EU-level policy development tool on modernising social
protection and fighting poverty and social exclusion;
– Reporting and assessment procedures will continue in parallel ;
– Reinforce streamlining exercise;
– Feeding in: the conclusions from this work which are relevant to certain of the
Integrated Guidelines should feed in the Revised Lisbon Strategy.
• SPC July 05: Social Inclusion process should keep high visibility6
Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Re-launch of the
Sustainable Development Strategy
• SDS: provides a longer-term framework (beyond 2010) with
environmental, economic and social dimensions
• 2 social components:
– poverty and social exclusion
– Ageing of the population
• February 2005: Commission communication on Sustainable
Development Indicators
• June 2005: Declaration of high level guiding principles on
which to base the renewed strategy
• The new strategy will comprise "targets, indicators and
effective monitoring procedure
→ Review indicators list
Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
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OMC evaluation – the question on
indicators
Q: Have indicators fulfilled their role in monitoring the progress
achieved towards the common objectives?
Have targets proved to be both feasible and effective in driving
forward more ambitious policy reform?
• Strong support for the Laeken portfolio: emphasizes the need to
reinforce statistical infrastructure in the social field
• Need to strengthen statistical capacity
• Areas for development: the usual ones
• Make better use of existing national data and indicators
• NGOs call for the use of targets, both at EU and national levels
• and for indicators reflecting participation in the society
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Conclusions
• Need to reflect on indicators in the new context
– how to reflect properly the social inclusion
objectives in the streamlined list
– potential overarching indicators
– how to reflect Social Inclusion in the more concise
lists of indicators (Structural Indicators,
Sustainable Development Indicators)
– Continue to develop the Laeken portfolio
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
INDICATORS
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Indicators and the
Open Method of Coordination
• Common indicators are needed to monitor progress
in combating poverty and social exclusion in a
comparable way
• Given the different models of welfare state across
the EU, they must be performance indicators,
leaving policy indicators at national level
• Common indicators do not imply common policies
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
The Laeken indicators
• The 2001 Laeken European Council endorsed a set of
18 primary and secondary common indicators of
social exclusion and poverty…
• … covering key dimensions of social exclusion:
financial poverty; employment; health; education
• … that need to be considered as a consistent whole
• MS are encouraged to supplement the common
indicators with third-level indicators defined at
national level.
• Further work by the ISG led to some new indicators.
Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
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The methodological principles for the
selection of indicators:
• Indicators must have a clear and accepted normative
interpretation;
• they should be statistically robust and comparable
across countries;
• they should be responsive to policy interventions;
• … and transparent and accessible to users;
• the portfolio of indicators must be balanced across
different dimensions.
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Questions about relevance and data
quality of the indicators
• How relevant are the indicators in the EU-25?
• What is the role of third-level indicators?
• How reliable are the EU data base currently in use,
and will it be improved with the new EU-SILC?
• How crucial are they for social monitoring in the
NAPs/inclusion?
• Do national targets reflect the commonly agreed
indicators?
Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
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The income poverty risk measure
in the enlarged Europe
• Relatively narrow (but increasingly unequal) income
distribution in the new Member States gives
“flattering” image of their situation compared to the
old EU-15
• … but there is a huge gap in the average level of
living standards between new and old MS
• … stressing the importance of assessing poverty and
social exclusion across all the indicators.
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
At-risk-of-poverty rate, total population,
2003
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
At-risk-of-poverty threshold,
2 adults + 2 children households, 2003
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Early-school leavers, 2003
Early school-leavers by sex, 2003
Percentage of the population aged 18-24 w ith at most low er secondary education and not in further
education or training
Females
60
Males
Total
%
50
40
30
20
10
0
SI
SK
CZ
PL
FI
SE
AT
DK
EE
LT
HU
IE
BE
DE
FR
NL
CY
EL
E U25
UK
LU
E U15
LV
E ur o-
IT
ES
PT
MT
BG
HR
RO
TR
zone
Source: Eurostat - European Union Labour Force Survey
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Population in jobless households, 2004
Population in jobless households, 2004
18
%
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Females 18-59
Males 18-59
Total 18-59
Children 0-17
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Eur o-
EU-
zone
15
EU-
CY
PT
LU
ES
SI
LV
CZ
LT
NL
DK
IE
AT
MT
EL
EE
IT
DE
FR
SK
FI
UK
HU
BE
PL
SE
RO
HR
BG
TR
25
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
The use of the common indicators
in the NAPs Inclusion
• The indicators proved generally useful for analysing
the situation of poverty and social exclusion in the
MS in a comparative perspective
• … but some MS preferred to use national indicators in
the respect of their national monitoring traditions
• … the indicators were rarely used for policy
monitoring or planning purposes → lack of a clear
link between the common indicators and policies
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
The use of tertiary (national) indicators in
the NAPs
• Some MS used different definitions and/or alternative
data sources for calculating the common indicators
