Sessione 25 - The spread of socio-economic Insecurity in Europe: measures, drivers, policies
Coordinatori / Coordinatrici di sessione: Andrea Parma (Politecnico di Milano), Francesca Subioli (Università Sapienza di Roma)
Abstract:
This session focuses on the spread of socio-economic insecurity in Europe in the last two decades. By socio-economic insecurity we mean the risk of experiencing economic uncertainty, income loss or financial strain, which may be transitory and unexpected. Such adverse conditions, in a context of imperfect credit markets, represent a threat to the material independence of individuals and households.
Economic insecurity is a multifaced phenomenon involving different dimensions: it may be either subjective (e.g. uncertainty towards the future) or objective, i.e. measured ex post in one or more dimension of economic well-being (e.g. income drops, earnings volatility, difficulty in affording unexpected expenses or making ends meet, indebtedness, etc..).
The impact of economic insecurity is especially relevant when combined with structural weaknesses of families (e.g. single-income households, closeness to the poverty threshold), or with the absence of available buffers (savings, support from the family, public welfare, access to credit). Therefore, the interplay between economic insecurity and several forms of inequality is crucial to design the policies needed to mitigate the impact of insecurity.
Economic recessions affecting Western countries in the last two decades have potentially contributed to increase the spread of insecurity also among social groups previously less concerned by economic hardship (Ranci et al 2021). While well-researched in the U.S. (see for ex Hacker, Western, Rhode), the issue is still under-studied in Europe where much of the debate still focuses on poverty trends and social exclusion.
Accepted paper:
- Household-level Prevalence and Poverty Penalties of Working in Non-teleworkable and Non-essential Occupations: Evidence from East and West Germany in 2019 di Emanuela Struffolino (Università degli Studi di Milano), Anette Fasang (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Hannah Zagel (WZB Berlin)
- Unequal Subjective Insecurity in Times of Crises? A Panel Analysis of Social Status and Crisis Perceptions di Hequn Wang (University of Hamburg)
- Middle class occupations and middle-income groups: trends and overlappings di Costanzo Ranci (Politecnico di Milano), Manos Matsaganis (Politecnico di Milano)
- Earnings shocks and welfare buffers. Southern Europe in comparative perspective di Maria Giulia Montanari (Università degli Studi di Milano), Manos Matsaganis (Politecnico di Milano), Andrea Parma (Politecnico di Milano), Costanzo Ranci (Politecnico di Milano)
- Poverty regimes and in-work poverty: a comparative analysis di David Benassi (University of Milano Bicocca), Gianluca Busilacchi (University of Macerata), Matteo Luppi (INAPP)
- Socio-economic insecurity and family benefits: the case of the Italian Single Universal Allowance reform di Ilaria Madama (Università degli Studi di Milano), Eugenia Mercuri (Università del Piemonte Orientale)
- Quanto gli ammortizzatori sociali compensano gli shock salariali? E chi compensano maggiormente? L’evidenza dal panel EU-SILC di Michele Raitano (La Sapienza Università di Roma), Massimo Aprea (La Sapienza Università di Roma)
- Economic insecurity and poverty among young European adults di Violetta Tucci (Università degli Studi di Milano)
Contributed paper:
- Measuring Social Rights and Upward Social Convergence at the NUTS2 level: a composite index approach di Federico Ciani (ARCO - Action Research for Co-Development), Mario Biggeri (Università degli Studi di Firenze), Adam Francescutto (Università degli Studi di Firenze)