Health related social exclusion in Europe: a multilevel study of the role of welfare generosity

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this paper was to investigate the association between health, social position, social participation and the welfare state. Extending recent research on the social consequences of poor health, we asked whether and how welfare generosity is related to the risk of social exclusion associated with combinations of poor health, low education and economic inactivity. METHODS: Our analyses are based on data from the European Social Survey, round 3 (2006/7), comprising between 21,205 and 21,397 individuals, aged 25–59 years, within 21 European welfare states. The analyses were conducted by means of multilevel logistic regression analysis in STATA 12. RESULTS: The results demonstrated that the risk of non-participation in social networks decreased as welfare generosity increased. The risk of social exclusion, i.e. non-participation in social networks among disadvantaged groups, seldom differed from the overall association, and in absolute terms it was invariably smaller in more generous welfare state contexts. CONCLUSIONS: The results showed that there were no indications of higher levels of non-participation among disadvantaged groups in more generous welfare states. On the contrary, resources made available by the welfare state seemed to matter to all individuals in terms of overall lower levels of non-participation. As such, these results demonstrate the importance of linking health related social exclusion to the social policy context.