Politiques sociales

The various economic and social shocks of the past decade and a half – most recently the COVID-19 pandemic – have ongoing consequences for the living standards and prospects of Europeans, and sometimes these outcomes have been uneven across age groups. Social policies – such as those in the areas of social protection and housing – in some cases have benefited certain age groups over others. The upshot both of crises and of policies is that inequalities between the generations have widened in important areas.

This policy brief examines some of the intergenerational social trends that either were persistent or changed considerably over the last decade and a half, sometimes contrary to expectations. It focuses on significant developments that have received somewhat less attention in policy planning in the areas of income, housing, work and employment, and health. The intention is to develop a clearer sense of the direction of social change and bring medium- and long-term perspectives into policy thinking.

The COVID-19 pandemic had varying impacts on social groups, depending on existing disadvantages, and it was widely believed that it triggered a rise in inequalities across different areas of life. Using indicators from the EU’s Multidimensional Inequality Monitoring Framework (MIMF), this report shows how inequality in the spheres of income, health, employment and education changed between 2010 and 2020. It also examines the main drivers of this change during the pandemic and explores the relationships between government policies in several domains and inequality.

This briefing is co-produced by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and Eurofound. It is based on the results of two complementary analyses by the EEA and the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) on the socioeconomic effects of climate policies, in the context of the European Green Deal and the EU transition to a carbon-neutral economy. The EEA focused on the understanding of distributional aspects of climate change policies, while Eurofound sought to identify, based on national experiences, the climate policies with significant distributional effects and explore how these are being addressed in EU Member States. This briefing focuses on the effect on citizens of climate mitigation policies in the energy, transport and building sectors, through the impacts of these policies on their daily lives (jobs, mobility, housing, etc.).

This report explores the distribution of household wealth in the EU Member States and analyses the role of wealth in social mobility. Using data from three datasets (the Household Finance and Consumption Survey, the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe and the Luxembourg Wealth Study), it focuses on wealth per household member. Wealth composition is compared across social groups and countries, and the role of housing assets in wealth distribution and negative wealth is assessed. The findings show that parental background, including parental wealth, has an impact on educational and wealth mobility. In order to promote equality of opportunities in terms of access to education and housing, the impact of wealth inequalities, including differences in parental wealth, should be counterbalanced. The report also suggests that regularising wealth declaration in the EU could be a way of promoting social justice by minimising hidden wealth and combating tax evasion.