Social Exclusion and Vulnerable Populations

In the last half of the century, significant technological, economic, demographic, political, and ideological changes took place; advanced democracies went to a process of deep economic restructurings. While universal social policies still provide for protection against predictable risks of a life cycle, individual carrier models and welfare standardization can no longer be assumed. There are more and more people suffering from insecurity, or lacking protection of any kind. Excluded populations are therefore more affected than any other categories of social actors and their poverty is more obvious; in a certain sense, it is less “natural” than it has ever been.