Social Exclusion in Gerontological Social Work: Examining Older Clients’ Life Situations Through a Multidimensional Framework

Social exclusion is one of the key challenges faced by aging societies and a critical driver of the need for gerontological social work. This article examines social exclusion in gerontological social work from the perspective of social workers’ perceptions of older clients’ challenging life situations in Finland. The study utilizes a multidimensional framework of social exclusion, dividing it into five interconnected domains: exclusion from social relations, economic exclusion, exclusion from services, community and spatial exclusion, and civic exclusion. The data consists of seven online focus group interviews with twenty-two social workers and is analyzed using theory-driven content analysis. The results show that all five domains of social exclusion were embedded in the social workers’ perceptions of older clients’ challenging life situations. The domains were interconnected and overlapping, and in some cases, older clients were excluded from multiple domains building into complex needs. The findings provide a new understanding of the diverse disadvantages that older adults often experience and can be utilized when developing practices and interventions of gerontological social work.