The pandemic increased inequality between member states but Europe-wide inequality has continued to decline, if more slowly.
Global inequality and the pandemic: exaggerated hopes and fears?
The pandemic has barely increased global income inequality—but it has made other inequalities worse.
Covid-19 and Europe-wide inequality
Between 2017 and 2019, income disparities in Europe decreased. The pandemic stopped that decline.
EU-wide inequality is back to pre-crisis levels
After almost a decade, EU-wide inequality finally regained its previous low of 2009 due to relatively strong growth in the poorer member states between the Baltic and the Balkans.
Inequality in Europe—wider than it looks
Most discussion of inequality in Europe is confined to individual member states. Aggregating incomes across the EU, however, presents a sobering picture.
Addressing poverty and inequality in Europe
Official EU statistics mask the alarming extent of poverty and inequality in Europe. Despite slight recent easing, its dangerous scale threatens Europe’s social and political cohesion. Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, has published official figures on pan-European poverty and inequality since 2005, in the form of the poverty rate and the S80/S20 ratio. The poverty […]
Europe-Wide Inequality
Inequality within member states has become a much debated and researched issue over the last decade (see OECD here and here). Reducing the inequality between member states (i.e. convergence) is a target the European Union (EU) has set itself in its treaties and monitors through its cohesion reports. But what about the EU as a […]
Reducing European Inequality: Cohesion Through Convergence
When founded in 1957, the then European Economic Community comprised six relative prosperous countries, albeit including a very poor region, the Italian Mezzogiorno. With the first enlargement in 1972, poor Ireland joined the Community, bringing a start to its regional policy to promote growth in its poorer regions. The EU publishes regularly cohesion reports that […]
Inequality in Europe: complex and multidimensional
Talking about inequality in Europe brings one face-to-face with a complex pattern of possible issues and dimensions, which can be measured in different ways. As Table 1 shows, inequality exists regarding different characteristics such as income, wealth or life expectancy between different entities such as persons, households, sexes, labour and capital, regions or countries. Economics […]
Reducing Inequality: Social Europe And Cohesion
‘Social Europe’ implies for most experts the development of national welfare states and their protection against the forces of globalization and international competition as most contributions to the present project show. This emphasis has its strong merits as peoples’ welfare depends to a large extent on the growth of their national economies and on the […]