Eurofound is organising an interactive webinar on how to restore Europe’s social contract, and the impacts of declining trust in institutions on social cohesion in the EU, with a live Q&A. Date: 24 May 2024. Time: 10:00 - 11:00 Irish Time / 11:00-12:00 CEST or Central European Summer Time.
In recent years, the EU has faced a polycrisis. The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly shook EU societies, followed by the war in Ukraine which triggered a surge in energy and food prices. This, in turn, ignited a cost-of-living crisis.
While on the surface Europe looks to have weathered the storm well, the strain of the last five years is causing cracks in the social fabric. There has been a deep erosion of trust, not only in the EU and national governments, but also the media, the police, and financial institutions. A housing crisis has slowly developed across the bloc, profoundly impacting younger Europeans, and contributing to inter-generational tensions. Quality of life between urban and rural areas is also diverging, exposing a gap that is not only socio-economic, but also cultural.
The world of work is also experiencing fundamental change, the pandemic made regular telework a reality for millions of people in Europe and while largely embraced, it comes with its own set of physical and psychological challenges, as many struggle with the implications of an ‘always on’ culture, work intensification, and a disconnect from colleagues.
On top of this, Europe faces several meta-challenges, including a climate crisis that affects everything from job creation to cost of living, a demographic crisis that threatens inter-generational solidarity and social cohesion, and AI - which seems to threaten and promise at the same time.
In this webinar, Maria Jepsen, Deputy Director, Massimiliano Mascherini, Head of the Social Policies unit, and Barbara Gerstenberger, Head of the Working Life unit, will discuss the pressure points for citizens across Europe, from housing to AI, the potential political ramifications of perceptions of living and working in Europe, and what prospects there are for the future. Mary McCaughey, Head of Information and Communication, is moderating the debate.
 | Speaker: Maria Jepsen Maria Jepsen joined Eurofound as its Deputy Director in 2019. Prior to this, she was Director of the research department at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI). She was also an assistant professor and research fellow at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), where she continues to be an associate professor in labour economics. She is also currently an external lecturer at the College of Europe and formerly an external lecturer at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL). Her main research interests include gender studies, the impact of welfare states on labour supply, wages and working conditions and, more recently, the development of the European social dimension. Ms Jepsen has been a member of various committees, councils and advisory boards at national and international level dealing with employment, social, gender and research issues. She has also served as a coordinator on the European Commission's tripartite advisory committee on health and safety at work. She holds a PhD in Economics and a Master’s degree in Econometrics from ULB. |
 | Speaker: Massimiliano Mascherini Massimiliano Mascherini has been Head of the Social Policies unit at Eurofound since October 2019. He joined Eurofound in 2009 as a research manager, designing and coordinating projects on youth employment, NEETs and their social inclusion, as well as on the labour market participation of women. In 2017, he became a senior research manager in the Social Policies unit where he spearheaded new research on monitoring convergence in the EU. In addition to work on the European Quality of Life Survey, he also leads the preparation and analysis of the COVID-19 e-surveys. Previously, he was scientific officer at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. He studied at the University of Florence, where he majored in actuarial and statistical sciences and attained a PhD in Applied Statistics. He has been visiting fellow at the University of Sydney and at Aalborg University and visiting professor at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. |
 | Speaker: Barbara Gerstenberger Barbara Gerstenberger is Head of the Working Life unit at Eurofound. In this role, she coordinates the research teams investigating job quality in Europe based on the European Working Conditions Survey and has overall responsibility for the European Observatory of Working Life and research into industrial relations in the EU. She joined Eurofound in 2001 as a research manager in the then newly established European Monitoring Centre on Change (EMCC). In 2007, she moved to Eurofound’s Information and Communication unit as Head of Communication Products, before being appointed Coordinator in the Directorate in 2011. Previously, she worked as senior research officer in the European Metalworkers’ Federation in Brussels. A graduate in political science from Hamburg University, she completed a Master's degree in Public Administration at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. |
 | Moderator: Mary McCaughey Mary McCaughey is Head of Information and Communication in Eurofound. A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and the College of Europe, Bruges, she started work in Brussels with Europolitics and the Wall Street Journal Europe. She worked with the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA) in South Africa during the country’s transition to democracy, and in 1998 she took up the post of spokesperson with the Delegation of the European Union in Pretoria, heading up its press and information department during the negotiation of the EU–South Africa free trade agreement. Following the end of the Kosovo War, she worked as a communications consultant for the European Agency for Reconstruction in Serbia. She took up the post of Editor-in-Chief in Eurofound in 2003. |