ABSTRACT
Analysing social exclusion as applied to Russian conditions represented one of the most difficult issues in our research. The interrelationship of social exclusion and lack of access to secure, adequately paid work is the key to understanding the development of social exclusion processes; they have consciously not mentioned it up to now, because it is extremely important and merits a special review. The relationship between exclusion from effective employment and social exclusion is not a direct one, but is mediated by risk factors which make it difficult for a person to seek work that will protect them from social exclusion - primarily, health problems - or which negate the beneficial effects of already having such a job. The Townsend approach measures the impossibility of maintaining a certain generally accepted way of life and, consequently, records external, more obvious or 'substantive' manifestations of social exclusion - which, in our view, should include the often-ignored socio-psychological strand.
