Eurofound

In the context of rising concern over disparities in the social progress of EU Member States, Eurofound in its 2017–2020 work programme committed to investigating whether and where socioeconomic trends are converging or diverging across countries.

Combining work and life is a fundamental issue, one that policymakers, social partners, businesses and individuals are seeking to resolve. Simultaneously, new challenges and solutions are transforming the interface between work and life: an ageing population, technological change, higher employment rates and fewer weekly working hours.

The decade since the Great Recession has been seen as signalling a ‘crisis of trust’ in European societies, involving a decline in trust in people and institutions. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, governments in all Member States struggled to curb unemployment, manage public debt, and return to economic growth. In many countries, this led to a feeling of distrust in national political institutions and in EU institutions.

A living wage has been defined as ‘a measure of income that allows an employee a basic but socially acceptable standard of living’ (United Kingdom Living Wage Commission). Living wage campaigns have been launched since the 1990s in an effort to achieve pay increases for the low-paid.

Social cohesion implies a sense of togetherness, resilience and orientation towards the common good. There is evidence that living in a cohesive society has a positive impact on subjective well-being, helping to improve the lives of citizen...

Restructuring is a major feature of labour markets and work organisation. Data collected by Eurofound’s European Restructuring Monitor (ERM) clearly show this. While organisational restructuring is necessary for business survival and grow...

Platform work, understood as the matching of the supply of and demand for paid work through an online platform, is still relatively small in scale but is developing rapidly in the EU. This dynamism and the ever-expanding scope of platform a...

This booklet outlines the tools and strategies Eurofound will harness during the programming period 2017–2020 so as to fulfil its mandate: ‘to provide scientifically sound, unbiased, timely and policy relevant knowledge that contributes to better informed policies for upward convergence of living and working conditions in Europe’.

Living and working in Europe, Eurofound’s 2017 yearbook, provides a snapshot of the latest developments in the work and lives of Europeans as recounted in the Agency’s research activities over the course of 2017. As economies recover, Eurofound reported on the positive trends in employment, with rising numbers in work and a continued expansion of employment in good jobs. It also provided an updated account of quality of life in Europe post-crisis, showing that on many dimensions Europeans are doing as well as before the crisis, if not better.

This is the Consolidated annual activity report of the Authorising Officer for the year 2017. The report describes Eurofound's activities, particularly its research, information and communication programmes and policy achievements, in relation to the objectives set in the Work Programme 2017.