• Some used alternative poverty measures (absolute,
non-monetary, self-perceived…)
e.g; consistent poverty in Ireland
• Highlighting the sub-national (regional, urban/rural)
dimension of poverty and social exclusion
• Policy-related indicators
• Health and housing: important areas where national
indicators are welcome
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
The use of targets
• Why targets are important:
– a significant political statement of purpose
– a goal against which to measure progress
– promoting awareness of social inclusion policies
• Types of targets
– Policy performance
– Policy effort
• The link between targets and indicators: based on
common or national indicators
• 2 examples of target setting
– Ireland: consistent poverty
– UK: child poverty (relative low income)
Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
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DEVELOPMENTS
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Developments (1)
Consolidating the Laeken list
• Filling the gaps in the agreed indicators:
Current gaps reflect a combination of data un-availability and
lack of clear conceptual underpinning
– measures of material deprivation
– Housing conditions + homelessness
– Specific populations: ethnic minorities, vulnerable groups
– Health and Social Inclusion
– Regional dimension of poverty and exclusion
– Child poverty
• Importance of adequate statistical capacity and the
impact of the ECHP-SILC transition
Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
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Developments (2)
New indicators
• In-Work poverty
• Literacy: Low reading performance
– "Share of 15-year old pupils who are at level 1 or below of
the PISA combined reading literacy scale"
– PISA: 3 yearly OECD survey based on internationally
standardised assessment of reading, mathematics and
scientific skills of 15-year old pupils
– ISG commitment to develop adult literacy measure
• Healthy life years (also adopted as a Structural
Indicator)
– Based on the ECHP question on self-assessed health status,
to be improved with EU-SILC
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Developments (3)
Areas of development
• The situation of inclusion of migrants and ethnic
minorities (guidelines adopted in june 05)
–
–
–
–
Country of birth vs. Nationality
Integration on the labour market vs. inclusion in society
Sample size
LFS the most probable source
• Material deprivation:
– ISG endorsed the policy use of material deprivation
statistics aggregated by dimension in Commission reports
– Encourage Eurostat to develop indicators in the area
– Specific focus on housing deprivation and economic strain
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Developments (4)
Areas of development (Continued)
• Homelessness
– ESTAT/INSEE report was presented,
– DG EMPL launched a study on methodological
developments needed for the measure of homelessness and
housing deprivation at EU level
• Health and social inclusion
– Inequalities in health status:
– Access to health care for all
• Housing conditions
– In the context of material deprivation
– Expected output of 2007 EU-SILC module on housing
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Material deprivation
The choice of items
• Criteria: the item should
– Reflect the lack of an ordinary living pattern common to a
majority of the population
– Allow international comparisons
– Allow comparison over time
• Constraint: EU-SILC availability
• Difficulty: each item should bear sense in all countries
across EU – the issue of weighting
* The choice of items presented in the next slide reflects the current state of ESTAT work and has
not been adopted as such by the ISG – the ISG approved however that this analysis be presented in
Commission documents to illustrate material deprivation
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Material deprivation
The structure of dimensions
• Economic strain
–
–
–
–
–
1 week annual holiday away from home
arrears (mortgage, rent, utility bills, etc)
afford meat (or equivalent) at least every 2 days
afford to keep house adequately warm
(Capacity to face unexpected expenses)
• Enforced lack of durables
–
–
–
–
Colour TV
Telephone
Personal car
(Washing machine)
• Housing
–
–
–
–
Leaking roof, damp walls/floors, foundations, or rot in windows or floor
Accomodation too dark
Bath or shower in dwelling
Indoor flushing toilet for sole household use
• Environmental dimension not included
Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
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Material deprivation
Presentation
• Simple tables showing the deprivation % for each
item
– too detailed
• Summarized information by dimension: presenting
the proportion of people that are deprived in 1, 2, 3
or more items in each dimension
– ISG agreed to this presentation, to be included in
Commission documents
– Composite indices vs. % of people deprived
• No aggregation across dimensions: lack of
transparency and homogeneity
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Material deprivation
The issue of weighting + pending issues
• Should some items be given more importance because
they potentially reflect greater social exclusion
– within a country
– or in some countries more than in others
• "Importance" of an item reflected by possession rate in
the Country
• Information missing on the normative value of items for
each Country (EU-SILC module could explore that)
• Not enough items in the standard EU-SILC
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Material deprivation
Illustrative values
Economic strain and durables
%
50
40
30
20
10
0
NL
LU
Deprived in 2+ items
DK
FR
AT
BE
poverty rate (national threshold)
IE
IT
ES
EL
PT
Poverty rate (european threshold)
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission
Material deprivation
Illustrative values
New Member States - Poverty rate against % of people who cannot afford to
eat meat every 2nd day, 2003
%
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
CZ
HU
SL
BG
CY
MT
LV
LT
EATING MEAT, CHICKEN OR FISH EVERY SECOND DAY, IF WANTED?
PL
EE
RO
SK
TR
At risk of poverty rate
Source: European Foundation for Working and Living Conditions, 2003
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Employment & Social Affairs
European Commission