Introduction

The focus of this chapter is on the challenge to policies aimed at removing social exclusion, faced with a context of economic recession and continued pressures from global economic and social change. As the editors note in Chapter One of this book, issues concerning the marginalisation of older people have tended to be pushed aside in a public discourse that has focused on demographic change as a major contributory factor – if not cause – of current economic ills. By the same token, the extent to which the global economic crisis will increase financial and related problems experienced by particular groups of older people has also been neglected in the public sphere. Much has been made of the rise of mass unemployment, the expansion of poverty and the experience of insecurity in the workplace. However, connections are rarely made between different groups across the life course, with much of the discussion highlighting problems faced by people in the early and middle stages of working life (International Monetary Fund and International Labour Organization, 2010).

The purpose of this chapter, then, is to highlight problems and concerns facing older people given a context of global economic recession. The neglect of older people in debates about social exclusion is compounded by the limited discussion about their vulnerability given severe reductions in public expenditure. Moreover, this tendency has itself been supported by arguments in the various fora covered by global social policy, these focusing on the need to curtail age-related expenditures such as pensions and health care (Cottarelli and Schaechter, 2010). Following this, the chapter has four aims. First, it will summarise the implications of the economic crisis for understanding issues relating to social exclusion. Second, it will place the recession in the context of wider forces associated with globalisation and global social policy. Third, it will assess new forms of exclusion arising from the economic recession. Finally, it will consider new responses and approaches to challenging social exclusion in old age.

Economic crisis and social exclusion

Social and policy issues relating to older people have been fundamentally transformed by the economic crisis of 2008 and its aftermath. At one level, responses to the recession might be presented as a temporary disturbance in levels of support for vulnerable groups.