Fami - Norwegian Centre for Research on Poverty and Social Assistance
is a research collaboration between Fafo - Institute for Applied Social
Science and NOVA - Norwegian Social Research. Fami receives funding
from the Norwegian Research Council over a period of six years from
2003 to 2008. It is our ambition that the centre shall foster research
of high international standards, and we are at the same time concerned
that the centre's activities shall help inform the Norwegian public
debate and be of relevance for the development of policy strategies
and specific measures to confront problems of poverty and social exclusion.
The activities of Fami will be focussed on the following main topics.
1. Concepts, measurement and normative issues
- What constitutes an acceptable living standard and minimum income
in contemporary society?
- What do the trends towards increasing individualisation and cultural
heterogeneity imply for poverty measurement for strategies to combat
economic and social exclusion?
2. The process of social marginalisation and critical phases in
the life course
- The transmission of poverty risks from one generation to the next
- is poverty inherited?
- Poor families and poor children. How are resources distributed within
the family and what coping strategies are developed?
- Economic and social risks connected with te transition from youth
to adulthood and from work to retirement connected: what are the decisive
mechanisms?
3. Poverty and social exclusion among ethnic minority groups
- Labour market exclusion among minority groups: external barriers or
dependency cultures?
- The anatomy and dynamics of poverty among minority groups: similar
story or different worlds?
4. The system of income protection and activation policies
- Poverty prevention and incentive effects of the interplay between
social security, housing allowance and social assistance
- What are the long term effects of social assistance recipience in
early adulthood
-How do clients perceive the welfare apparatus and do their aspirations
coincide with official goals?
5. Reporting and documentation
Fami is planning to establish a documentation centre on the web where
the public can follow development of a range of poverty and social exclusion
indicators and have information about relevant policy trends in Norway
and internationally.
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