The coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, and the economic and social challenges that it entails, comes at a time when many vulnerable groups in Europe were already exposed to debt and arrears, according to Eurofound’s new research on household indebtedness.
Hungary has recorded a remarkable improvement in the level of labour market participation over the last decade and unemployment rates have fallen to some of the lowest levels in the EU. At the same time, life satisfaction in Hungary has increased from 5.9 in 2003 to 6.5 in 2016 and the share of population struggling to make ends meet has been on a downward trajectory.
Men outnumber women in management positions by almost two to one in the EU, despite women constituting 48% of the labour market. On average, women made up just 36% of all managers in the EU in 2015, and despite some progress being made in recent years, men outnumber women in management positions in almost all sectors.
Bulgaria has experienced seismic shifts in typical household composition over the last decade; reporting the largest decrease in the share of multigenerational households in the EU, as well as increasing levels of cohabitation and people living alone. These societal trends occur at the same time as improving quality of life, higher labour market participation rates and population ageing.
New calculations from Eurofound show that the difference in female and male employment rates cost the EU, including the United Kingdom, over €360 billion in 2018.
The new von der Leyen Commission took office on 1 December 2019. Having adopted its first work programme on 29 January 2020, the Commission sets out its plans for a transition to a fair, climate-neutral and digital Europe. It outlines six top priorities. Eurofound’s work directly feeds into a number of these key areas aimed at creating a strong social Europe.
Cohabitation – couples living together without being married – is on the rise in Europe. Eurofound’s calculations of EU data shows that France (13%), Sweden (13%) and Finland (12%) recorded the highest co-habitation rates in the EU in 2017.
Estonia reports substantial increases to life satisfaction and happiness levels over the last fifteen years and optimism for the future is high with 69% feeling optimistic for their children’s or grandchildren’s future - above the EU average of 57%. Coupled with this, the perceived quality of public services has improved with childcare and public transport seeing the greatest increases.
A new analysis of EU-level data by Eurofound shows that one in three households in the EU is now single occupancy. Germany now has the largest proportion of the population living in single-person households, and large increases in the share of the population living alone have been reported in Lithuania and Bulgaria.
Lithuania has experienced significant improvements to the perceived quality of public services and overall living standards in recent years. However, despite overall increases to quality of living standards, income inequality has been increasing since the financial crisis, making Lithuania’s income distribution the second most unequal in the EU.
People living in Budapest, Paris and Amsterdam report among the longest commuting times in the EU, according to Eurofound's new analysis of the 2016 European Quality of Life Survey.
Dublin and London have a higher proportion of people that report low resilience, which is an expressed difficulty to cope with important life problems, than both the national averages and the EU average. This goes against the general trend that people living in capital cities have a higher level of resilience than other urban or rural areas.
Eurofound (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions) is a tripartite EU body, whose mission is to provide knowledge to assist in the development of better social, employment and work-related policies.
