Do younger adults feel more insecure in times of crisis? Age differences in subjective socio economic insecurity across European welfare regimes
(2025)
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- Abstract
- Over the past two decades, European societies have faced multiple crises with substantial economic consequences, including the 2008 financial crisis, the recent COVID-19 pandemic, and the subsequent Russian invasion of Ukraine, the latter of which caused an energy crisis and a surge in inflation. The resultant deterioration in objective socio-economic conditions at both the contextual and individual levels may have contributed to increasing subjective socioeconomic insecurity, i.e., individuals expect their employment or financial circumstances to worsen in the future. Our study is the first to examine such subjective insecurity among younger adults in comparison to their older counterparts across the aforementioned crises across Europe. The experience of young people is of particular interest, due to their recent entry into the labour market and their position at the early stages of family formation. Equally important is how this experience varies across welfare regimes. We use Eurobarometer data from 2004 to 2023 across 28 European countries, employ linear probability models, and stratify the analysis by the welfare regime. Our findings indicate that social democratic countries appear to be the most effective in mitigating subjective insecurity across age and crises, compared to other welfare regimes. Overall, there has been an increase in subjective insecurity across all age groups during the respective crises, while younger adults are throughout less likely to exhibit subjective insecurity. Furthermore, we observe a tendency towards convergence in subjective socioeconomic insecurity across age groups over time, suggesting a decline in general optimism among young Europeans in recent years.
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Citations
Wang, H., & Rizzi, E. L. (2025). Do younger adults feel more insecure in times of crisis? Age differences in subjective socio economic insecurity across European welfare regimes. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/248232