Alternative approaches to the study of poverty and social exclusion in Europe

In this paper we suggest two alternative approaches to the monitoring of developments in poverty and social exclusion across Europe. The first part of the paper provides a structured overview of the dashboard approach, centred on ways to improve current monitoring tools by better relating structures to outcomes and extending the role of social rights-based indicators. We describe how dashboards are used in the European Union monitoring context, as well as their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to interpretation, cross-country and cross-time comparison, and informing policy makers. The chapter also provides an overview of indicator types which should be considered to be included as a part of an improved Social Scoreboard that better reflects a social citizenship approach. In the second part of the deliverable, the data related to the Social Scoreboard are used to explore the potential added value linked to the elaboration of a composite index. The Social Scoreboard (SSB) is a composite set of indicators accompanying the EPSR. The multidimensional composite indicator is developed according to the methodology proposed by Mauro, Biggeri and Maggino (2018). The proposed approach aims at achieving full sensitivity, continuity, flexibility in substitution between dimensions of social citizenship, and a straightforward interpretation of the results. In particular, this approach will allow better assessment of the heterogeneity of achievements in the different dimensions of social citizenship. In other words, the degree of substitutability between dimensions can be directly linked to the overall achievement of social citizenship.