Dokumente

Consumers who have been left out in the cold…

12.03.2004 - vzbv

Summary

For World Consumer Day 2004, the Federation of German Consumer Organisations is focusing on consumers who have been left out in the cold. It has become increasingly important for individuals to be able to keep up with average consumption levels, yet the number of people who are failing to meet the consumption challenge is growing. In many cases, the circumstances that lead to this failure are nothing out of the ordinary. A few pounds in excess weight or a mobile phone debt of a few hundred Euros could be at fault. However, the problem could also be rooted in private pension fund losses that pose a real threat to livelihood.

This dossier aims to provide an overview of the cases and combined circumstances in which individual groups of consumers are forced onto the margin and are discriminated against on the market. There are cases in which people are forced to pay more, or are excluded from credit and insurance schemes, because they are ill, old, in debt, poor or disabled. Another reason may be that they are disoriented by the increasingly complex range of goods and services on offer. There are many reasons why individual consumer groups are discriminated against as a whole, but they are not always evident. This dossier is not intended as an appeal to the (social) state to put the situation right. Its aim first and foremost is to provide a clear analysis of current trends, and to depict a social problem that should not be ignored by consumer policymakers. When large sections of the population are excluded from consumption activity and economic life, the entire national economy is weakened. Attempts to deal with these issues through consumer policy should therefore never be regarded as purely socio-political approaches, but are also relevant to concrete economic policy.

You can download the summary and introduction to the dossier from the document download area on the right hand side of the screen.

The full version is available in German only and can be found here.