The European social model after the Great Recession: A recovery not genuinely inclusive

Abstract In spite of the upturn in the economy and in employment that has been observed in the EU since 2013 to 2019 (and after COVID-19 crisis), the gap between the figures for indicators of economic growth and those for the trends in domestic living conditions continues to be very wide; growth and newly created jobs are not resulting in a generalised improvement in the welfare of the population. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the recovery period after the Great Recession has not been one of truly inclusive recovery and to provide tentative explanations for this. We focus on the five main EU countries before Brexit. We conclude that the incidence of poverty associated with part-time work is now somewhat greater (‘in-work poverty’) and also that there has been strong containment of wages in the leading countries of the EU over the period under study, and even falls in real wages. At least, redistribution policies have shown themselves to be effective in reducing poverty.