The social exclusion of older people: evidence from the first wave of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), Final Report

Matt Barnes
Annalies Blom
Kate Cox
Carli Lessof

Published on 3 February 2006

The main objective of this project was to measure the patterns of different forms of social exclusion among older people and to examine the key risk factors, or indicators, of social exclusion among older people.

This report presents the results of an innovative study about the social exclusion of older people. The study of exclusion experienced by older people is relatively new. In the past, most research has focussed on exclusion experienced by people of working age or by families with children.

The study was carried out by the National Centre for Social Research and Professor Alan Walker from the University of Sheffield. It uses 2002-3 data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) which is a large-scale survey of people aged 50 and over living in England. The broad aim of the study was to see whether insights about social exclusion could be drawn from this relatively new data source in a way that might strengthen existing knowledge about the particular experiences of exclusion among older people. The main objective of this short project was to measure the patterns of different forms of social exclusion among older people and to examine the key risk factors, or indicators, of social exclusion among older people. The main report presents the results of this analysis and some interpretations.