Living arrangments of the unemployed across Europehow households protect us from vulnerability

Resumen

This thesis explores the importance of co-residence patterns of unemployed individuals as support mechanisms against household joblessness and poverty and social exclusion. It exploits two main data sources: the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) which is the main data source of the EU for the labour market statistics and the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) which provides comparable multidimensional data on poverty and social exclusion across Europe. The first two chapters focus on the living arrangements of the unemployed to protect them from being in jobless households, households in which there is no one in work. The third chapter explores the poverty experience of the unemployed using the main indicator of the EU to monitor the social inclusion target of the Europe 2020: At Risk of Poverty and Social Exclusion (AROPE) which brings together the three dimensions of poverty: monetary poverty measured by relative national thresholds, material deprivation measured as the lack of certain resources in the household and low work intensity which reflects the exclusion from the labour market. We present a large scale picture of Europe in a cross-sectional comparative perspective, addressing two main questions: At which ages unemployed individuals are more likely to be in jobless and poor households? What is the role of varying living arrangements across Europe to protect the unemployed from joblessness at the household level and from poverty and social exclusion? Our findings reveal that if countries had the same co-residence patterns across Europe, the risk of being in a jobless household would not be very different across countries, while the differences in the risk of being in a poor household would be even more pronounced. For instance, if young individuals who stay in the parental home longer in Southern Europe were to leave earlier like it is the case in Nordic European countries, they would be facing higher risks of poverty since support provided by the welfare state is more limited in these countries. This finding reveals the importance of co-residence to soften the risk of poverty for various groups in countries with strong family ties. Responsibilities attributed to the welfare state and family as providers of protection and support vary substantially across Europe. While in the universalistic welfare regimes of Scandinavian countries, it is the responsibility of the welfare state to protect each individual irrespective of his/her family situation, in Southern Europe with weaker welfare states family plays a crucial role, moderating the adverse consequences unemployed individuals face. The diminishing role of welfare state as the main provider of financial security, with basic benefits failing to keep up with the increasing living costs, puts more responsibility on families to provide support for the economic well-being of their children. This new trend puts the potential of the family and the intergenerational support mechanisms more in the center of the debates regarding the retreating welfare states and alternative sources of welfare for the unemployed populations across Europe. Within this context, the main contribution of this thesis is its focus on families as important support mechanisms, particularly in countries with weaker welfare state institutions. It provides useful insights regarding the co-residence strategies developed by generations against exposure to two main situations of vulnerability: living in households in which there is no one in work and living in poverty and social exclusion.