Eurofound Talks
Eurofound Talks
Podcast episode
Episode 41
26 February 2026

Is financial resilience and trust in Europe faltering?

In this episode Mary McCaughey is joined by senior researcher Eszter Sandor to discuss the results of the 2025 Living and Working in the EU e-survey.

While headline inflation has stabilised at 2.1%, the survey data reveal a continent gripped by chronic precariousness, with 57% of Europeans now at risk of depression and a widening resilience gap between low-income households and those that are better off.

As policymakers, social partners and civil society prepare for the European Employment and Social Rights Forum in Brussels on 3-4 March, Eszter and Mary look at the actions that could be taken to respond to rising social challenges.

Mary McCaughey

Head of Unit
Information and Communication

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.

Eszter Sándor

Senior research manager
Social policies research

Eszter Sandor is a senior research manager in the Social Policies unit at Eurofound. She has extensive experience in survey management, including questionnaire design and scripting, data preparation (processing, cleaning, weighting), and statistical analysis using R. She manages Eurofound’s e-survey (Living and working in the EU) and contributes to the preparation and management of the European Quality of Life Survey. Her research focuses on the quality of life of young people and families, including subjective well-being, mental well-being and living conditions.
Before joining Eurofound, she worked as an economic consultant in Scotland, specialising in economic impact assessments, evaluations, and input-output analysis. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Budapest University of Economics and Business and a Master’s degree in Economics and International Relations from Corvinus University of Budapest.

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European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions
The tripartite EU agency providing knowledge to assist in the development of better social, employment and work-related policies