Bertelsmann Stiftung study reveals children and youth hardest hit by debt crisis

Children and youth have been hit the hardest by the European economic and debt crisis, says a new study. In the EU, some 26 million children and young people – or 27.9% of the population under 18 – are threatened by poverty or social exclusion, according to the study by the respected Bertelsmann Stiftung.

The future prospects of the 5.4 million young people who are neither employed nor in education or training are similarly bleak.  The social justice gap in Europe runs most strongly between North and South and between young and old, it reports. This is the result of the Social Justice Index, with which the Bertelsmann Stiftung annually assesses the development of social justice in the 28 EU countries.

EU wide, it says that 5.4 million young people neither employed nor in education or training. In Spain, Greece, Italy, and Portugal alone, the number of children and young people who are threatened by poverty or social exclusion has increased by 1.2 million since 2007, from 6.4 to 7.6 million. They live in households with less than 60 percent of the median income, suffer from serious material deprivation, or grow up in effectively non-earning households.

Moreover, many EU citizens between 20 and 24 years of age find themselves in precarious circumstances. In this age group, 5.4 million (17.8%) are neither employed nor in education or training.  The number has risen in 25 EU member states since 2008, in some cases substantially. Only in Germany and Sweden, the outlook for this age group has improved in recent years.  In contrast, the Southern European countries registered the most negative development: in Spain, the share of 20- to 24-year-olds who are neither employed nor in education or training climbed from 16.6% to 24.8%, while in Italy it even soared from 21.6% to 32%. There is also a growing gulf between the generations, says the study.

"Observed over the longer term, the gap between the generations is also widening throughout Europe.  While the share of children at risk of poverty or social exclusion has increased from 26.4 to 27.9% on average in the EU since 2007, the corresponding share of the population of 65 years of age and over has dropped from 24.4 to 17.8%. The main reason: in the course of the crisis, retirement benefits and old-age pensions eitherdid not decline or did not shrink as strongly as did incomes in the younger population," it states.

This contrasting development between young and old is exacerbated, says the Foundation, by three Europe-wide trends: growing public debt is burdening the younger generations especially; future investments in education as well as research and development are stagnating; and aging populations are raising pressure on the financial viability of social security systems.  For example, the debt level in EU member states relative to their economic output has increased from 63% in 2008 to 88%.

Bertelsmann Stiftung Chairman Aart De Geus warned of the further consequences, saying: “We cannot afford to lose a generation in Europe, either socially or economically. The EU and its member states must make special efforts to sustainably improve opportunities for young people.”

He also drew attention to the existing Youth Guarantee and Youth Employment Initiative of the EU and called for the systematic implementation and adequate funding of these sensible initiatives in the member states. Although slight upward trends can be seen in the labor market in many EU countries, these do not by any means constitute a comprehensive turnaround in matters of social justice after years of decline.

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